Last Wolf
Author: Tim McGregor
Date: 2000-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; Horror; Werewolves; Fantasy
Description: The wolves return in the highly anticipated conclusion to the Bad Wolf Chronicles by Tim McGregor. Detective turned fugitive Lara Mendes struggles to contain the monster inside her heart as she builds a new life for herself in New Mexico. Meanwhile in Portland, Amy Gallagher is left traumatized after witnessing the horror that took her father’s life. Alerted to a series of wolf attacks, Amy realizes that the nightmare is far from over. Returning to the primordial forest where they last encountered the creatures, Lara and Amy track down a rogue wolf running loose on a killing spree. What they u
Publisher: Perdido Pub

Contents

intro
newsletter
title page

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copyright
frontis
copyright

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chaprter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38
epilogue card

Chapter 39
frontispiece
copyright
intro

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†
gratis

Spookshow
other works
bio

A veteran cop with a temper.

A newly appointed homicide detective.

A 17-year old girl.

All pushed to the limit of endurance by a mythical beast that belongs only in nightmares. Welcome to the…

BAD WOLF CHRONICLES

Bad Wolf

Pale Wolf

Last Wolf

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1

THE WOLF MOVED through the trees, nose to the ground. Down from the mountain and out of the primordial darkness toward the lights of the city. It skulked through a hole in a fence, pads heavy on the worn pavement. Past a leaning stack of pallets and into a lot that stank of gasoline and men. Jaundiced light beamed from the poles haloed in the light drizzle. The rain dampened the stink of the ground and turned it sour.

It kept to the shadows, winding through the yard to avoid the lights. It wasn't far now, the smell it was after. Prey. It caught the scent from a mile away and tracked it from the slope of the dead volcano down into the city.

It was close, the thing it tracked.

The dogs came after, a clumsy pack of poky ribs and ravaged hide following the lead animal. A Rottweiler and three pit bulls, a Doberman and a sleek Siberian husky. Others of no discernible breed and still more of such bastard mix they were barely dogs at all. Heads low and single file, the dogs followed the lobo's path step by step. The pack snorted and snuffed, sometimes snapping at one another but none barked, none made any unnecessary noise. When the hunt was on they stifled the raw instinct to bark and ran silent. The lobo taught them this and they had learned it the hard way. The pack was down in numbers because two ill-mixed breeds couldn't help themselves and barked on a hunt. The wolf killed them both, snapping their necks in its enormous maw. The troop was learning. Dogs barked, wolves did not.

They were hungry but the wolf had taught them how to hunt as a pack. First the small woodland animals darting across the forest floor and then bigger prey. At night, always at night. But this night was different and all to an animal knew it. The wolf hunted even bigger prey bigger this night. Something slow and stupid and easy to kill.

TWO boys and a gun. How many terrible nights have started this way? The rifle was an old bolt action with a walnut stock and a battered scope. Lifted quietly from its dusty rack in Owen's grandfather's house. Owen held the gun now, sliding the bolt forward to reveal the loading gate, showing it to the other boy.

“Just lemme shoot the damn thing.” Justin was fifteen and impatient about all things. He drained his beer, also stolen from Owen's grandfather, and crushed the can.

Owen looked at him with contempt. “You gotta learn how to load it first, dumbass. Maybe you ain't ready to wear the big boy pants.”

“Come on. Before those things run off.”

They were hunkered down under the steel bridge that spanned the Willamette, the dark river water moving slowly below them. Empty cans of Pabst scattered around, two fresh ones sweating cold in the plastic bag. The air was warm, pushing the stink of the river up the banks.

Owen had seen that old rifle in his granddad's cellar since he was seven years old. Once, when he was ten, he pushed a chair up to the wall and climbed up just to touch it. The black metal was cold to his fingers but the wood felt warm. His grandfather had caught him just as he was trying to lift it from its cradle and Owen had gotten a sharp crack over the ear for it. After that the old man kept the basement locked but Owen never forgot about the gun. Now that his grandfather rarely left his bedroom, Owen took it whenever he wanted. Justin wanted to shoot it so they got the beer and the gun and headed down to the river. There were raccoons and cats down there among the broken bikes and appliances dumped from the roadside. The boys had taken to shooting at them late at night but tonight was different. Tonight they got lucky. There were dogs.

God knows where they came from. Six, maybe seven. Hard to tell at this distance. Big and mangy-looking. Strays for sure. They swarmed over something down in the weeds, scrapping over it. Teeth snapping and jaws popping. Feeding time.

Justin tossed his can away. “Lemme shoot already.”

Owen handed him the rifle. “Here.”

Justin rolled onto his belly in the dirt, aimed and fired. It was that quick. He jerked back at the recoil and whined. Owen watched the dogs bolt away then circle back. They sniffed the air then tore back into the thing in the weeds.

“The hell are they eating down there?” Justin looked through the scope, watching them feed.

“You missed.”

“You're fat.”

Owen took the rifle back and lay on his gut. He put his cheek to the stock and squinted down the scope. He recalled everything he knew about firing a rifle, all of it schooled from a Punisher comic book. Draw your aim, hold your breath and squeeze the trigger slowly. Bang.

He jolted from the kick but quickly realigned the gun and looked down the scope. One of the dogs was flopping in the weeds, twitching in a spastic fit. “Shit,” he said. “Did I hit it?”

The dog was still by the time they walked down to it. It wasn't dead, just lying on its side, tongue flat on the ground and peppered with dirt. It panted, the ribcage undulating up and down. The boys stood over it, watching it die, neither horrified nor repulsed. Justin spat on it.

“Lucky shot, is all.”

Owen smirked, watching the dog's legs kick. Justin moved on, trampling down the weeds. Looking to see what the dogs were scrapping over.

“Oh God.”

Justin lurched away and puked. Owen stepped up and saw what was there. Limbs. Legs and feet. An arm. The core of the body had been chewed up and eaten. There wasn't even a face. All of it pulled apart like jerky by the hungry dogs. Owen backed away from it and looked around. The dogs were long gone.

2

JOHN GALLAGHER SMILED AS he pushed the shitbag up against the chain-link. The guy looked antsy and sweaty in his green parka, and that made Gallagher happy. Few things were as satisfying as watching the eyes of some screwhead when he realizes his world has turned instantly to shit.

Gallagher had been with the Portland Police Bureau for sixteen years, the last eight as a detective with Homicide Detail. Nothing topped working Homicide. Ninety percent of the job was braindead boring but the other tiny percentage of piecing together murders and tracking down scum was unlike anything else. The methods one chose to pursue the job were key and John Gallagher led more with his guts than his head and that had consequences. His internal file was stuffed fat with reprimands, warnings and final warnings about his aggressive methods but all of that was balanced against a clean closure rate. The complaints and threatened lawsuits from banged-up suspects were silenced by a clean evidence trail that pinned the son of a bitch to the wall. Just like this shitbag in the parka.

“Hey man, we just wanna talk,” Detective Roberts said, holding up his palms. Roberts was older than Gallagher, clocking down the wrong side of fifty. Cautious and methodical. He hated working with Gallagher and the feeling was mutual. Fourteen hours earlier they had been at the hospital looking at a woman who had died shortly after arrival. She had been beaten and tossed down a flight of stairs in some godawful tenement in NoPo. They went to work looking for the woman's boyfriend and voila. Now the part Roberts hated, playing peacemaker off Gallagher's wolverine shtick.

“Wasn't me.” The man in the parka clucked his teeth with impatience. “Go piss on somebody else's life.”

“We will, chief.” Gallagher pushed him one more time. “Soon as we're done pissing all over yours.”

Parka Man walked away. He bumped Gallagher's shoulder on the way and that was all it took. Gallagher smiled.

Oh Christ, thought Roberts.

Gallagher kicked the man's knee out and he collapsed inward. Parka Man hit the sidewalk hard, found Gallagher's knee on his throat.

“Gonna kill you, bitch,” was all Parka got out before he choked.

“See, a bitch is why we're here, chief.” Gallagher jammed his knee into the man's windpipe. Still smiling. “You put your woman in the hospital yesterday.”

“Told you. Wasn't me.”

“How original.”

“Easy, Gallagher.” Roberts scanned the alley for onlookers. “There's people around.”

Gallagher ignored him. “Your woman died in hospital yesterday after you stomped her face to hamburger. You know what that means, chief? Your ass is mine.”

The man seethed through clenched teeth. Gallagher hauled him up. “On your feet, asswipe.”

Parka Man sprang, cracking his skull into Gallagher's nose. Blinding pain.

Roberts flinched, then reached for his sidearm. Too slow, too old. The man barreled into him like a runaway train. Roberts hit the ground hard and Parka Man stomped on his guts then ran. He didn't get far, hit full freight by Gallagher. Face to the pavement. Gallagher pummelled the guy mercilessly until he curled into a ball to protect himself.

Gallagher let up, caught his breath. “Roberts,” he hollered, “you want a turn?”

No response. Detective Roberts was on the ground and he wasn't moving.

LIEUTENANT Mike Vogel was trying to get off the phone but the damn thing kept ringing. He had big, meaty hands with thick fingers and his cell phone looked like a kid's toy in his big mitt. How he pushed those little keys correctly was anyone's guess. Vogel was a monster with Popeye forearms and a huge trunk. With his shaved head and permanent scowl, he still looked like the wrestler he was twenty years ago. He was spry and agile for such a big guy and back then, the old-timers in the amateur leagues all agreed he was the best thing to come out of Multnomah County in a long time. His professional tag was Bone Slab Vogel, which he prided himself on. It had a nice horror movie ring to it.

The Lieutenant kept a picture from his glory days, his press kit photo, framed and hung on his office wall. Twenty-two years old with a full head of hair, spandex pants and lace-up boots, the whole deal. Bone Slab posing for the camera with muscles flexed and fury in his eyes.

There was another picture of Bone Slab Vogel floating around the offices of Central Precinct. This one showed Bone Slab shaking hands with Hulk Hogan himself. Big smile, oiled biceps and locks flowing. The problem was the shiny pants Bone Slab was wearing at the time. No word of a lie, they were bright red with sequins. His manager's idea. Someone in Homicide Detail had found this photo and framed it. Now it moved mysteriously through the office: sometimes it hung in the main hallway, other times in the kitchen, always askew like it had been hung quickly. A couple of times it hung in the men's room on the main floor and once in the women's bathroom, where it remained undisturbed for a month. Vogel would gripe about it, threatening to smash it but then it would disappear for a while again, waiting like some phantom to reappear in some other location.

Four months after that photo was taken, Bone Slab Vogel was wrestling an unschooled amateur in Tacoma when everything went belly up. Bone Slab took a boot to the kidneys and landed wrong. The amateur launched himself from the turnbuckle and dropped on him full tilt. Two cracked vertebrae and Vogel never stood straight after that. Four months convalescing and three months smoking bongweed and killing time. An uncle stopped by to talk him out of his funk. He suggested becoming a cop. Do something good.

“Come on. You're gonna miss it.” Detective Latimer hovered in the doorway, waving at his Lieutenant to shake a leg. Latimer was a Homicide veteran and a stickler for punctuality. He had personally hung the picture of the red-sequined Bone Slab a dozen times.

Lieutenant Vogel flattened the phone to his collarbone. “Can't you do it without me?”

“You gotta bring the cake out,” Latimer said. “Not me.”

Vogel snorted, then finished his call. He hated these things: birthdays, promotions and retirements. The retirements most of all now. Two detectives, one Homicide, the other Fraud, had both clicked over into retirement and needed to be replaced. So here he was unpacking a cake to celebrate the last day for yet another cop. Detective Alex Papadopoulos was a solid workhorse Vogel didn't want to lose but Papadop's wife was ill and he'd crossed the early retirement line three years back. So Papadopoulos needed to take care of his family and now the Lieutenant was down two bodies in one unit. Not good.

The ouzo melted the bottoms of the disposable cups. Toasts were made, the Lieutenant said a few words and Detective Papadopoulos got choked up. The retiring detective said a few words himself, admitting he was dreading what the day after would bring. How does one not go to work after grumbling about it for thirty years?

After the cake was gone the Lieutenant took him aside and asked about his wife. Papadopoulos said they were taking it one day at a time. The man was scared, that was plain enough. Who wouldn't be? Vogel knew Papadops had a huge family but he reminded Paps he had family here too and if there was anything they could do, just call. Papadops thanked him.

Both men's eyes became dewy. Both became ashamed, but thank God, someone was already tugging at the Lieutenant's sleeve with a problem. It was Bingham.

Detective Bingham pulled him away to speak privately. Whatever it was he didn't want to spill it in front of everyone else and ruin the party. Bingham was young for a detective and good-looking to boot. His nickname around the office was the Panty-Atomizer. Poof.

“What is it?”

“Roberts is in the hospital,” Bingham said, keeping his voice low. “Not sure how serious it is.”

“What happened?”

Bingham shrugged. “He was with Gallagher.”

Gallagher. Vogel gritted the name between his molars. He was going to murder that son of a bitch.

DETECTIVE Roberts lay in a hospital bed with his left leg elevated, the kneecap shattered. He'd injured that same knee when he was seventeen playing for the Lincoln High Cardinals. That was 1975, when Ford was President and American helicopters were being pushed into the Gulf of Tonkin. Shattering the same knee thirty-five years later, Roberts was screwed. What the hell was he going to tell his wife? Work would be the worst. He'd be chained to a desk and the only thing Roberts hated worse than paperwork was computers. And all of it because of one goddamn prick.

“Gallagher.”

“Pardon me?” The nurse leaned over him to check the ECG, her chest at eye level.

He smiled at her. “Nothing.”

Roberts forced his eyes away and cast about for something else to look at. He caught sight of a face looking in through the window. Roberts raised his fist, middle finger straight up.

GALLAGHER watched the nurse fuss over Roberts. She was pretty. When Roberts flipped him off, Gallagher waved back, all friendly-like. “Screw you too, hoss,” he said.

“I should snap your neck in two.” Lieutenant Vogel came up the hallway and looked down at Gallagher. He probably could too, one handed. Gallagher was solid and built to punish but the Lieutenant stood five inches over him and outweighed him by a hundred pounds. To Gallagher, Vogel always resembled that bad guy in the Spider-Man cartoons. Not as dapper as the Kingpin of crime, but Vogel was a tank who could drop anyone. With or without the red-sequined tights.

“Once, just once, I want to find you in the hospital with your head stomped in. Not your partner.” Vogel's nostrils flared wide when he was mad. “What happened?”

“Asshole tried to rabbit. Put Roberts down pretty hard.”

“And you had nothing to do with it, izzat it?”

“I was trying to collar the shitbag.” Gallagher looked back in on his partner. Former partner. Whatever. Roberts looked old, hooked up to all those machines. “How was the party?”

“Good. Too bad you missed it.”

“We were on our way when we spotted douchebag in the parka.” Gallagher looked back at his boss. “Did Papadops have a good time?”

“He wondered why you were AWOL.”

“I'll catch up with him later, say goodbye properly.” Gallagher nodded at Roberts. “What are you gonna do with him?”

“What can I do? Bench him for the duration. Which he'll hate.”

“Yeah, well. Life sucks.”

Vogel felt his stomach turn to ice, that same feeling he used to get before he laid the boots to someone in the ring. “What the hell am I gonna do with you?”

“Quit saddling me with partners. Let me work alone.”

“What you need is a goddamn leash.” Vogel unwrapped a piece of gum, tossed it in his mouth. “And a psychiatrist to boot. When's the last time you talked to the staff therapist?”

“Don't. I will eat her alive.”

“How about early retirement? Think of it as a favor to me.”

Gallagher chinned the nurse in Roberts's room. “What are the chances she's single?”

THE Pettygrove Bar and Grill was on Stark Street, just off Second Ave. It had been a cop bar since the very beginning and that would never change. Situated two blocks from the site of Portland's first police precinct, the Pettygrove was the first watering hole a cop came across after a shift. The interior was dark, the wood mahogany and although smoking was long verboten in bars, the smell of it clung to the walls like a phantom cloud. The pictures on the walls were all of cops. Newspaper photos mostly, going all the way back to grim faced sheriffs in big mustaches.

Gallagher came in through the side door and scanned the room. Papadopoulos held court at a central table, flanked by detectives who had ended their day early. Gallagher ordered a round for the table and paid up. As he waited he looked over at the now retired homicide detective. Papadop had been Gallagher's first partner when he moved from Assault/Bias Crime to Homicide and he remained a mentor after all this time. Papadopoulos had a gentle way about him, not the hard shell most cops had. Not like Gallagher. People talked to Papadop, opened up and spilled the beans. The old man was genuinely interested in people and what they had to say, no matter what they'd done; their sob stories and their improvised justifications for their heinous acts. Gallagher couldn't stomach it but he learned from the old man that if you just let people talk, they'll gladly hang themselves on the rope you hand to them.

Jesus. He was gonna miss the old man.

They'd finished the round and Gallagher ordered again. Papadopoulos protested, saying he had to get home, but didn't leave when the drinks arrived. Of the cops at the table, all of them had been schooled by Papadop and none wanted to see him go. Latimer and Bingham were subdued when Gallagher sat down, the party vibe dampening. They didn't like Gallagher. Gallagher just grinned at them, liking it that way.

“You really know how to kill a mood, huh?” Detective Sherry Johnson had five years under her belt and she hardly ever smiled. Johnson never said a nice word about anyone, cop or crook. For this reason, Gallagher liked her. It didn't take much to wind her up and watch her rant about how she's up to her eyeballs in assholes and does anyone have a rope to pull her out.

“We call that Irish charm,” Gallagher said. He distributed the drinks from the waitress's tray.

“Irish charm? I thought that was being shitfaced.”

“That too.” Papadopoulos lifted his drink. “Opa!”

Gallagher looked at the old man. “You really going through with this? What are you gonna do with all that free time?”

“Anything I want to. That's the point, isn't it?”

“You gonna leave me with these knuckleheads?”

Johnson snorted and ordered him to go screw himself.

Papadopoulos laughed and said, “Don't be a hard ass, Johnny. You could learn something from these turkeys.” He mopped at a spilled drink with a napkin. “What happened with Roberts today?”

Gallagher went into the story, exaggerating his actions as heroic and minimizing his own stupidity at violently provoking the perp in the first place. He wrapped it up by passing the buck onto the Lieutenant, claiming Vogel should know better than to anchor him with partners. Who needs them?

“You do, that's who.” Papadopoulos leaned in, man-to-man. “The best thing you can do is partner up with someone exactly the opposite of you. They'll catch the things you miss. Make you a better cop, too.”

Gallagher rolled his eyes. “You're drunk.”

“Yes sir.” Papadops leaned back, completely content. “But I don't have to go in to work tomorrow. Do I?”

3

DETECTIVE LARA MENDES stood inside Super Fast Travel, a tiny travel agency and wire transfer place on the 4300 block of Sandy Boulevard. Broken glass crunched under her feet no matter where she stood. The front desk was trashed, everything swept to the floor. Two smaller desks behind it were untouched. Lara’s hair swung loose and she tucked it behind an ear as she scoured the floor for anything useful, anything left behind by the assailant. As expected found nothing in the broken glass on the floor. She hadn't really expected to. She looked over at the woman sitting in the chair and wiping her eyes with a tissue. She had been assaulted, which was why Lara was here. Lara had worked the Sex Crimes detail for three years now and although she hated to admit it, it was wearing on her.

Irena Stanisic sat in a hardback chair that Lara had righted for her. Her left eye was beginning to swell and the blood on her lip was gelling. Four of her press-on nails had been torn off. She realigned her torn skirt, smoothing the fabric down under shaky hands.

“This is my fault,” Irena said. “I kept meaning to upgrade the security, get one of those buzzer lock thingies for the door. But I kept putting it off, you know? And now look at this.”

“This wasn't your fault, Irena.” Detective Mendes knelt eye level with the woman. “No way, no how.”

“Can I go home now?”

“Officer Rhames is going to take you to the hospital,” Lara said. “You need that eye looked at. And they need to run a rape kit too. I'm sorry.”

“God.” Irena shuddered. “I just want to go home.”

“I know, but it just takes a few minutes. We need it. And do me a favor, don't wash your hands until then. The nurse will scrape under your fingernails. Okay?”

Irena looked at her hand. “What fingernails?”

Lara patted the woman's arm and straightened up, feeling her knees click. Lara was thirty-six but days like this made her feel older. Eleven hours into her shift and she was bone tired but there was still work to be done. She stretched, trying to wring out the sore spot in her lower back.

“There was a gun,” Irena said. She looked up at Lara.

“The man who assaulted you had a gun?”

Irena shook her head. “No, he took ours. We keep one in the drawer.”

“What kind of gun? Make, size?”

“I don't know. It's silver and shiny. My dad got it for me.”

Lara perked up, hopeful. “Is there a permit for it?”

LARA Mendes stepped onto the street, dinging the old-fashioned bells inside the doorway. Two blue and whites were up on the curb, the uniforms talking quietly amongst themselves. The dusty Crown Vic she snagged from the motor pool was parked farther down. Leaning against it was Detective Kopzyck, a Captain America type with a toothy grin and tattooed biceps. His sleeves were rolled up even now, yakking into the phone. Kopzyck was a pill who had zero talent in the empathy department. For exactly that reason the Lieutenant had partnered him with Mendes, hoping something would rub off. So far nothing had. Kopzyck was arrogant and mouthy but Lara tolerated him without complaint. She hated complainers.

They did have one thing in common. Both knew Homicide Detail was hurting for active detectives and both wanted to cross the shop floor into that department.

Detective Kopzyck saw Mendes coming out and ended his call. “You get anything more out of her?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Hop in.”

Lara slid under the wheel, Kopzyck dropped into the passenger seat. She slotted the key into the ignition but didn't turn it over. “How did she describe her attacker?”

“White male, thirty to forty,” Kopzyck shrugged. “Twitchy, face full of meth scabs.”

“He tossed the place after he attacked her. But there was little cash on the premises and less than twenty dollars in her purse.”

“He's a meth-head looking for money. Big news.”

“He took a gun.” Lara looked out the window, her hand still on the key. “They kept one on site, he finds it and takes that. Why?”

“So he can jack some other poor bastard for cash.”

“Or he could just pawn it.” She looked at him now. “He's an addict on foot. How many pawn shops in the vicinity?”

“There's one down Sandy, Lucky something. But the dude who owns it, he's straight. Hell, dude calls us when something fishy comes in.”

“The other one?”

“That dump further south from the Lucky, near the Sally Ann. That dude will move anything. What's his name, Hair something?”

“Herrera.”

MARTIN Herrera sat behind the mesh cage of Magic Man Pawnbrokers. One hand on a Slurpee, the other clutching a remote. Mounted to his left were a bank of monitor screens. One was a security cam, broken, and the others played daytime TV and cheap porn. Herrera never got rattled. It was a point of pride, a line in his personal sandbox. Even with two cops shooting dumbass questions at him.

“I don't deal in guns,” he said, sucking on the straw. “You want a piece, the gun shop's round the corner.”

Lara stood before the cage. Kopzyck behind her, fiddling with the camera equipment. She looked past the proprietor to the junk piled even higher behind the cage. Some of it tagged, most of it not. “I'm just asking, Mr. Herrera. I have a suspect looking to pawn a gun he stole four blocks from here. Quick money.”

Herrera shrugged. “Told you, nobody come in with a gun. No one 'cept you come in at all today.”

“Look at me.”

He dragged his eyes from the porn and tilted his head back to give the impression he was looking down at her. Mussolini used to do that, because he was short. He'd seen that on the History channel. “Yeah.”

Lara leaned on the counter. She could smell the guy from here, rank sweat and stale clothes. “I can always get a search warrant. We'll come back and toss the place. God knows what we'll find then. It's up to you.”

Herrera just smiled. “Good luck getting probable cause. Now vamonos, you're scaring away my business.”

“Hey, does this work?” Kopzyck clutched a dusty Pentax camera.

Lara held her tongue. She turned and headed out the door.

On the street Kopzyck caught up to her at the car. “You know he's gonna ditch that gun soon as we drive away.”

“Probably.”

He held his hands out, palms up. “Where you going? Let's toss the place now and get what we came for. That fat dick won't say shit.”

“Don't start with that. Let's go.”

“Jesus, Mendes. Unclench already. Sometimes you gotta get creative with the probable cause. Drop a dime-bag on his floor and bingo. We toss this dump and find our popgun.”

“And have it blow up in our faces when his lawyer smells a rat? No shortcuts, Chris. No dirty busts.”

“Think outside the box, Mendes. For once. You gotta adapt as the situation changes.”

Lara dipped back into the car. “No. I don't.”

Chris Kopzyck pointed an index finger to his head and mimicked blowing his brains out.

Lara lowered the passenger window and leaned over. “Are you riding with me or do you want to adapt your way back to precinct?”

A WEIRD buzz thrummed through the fourth floor cubicles of Central Precinct. Lara felt it all the way back to her desk. She figured it was a good bust or maybe a clean confession issuing from the interview box. Maybe it was just another office party like the one yesterday, a retirement send-off in Homicide. A retirement in Homicide meant there was a vacancy. She shook it out of her head and hunkered down to write up the incident report and witness's statement.

Twenty minutes later Kopzyck buzzed her cubicle and asked if she could shoot him her report so he could sign his name to it and send it off. She said no and he started bellyaching about how much he hated writing them and her reports were always done so well. When she still refused, he went into a long complaint about time management and pooling resources. Lara couldn't take anymore so she packed up her work to take home.

“You guys hear what happened?”

Detective Latimer leaned an elbow on the cubicle wall, looking at them like a schoolyard kid with a big secret.

“You got laid?” Kopzyck turned the page on his newspaper.

“Roberts got hurt. He's in the hospital.” Latimer handed Lara a greeting card. “Sign this.”

“Is he okay?” Lara opened the card, saw the signatures crisscrossed everywhere and looked for an empty space to sign. “What happened?”

Latimer told them what he knew and Lara passed the card back. Kopzyck shook his head and laughed. “Gallagher. What an asshole.”

Latimer took the card and moved on, hunting down more signatures. The floor was quiet, the lull before shift change. Lara packed her homework. Kopzyck drifted back to his desk and they spoke no further. Both were thinking the same thing; one more drop in the unit.

Someone's getting moved up to Homicide.

Kopzyck headed out, not bothering to say goodbye. He wanted a drink at the Pettygrove. See who was there. Maybe he'd learn more about what happened and if the Lieutenant had anyone in mind to fill the vacancy. He knew he had a good shot at it. Lara Mendes? Not a chance.

OWEN couldn’t take it anymore. It had been two days since they shot that dog near the bridge. Two days since they saw that thing in the weeds. He had watched the news, listened to the radio and skimmed the newspaper. No mention of a body found by the river.

Run. That's what Justin had said. Owen wanted to call 911 but Justin said no. Just get the hell out of here. They didn't do anything wrong. This was not their problem. Somebody else will find it. Just book.

Owen did what he was told. He didn't talk to Justin the next day nor did Justin call. He played PS2 and didn't leave the house. He kept checking the news, expecting the police to kick down his door any minute. He imagined the cops digging the bullet from the dead dog and tracing it, all CSI-like, back to him. He peeked out the windows, expecting to see a SWAT team creeping up to the house and bursting inside.

But they didn't. Nothing happened and that was worse. Maybe the cops found it but didn't call the press. They were sneaky pricks like that. Maybe it was still out there, the body rotting in the sun.

Owen got his bike and rode down to the river. He just wanted to take a look. He turned off the bike path into a dirt rut and glided into the shadow of the bridge. Everything was dark. No flashing lights, no cops, no yellow police tape.

It was still down there. Waiting to be found.

He turned around and pedaled home as fast as he could, as if that thing out there would rise from the muck and come after him. He shut his bedroom door, snatched up the phone and just held it for a long time. Justin would kill him. Screw it. He punched 911.

4

THE ALARM WAS SET earlier than usual so Lara could finish her work over breakfast and still have time to shower. She tried not to think about what Latimer had said, about the deficit of working bodies in the Homicide Detail. She washed her hair and put on some nice clothes. Nothing fancy, just something a little smarter than her usual work attire. Telling herself the whole time that she was being silly. Appearance wouldn't make a difference in the Lieutenant's eyes. Still…

She got to the office and squared away the work she'd finished. Three cubicles down, someone was laughing and talking loudly. She spotted Kopzyck goofing around with Bingham and Latimer from downstairs. Kopzyck was turned out in a dark tailored suit with a smart tie. He must have gotten his hair cut too. His Captain America chin wagged up and down as he yucked it up with the two homicide detectives. Big smile on his face. Jesus, did he already get the job?

The Lieutenant came marching through the desks with files tucked under his arm and fresh coffee. Lara watched as Kopzyck straightened up and said hello. The Lieutenant asked if he was going to a wedding today and then marched on without waiting for an answer. Kopzyck's laugh was fake as he dipped back to his desk and became very busy.

The Lieutenant's footsteps boomed across the floor right up to her desk. “What are you doing?”

Lara motioned to the mess of papers cascading off her desk. What a stupid question. “Nothing.”

“I need to talk to you.” The Lieutenant nodded in the direction of his office.

LIEUTENANT Vogel had worn contacts for sixteen years but he still had trouble putting the damn things in. He hunched over his desk, looking into an oval mirror and pulled open his eyelid. Lara sat opposite, watching him trying to pinch that tiny disk into his eye with those giant hands of his. It was not a pretty sight.

He blinked as tears ran down his cheek and told her about Roberts being hurt and how the unit was down in numbers. Lara listened and watched him struggle with the lens. “How bad is Roberts's knee?”

“He'll live. But I'll have to bench him for the foreseeable future. Probably until retirement, which isn't too far away.”

Lara nodded and made her face unreadable. She didn't think Vogel could see anything anyway, with the tears in his eyes, but a single thought ran through her mind. Don't blow this.

“So Homicide is short a man,” he said. “You think you can do the job?”

“Absolutely.”

“You know there's a catch, right?”

Her shoulders sank. Just a little. Isn't there always a catch?

“You'll have to ride with Gallagher for the probationary period. Still want the job?”

“Yes sir.”

“I need a leash on that animal,” he said. “He crosses a line, you report back to me. Understood?”

“You want me to babysit him?”

“No, just keep him in line. He'll hate you because you're straight but he'll mind his manners around you. Maybe some of your thoroughness will rub off on him.”

“Okay.” She wondered what “straight” meant to the Lieutenant. Was she a geek or just not gay? Did it matter?

“He's down in the box. Go say hello.”

Lara stood. “Should I put on the Kevlar first?”

THE shitbag looked a lot smaller without the bulky parka. His name was Raymond DeClerk, lately of 1238 Holman Street. His mother's house. Five blocks west of that, Rae Dawn Munroe had been found in the back stairwell of her apartment, hemorrhaging badly. Her sometimes-boyfriend was the first person of interest but DeClerk could not be found. Rae Dawn had died in the hospital so the assault charges were elevated to homicide. More charges were piled on after the incident in the alley and now Gallagher was letting him simmer in the box. Imagining the worst.

The best way to resolve a homicide is to let the suspect talk himself right into it. No Jedi mind tricks, no complicated piece of evidence. You let the guy talk and his own ignorance or arrogance will hang him. Gallagher had prepped DeClerk properly, letting him sweat it out overnight. But sometimes you get a rock and this son of a bitch would not budge.

“It's real simple, chief.” Gallagher leaned back in his chair, DeClerk across the small table. “You wanna play retarded, I will clear my schedule to personally screw you at every turn. I know where you live, what corners you work and more importantly, I know the people you answer to.”

DeClerk looked at his feet and yawned. That's it.

“Or,” Gallagher sat up, “you can share your feelings with us at this tragic turn of events for poor Rae Dawn.”

“I dunno nothing about it.” DeClerk shifted in his seat. “I need a Coke or some shit, man. I'm thirsty.”

Gallagher leered at him. All teeth. “That's the spirit, chief.” He got up, slid his chair to the wall and stood up on it. He took hold of the camera suspended from the ceiling and turned it to the wall. He smiled at DeClerk again.

DeClerk sat up. Looked scared. “What the hell are you doing?”

Gallagher dropped off the chair. “I love a man who digs his own grave.”

THE observation area outside of the interview rooms was actually just the hallway. Two hardbacked chairs and three monitor screens. One screen was live. Lara walked in and found Detective Bingham leaned against a cabinet watching the monitor. He looked up.

“Wassup, Mendes?” Bingham smiled. Which could be dangerous. Adam Bingham had movie-star good looks and a smile that was lethal. Rumor had it his smile could atomize panties and a few women in Central Precinct could polygraph to that fact. Lara just felt awkward but everyone else seemed to melt around the guy, women and men both. Bingham had a respectable closure rate and Lara wondered how much his looks played into that; he flashed that smile and people just told him what he wanted to hear.

“Hi.” She kept it short, looked at the monitor. “Is Detective Gallagher in there?”

“That's his perp.” Bingham nodded at the monitor labeled number three. A pixelated black-and-white feed showed a man at the table and another man just out of camera range.

“What's the story on this guy?” Lara resumed her game face and took a seat.

Bingham ran through the notes he had, gave her the short version. He added that both the suspect and the victim had priors; her rap sheet was almost as long as his.

Lara asked to see the paperwork and scanned through the details. She looked up at the screen again. “Let me guess. The boyfriend doesn't know anything about it.”

Bingham feigned shock. “How did you know?”

“What is Gallagher doing?”

She pointed at the monitor, watching Detective Gallagher thrust his mug into the lens and then turn the camera to the wall.

“Shit.” Bingham reached for the door.

Lara stopped him. “I got it,” she said.

A CHAIR sailed across the box and punched a hole in the crappy drywall. DeClerk lost his cool for a moment, remembering the beating he took from Gallagher in the alley. But he still denied everything and Gallagher was running out of luck. DeClerk had an alibi for his time when the beating of Rae Dawn occurred and he had a story for the bruise on his right hand. All of which Gallagher knew in his gut to be utter bullshit but gut was all he had at the moment.

A knock at the door. A woman with dark hair entered, holding a can of Orange Crush in her hand. Gallagher recognized her from the hallways but couldn't put a name to the face.

“You have a call.” Lara left the door open. Nodded to the overturned chair. “Can you fix that?”

Gallagher tilted his head like she was from another planet. Whatever. He fixed the chair, then loosened his tie and slipped it from his neck. He turned to DeClerk and leered like a devil. “The nice lady here is gonna ask some more questions. When she's gone, do us all a favor. Use this.” He dropped the loose tie in DeClerk's lap and left the room.

Lara sat down and slid the can across the table. DeClerk didn't touch it.

“You the good cop?” His eyes hardened with contempt. “Please.”

Lara folded her hands together. “I knew your woman. Rae Dawn. I processed her for solicitation last May.”

“Bullshit.”

“The woman had a temper,” she said. “She screamed and hollered the whole time. Demanding this and that, said she couldn't be treated like this. I'm guessing she did most of her screaming at you, didn't she? All that rage inside her? She took that out on you. Cutting you down every chance she got, blaming you for all her problems when what she needed to do was take a hard look in the mirror.”

DeClerk said nothing but his eyes betrayed him, casting about the room for something to fix upon. Anything at all.

Lara noted all of this and went on. “I don't know how you put up with her. You took care of her, provided for her. Did she appreciate everything you did for her?”

DeClerk melted into his seat. He grasped the can of soda and took a long slug.

OUTSIDE the box Gallagher watched as DeClerk leaned in and started waving his hands about. Telling the woman everything. He looked over at Bingham. “Do you believe this?”

“Check it out.” Bingham pointed at the screen. “The dude's crying.”

Gallagher groaned. “I'm gonna be sick.”

Twenty minutes later Lara escorted the suspect out and handed him off to a waiting uniform. Gallagher watched DeClerk being led away and then turned to Mendes.

“Nice job,” he said. “Rachel?”

“Lara.” She extended a hand. “Lara Mendes.”

He shook her hand, holding it fast. “Why is Sex Crimes barging into my interview?”

“I'm Homicide now.” She felt her hand being crushed. She squeezed back. “Didn't the Lieutenant talk to you? We're working together.”

His eyes narrowed. “The Lieutenant must be mixing his meds again.”

Gallagher grabbed the nearest phone and punched an extension. Lara listened as he asked if the Lieutenant was flipping crazy. Gallagher held the phone away from his ear. She couldn't make out what was being said, it was all squawking, but clearly her new partner was being ripped a new one. An icy snowball rolled around her stomach.

Gallagher hung up and looked at her. All he did was shrug. “I'm getting some coffee.”

THE third floor kitchen looked like any other office kitchen. Dirty cups piled in the sink and coffee dripped all over the counter. A note on the fridge warned all comers that anyone who touched the roti inside would have their frigging hands chopped off. A box of donuts sat on the table.

Gallagher went right for the donuts. “When did you bust the victim?”

“I didn't.” Lara checked the cupboard for a clean glass. There wasn't one.

“Then how'd you know all that stuff about her?”

“I saw her priors, took a guess. Men who assault their partners, the reason is almost always the same.”

Gallagher flipped open the box but all that was left was a crummy plain donut. He crossed to the doorway and hollered out at the entire bullpen. “You assholes couldn't leave me one with sprinkles!”

No one looked up. Someone in the back yelled, “Shove it, Gallagher!”

He wet a finger to retrieve the loose sprinkles rolling around the bottom of the box. Looked at Mendes. “What reason are we talking about?”

“Humiliation,” she said. “Or their perceived sense of being humiliated.”

“So you just pulled some voodoo on him?”

“No. I'm just trying to understand the person. It's about getting them to open up.”

“Why?” He chased the last sprinkles around the box. “All they do is cry like they're the victim. Who wants to hear that?”

“Don't you want to know why someone does the things they do?”

“Hell no.”

“Then what's the point of doing the job?”

He leaned back, taking a second assessment of her. “You're not one of them kids trying to make a difference, are you?”

Lara bit her tongue, watching this guy hunting sprinkles. She'd heard about Gallagher before, what an asshole he was, but she wasn't going to let him get to her. There was a bigger picture here. She held out her hand. “How about we start over here? I'm Lara.”

He shook. “Lara, I want you to do me a favor.”

Some nerve, she thought.

He went on. “Request another partner. Talk to the Lieutenant, tell him you can't work with an asshole like me. He'll understand.”

She ended the handshake. “Done.”

A uniformed officer leaned into the doorway. The name on his tag read Frid. “Gallagher? Call came in, ten fifty-four down on the riverbank. Bingham said you're up.”

“Bullshit. Bingham dodged the last one, he's up.”

Frid shrugged, not wanting to get caught up in this. “I'm just telling you what he said.”

“We'll take it,” Lara said.

Gallagher scowled at her then he turned on Frid, snatching up the officer's tie. The uniform protested but Gallagher held him tight, scrutinizing the tie. “Are those sprinkles?”

5

THE BODY LAY in the weeds, a stone's throw from the river. A uniformed officer stood near it but kept her back to the remains. A second officer stood farther up the bank, waving down the approaching car. The unmarked Crown Vic wheeled up and parked on the gravel spit. A second police cruiser sat idle nearby, two silhouettes in the backseat.

Gallagher and Mendes climbed out. Gallagher waved to the uniformed officer. “Who's in the car?” He nodded to the two occupants in the back of the blue-and-white.

“Two boys.” The officer cocked his thumb downriver. “They found the body.”

“Are they okay?” Lara asked.

“They're scared. Who likes sitting in a police car?”

“Sit on them until we're ready to talk.” Gallagher scanned the surroundings-- the river, the trees and the bridge overhead. “Where is it?”

The uniform motioned toward the water. “Down there.”

Gallagher was already trampling through the wet grass. Lara followed his trail, knowing she'd be taking his cues for a while.

“Check your guts,” the uniform called after them. “That's a nasty sight down there.”

The body. White, female. That was about all that was discernible from the mutilation sprawled in the weeds of the riverbank. The belly had been torn open and ripped apart, the viscera pulled and scattered in the grass. The face was a mass of wet gristle and bone, turning purple in the sun. The left hand ruined and the right one simply missing, sheared off above the wrist. Parts of the thighs were gone.

Gallagher stopped eight feet shy of the body and simply stared at it, taking in the wreckage. Blowflies roiled up then settled back onto the remains. The victim was naked and from where he stood, he saw no rings or jewelry. No markers of any kind. He scanned the ground around him but saw no clothing, no purse, nothing. The weeds were trampled here and there but there was little blood. It had rained in the night and everything was wet. Gallagher shook his head at the mess before him. This was going to be bad.

Lara came up behind him, stepping where he stepped. She stopped cold when she saw the body. “Oh my God.”

“For your first stiff,” Gallagher said, “you picked a doozy.” He walked around the body, circling it slowly. “Work the edges carefully then circle your way in. Take it slow.”

She didn't say anything. He looked up. “You all right?”

“I can't even tell if that's a man or a woman.”

“You need a minute?”

“I'm good.” The way he looked at her, zero sympathy in his eyes. Testing her. “I'm just not sure what I'm looking at.”

“Looks like she was run over by a lawn mower.”

“It was dogs.” The uniform standing nearby spoke up. Still with her back to the corpse on the ground. “That's what the kid said.” She chinned the cruiser up on the gravel. The two lumps in the back seat.

“No shit.” Gallagher kept circling, kicking the weeds down, searching.

“Dogs did that?” Lara felt her stomach drop. Told herself to keep cool, but she blurted it out. “I hate dogs.”

Gallagher saw her face turning ashen. “Don't you dare puke on my crime scene, Mendes. You gotta hurl, do it up on the pavement.”

Lara gritted her teeth. “I said I'm fine.”

He didn't believe her but he let it go. He snapped on the latex gloves and kept circling closer to the body, pressing aside the weeds with his foot. Give me something, he thought. Anything. Nothing appeared and then he was standing over the deceased. What he saw was the worst kind of luck you could draw. A body out in the raw elements with nothing to work from. No clothes and no ID. The body gone cold and washed in the rain. Zero chance of finding any hair or fibers. Not that it really mattered much. Gallagher couldn't remember the last time trace evidence led to a suspect. Still. Look at this mess. Give me a plain old drug murder in some shit-stained alley any day, I'll work it. But this cluster-fuck? This was going to be hell to work and a bitch to close.

Lara kept her eyes down and methodically examined the earth. Focusing on the ground gave her stomach a chance to settle. She'd hardened herself to blood and twisted limbs long ago, keeping up with the dark jokes every cop used to deal with the sight of broken and dying human beings. But these remains, that was new. Her first day on Homicide Detail, being tested under the ape she got partnered up with and she gets that disaster? Jesus. Never mind. Stay focused and work the scene harder than you ever worked a scene before.

She didn't see the second carcass until she was right on top of it. Bloated from the expanding gases and boiling with flies, it took a second to recognize it as a dog. Dead and reeking, its tongue lying in the grit.

That's when she puked. Lara doubled over and just let it rip. Game over.

ANOTHER Crown Vic arrived thirty minutes later, delivering Detectives Latimer and Bingham to assist. Both men took one look at the scene and shook their heads in dismay, silently grateful they hadn't caught this call. They joined Detective Mendes in the ground search while Detective Gallagher hovered over the body. The meat wagon rolled up shortly after and the medical examiner waited on the gravel spur until the primary waved her in.

Gallagher straightened up, his legs numb from kneeling and his shoes soaked from the wet grass. He stepped away from the corpse and marched to where the secondary worked. “You got anything?”

Lara plucked a dented beer can from the mud with latexed fingers and popped it into a bag. “Nothing good,” she said, holding up the can in the evidence bag. “Trash.”

“Figures.” He waved at the medical examiner to come on in. “Have you met the M.E.?”

Caroline Brunt had been with the Multnomah Coroner's Office for over a decade and had worked most of Gallagher's crime scenes. She was five foot nothing but freakishly strong and could haul a fat man onto a gurney easier than he could.

“Lara, this is Caroline. Champion body-bagger. Caroline, meet Detective Lara Mendes. Super-cop in training.”

They shook. Caroline spoke first. “Who did you piss off to get saddled with this creep?”

“I'm still trying to figure that out.” Lara glanced back down the riverbank. “Just down there. Is there anything you need from us?”

“Just some room.”

“There's a dog, too.”

Caroline looked at Gallagher. “Dog?”

“Over there. Can you have a look at it before the animal shelter collects it?”

Caroline nodded, then trod down the path. Gallagher looked up at the vehicles on the roadside. “Let's talk to the kids.”

“WHO shot the dog?”

Owen Tilgard and Justin Brophey leaned against the cruiser, eyes on the ground. Not looking at the cops and not looking at each other. Owen couldn't believe they busted him. He called 911 and reported the body. His conscience clear, he didn't give it another thought.

Then a cruiser rolled up in front of his house and they hauled him away. It hadn't occurred to him the cops would trace the call. They picked up Justin down the block and rolled in here. Justin hissed that he'd kill him when this was all over. And now this, this stanky cop barking at them like they'd done something wrong.

“He shot it,” Justin said. Owen cast eyes at him but Justin didn't look back.

“This is what you two do for fun? Shoot dogs?” Gallagher looked them over, a couple of brain-dead boys with nothing better to do than shoot up the riverbank. They find a body and just leave it there. He wanted to knock their empty skulls together. He glanced over at Mendes, listening to these two idiots stutter, writing it down in her spiral. She seemed impassive to it all. Aloof. Least she got that part right.

“How many dogs were there?” Lara looked up from her notes and zeroed in on the chubby kid. He phoned it in, he'd talk.

“I dunno. Lots.”

“Have you ever seen these dogs before?”

Owen shook his head. Justin didn't say anything, just folded his arms like he needed to be somewhere else. Gallagher shoved him against the car. “The officer asked you a question, sparky. Speak up.”

Shock then rage flashed in the kid's eyes. Gallagher smiled at him, pleased. “I ain't seen those dogs before. They were all mangy and shitty-looking.”

“Then what?”

“We wanted to see what they were scrapping over,” Owen said. “We went down and the dogs, they were...” His eyes rolled down the bank and he choked. Justin finished for him.

“They were eating it.”

GALLAGHER packed the boys back into the car and asked Latimer to take them to precinct to get their statements while he finished up here. Latimer groused but he always groused when Gallagher asked for something. Gallagher trudged down to Caroline and clocked Mendes working the grid again, giving the area a third pass. Least she's thorough.

“What's the verdict, Caroline? Suicide or old age?”

Caroline didn't look up from her clipboard. “You do know how to pick 'em. This is a beaut.”

“You got nothing for me?” He feigned hurt.

“I've done all I can out here. I need to bring the body in.”

“Sure. How soon can you ID her?”

“Don't wait up. Matching dental records takes a long time.”

“Dental? Use the prints.”

The medical examiner looked over the rim of her glasses. “What prints? The left hand is mutilated and the right is missing altogether. All I have are teeth.”

That was when someone yelled from the field. Bingo. Gallagher looked up. Who the hell yells out bingo? Twenty yards out stood his new partner, waving at him. Bingo.

LARA thought Gallagher was too rough on the boys and had told him so. You come down too hard on kids that age they just shut you out. Gallagher guffawed, said he should've been harsher with those dipshits. Kids were so full of themselves, he said, that you gotta smack them just to wake them from the self-absorbed fogs they travel in. She asked if he had ever actually spent time with anyone under twenty. He just laughed then walked off to talk to the M.E.

It wasn't worth getting mad about. She'd already humiliated herself by hurling on the crime scene and didn't need anymore bullshit from super-cop.

She went back to scrutinizing the perimeter. The uniform they'd asked to search the weeds was eager to help but not exactly diligent. Too easily distracted by his chirping cell. She took another pass, just to be sure.

That was when she spotted it, hidden under a tangle of matted reeds. Something dark and lumpy. She pushed the grass apart with a pen and looked down at the torn flesh. Severed at the elbow joint and mutilated into a lump of jellied blood. The missing arm, bloated and erupting with ants.

Lara sprang up and hollered out the first thing that crossed her mind. And immediately regretted it. Her first day in Homicide Detail hadn't gone bad enough, she had to shout out that? Jesus.

6

WORKING HOMICIDE WASN'T how she imagined it would be. One day in and Lara hated it.

She tossed her stuff onto the kitchen table and groaned when she saw the time glowing on the microwave. Stuffed into her bag was a file of current case reports and a thick protocol document for her new detail, all of which she had no time to read tonight. Not after this hellish day.

The bottle of wine in the fridge door held only half a glass. She took it and the phone out to the deck off the kitchen. Her backyard was small. A failed vegetable garden and patio lights that had burned out long ago. Still, it was good enough to just sit back and listen to the crickets.

She smoothed her thumb over the number pads on the phone, wanting to call her sister. Marisol was a good listener, with a knack for teasing out the real problem underneath an earful of complaints. Lara wanted to vent about how bad her first day in Homicide had gone. She'd wanted this detail for so long only to get partnered with a Neanderthal and then humiliate herself by throwing up all over the crime scene. Marisol would listen and say all the right things to her, shoring up her battered resolve to go back in the next morning with her head high and taking no prisoners. But her sister would be asleep by this time, exhausted after a day of chasing her four-year-old son. Lara smiled at the thought of her nephew. How big was he now? She hadn't seen him since Christmas.

Back in the kitchen, inside the folder of homework was the first draft of a letter to Lieutenant Vogel. An official request to mentor with a different partner. She knew it would look bad to start her new detail this way but the problem here was Gallagher. Any other veteran homicide cop and she would be fine. She had planned to redraft it tonight but it would have to wait until morning. Which meant another early start to the day. Go to bed.

A noise skittered over the buzz of the crickets. A scratching sound coming from the far side of the yard. A plump raccoon waddled onto the top of the wooden fence and looked at her. It slouched over and folded its creepy little hands together. Like it was surprised to see her and wanted her to leave. It was big and scruffy and Lara hated raccoons. She shot to her feet like she would charge at it but the animal just scratched its belly and watched her.

Lara marched back into the house and slammed the door, as if emphasizing to the scavenger how displeased she was to see him. The raccoon clawed down the fence and waddled across the grass to her garbage bins.

THE jump into Homicide had been fast, accelerated by the case dropped in her lap and Lara hadn't had time to move desks. Not a task she looked forward to as she wound through the fourth floor bullpen to her cubicle. She tried her best to keep her desk neat and orderly. Honest. It just never worked out that way. It overflowed with paperwork and files. The old school binders she kept for each case. She couldn't even see any personal stuff buried under all that riot.

“Hey, look who's back!”

Charlene Fabre came up behind and squeezed her elbow. Charlene was a detective in the Sex Crime Unit and, although they weren't partners, they shared a cubicle. “How was your first day?”

“Busy.” Lara shuffled papers into binders and folders. “I'm there two minutes and we already got a body. Charlie, you wouldn't believe the condition of this poor woman. It was horrendous. I lost my lunch, totally embarrassed myself.”

“Oh honey, that's awful.”

“How about you? Miss me yet?”

“Do you know who's getting your desk? Reynard, the miserable S.O.B.”

Lara winced. Reynard was a slow-eyed cretin who talked nonstop without ever actually saying anything useful.

“The man cornered me in the kitchen yesterday and prattled on for twenty minutes about property taxes. How am I going to endure that nonsense all day? I'll kill myself.” Charlene wheeled her chair closer and lowered her voice. “Is it true they stuck you with Gallagher?”

“Yup.”

“What is Vogel thinking sticking you with that gorilla? Like you don't have enough to do learning new detail.”

“It isn't about me. The Lieutenant is punishing Gallagher, trying to rein him in. I just happen to be the next warm body.”

Charlene patted her arm. “He gets out of line, you talk to Vogel straightaway. You don't need that man's foolishness.”

A cell phone went off. Lara checked the ID. “Speak of the devil.” She flipped it open and deadpanned, “Mendes.”

“You know where the coroner's office is?” No hello, no how-are-you.

“It's on Knott, isn't it?”

“The M.E.'s got an initial report on the body. You wanna take part, I'll be there in twenty.” He hung up. No goodbye.

She dropped the phone into her pocket, turned to Charlene. “I'll have to clean this up later. You okay with that?”

“Take your time. The sooner you clear out, the sooner Reynard moves in.”

AN elevator ride down two levels, through a door and Lara was in the morgue. Two shroud-covered gurneys were parked in the hallway. Something else she'd have to get used to in the new detail. She took a breath and entered the morgue proper. Gallagher leaned against a stretcher, chatting away with Caroline like it was a tailgate party. He looked surprised that she showed up.

The M.E. led them to the far end of the examining room. It was cold and it smelled awful. Lara tried to breathe through her mouth but that just made it worse, like tasting death on her tongue.

Caroline peeled back the sheet. The body of their vic laid out cold and exposed. The remains examined and cut, the flesh peeled back in layers. The severed arm Lara had found lay reassembled below the raw right elbow.

“Female, Caucasian.” Caroline read off the details from a clipboard. “Forty to fifty years old. As you can see, she suffered an extraordinary amount of trauma. Most of the internal organs are missing, presumably devoured. I didn't have a lot to work with.”

Lara had her notebook out, scribbling down the pertinent details. Gallagher produced no notebook. He just started firing questions at Caroline.

“Can you ballpark the time of death?”

“Given the level of rigor, plus the fly larvae already embedded in the soft tissue, I'd say sometime within the last forty-eight hours.”

Lara looked up from her notes. “Will you be able to narrow that down after the autopsy?”

“I hope so but with so much damage, I can't make any promises.”

“Cause of death?”

“Tricky. You got multiple bite wounds to seventy-five percent of the body. Massive injuries to the head, neck and extremities. More here to the torso, followed by dismemberment. Difficult to determine a C.O.D.” Caroline tilted the dead woman's chin, exposing the carnage at the throat. “For now, I'd say blood loss. The trauma here at the jugular and carotid. She bled out.”

Gallagher frowned. “The dogs killed her?”

“It appears that way, but there's damage to the skull here.” The medical examiner pointed to the jellied blood on the back of the head. “Blunt force. It may have occurred during the attack.”

“Or prior to?”

Caroline agreed. She righted the woman's head, returning the dead stare to the ceiling.

Lara shuddered. Just the idea of it, devoured by dogs. “Can you tell what kind of dogs attacked her? Or how many?”

“It's impossible to determine the breed of dog but I found the bite radius of at least four different dogs. These were big, I can tell you that. There's also—” Caroline broke off, her brow knotted up.

Gallagher leaned forward. “What is it?”

“This.” Caroline pointed to a wound on the ribs. Gallagher just blinked at it, the torn flesh looked the same as all the rest. “This wound is much larger than the others.”

Lara took a closer look, but like her partner, couldn't distinguish one wound from the next. “Another bite mark?”

“Too big. Has to be something else. A dull weapon maybe?”

Gallagher broke in. “What if it is teeth?”

“Then you got one big animal on your hands.”

The desk phone rang. Caroline excused herself to get it. Gallagher leaned over the face, the raw pull of exposed muscle and bone, the eyes cloudy and without warmth.

Lara wanted to sit, still finding her sea legs but there were no chairs. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”

“I've seen people mauled by their own dogs. Assholes bit up at dog fights. But this, eaten up the way she is? This is a first.”

Caroline came back with a sheet of paper. “I got her prints. The thumb was too damaged but the index and middle fingers were clean.”

“Thanks. You check under the nails?”

“Scraped and sent to the lab. I'll let you know what we find.”

BACK to precinct and up to Homicide, where Gallagher shared cubicle space with Detective Roberts. He fed the prints into the system. Lara took Roberts's empty chair and used his desktop to write the initial report. Gallagher finished up, scowled at her. “Don't get too comfortable in that chair,” he said. Then he left without another word.

Lara scanned through her notes, sorting it all out before typing anything. Knocking out a good report was tricky, sifting pages of hurried notes and crafting it into a succinct summation of a crime. Be concise but most of all be brief. People hated reading anything, most of all your superiors, and they resented you for putting it on their desk. Anything over two pages and you can expect an email instructing your dumb ass to get to the point and leave the writing to Shakespeare.

There were two photos on Roberts's desk, both of his wife and three kids (two boys, one girl). A Father's Day card made from orange construction paper and pinned to the cubicle wall. Two cartoons clipped from The Oregonian, neither of them funny. A favorite coffee mug and a metal spur paperweight, a souvenir from a trip to Arizona. A working detective's desk, nothing more.

Both desks butted up against each other in the cramped space. Gallagher's desk was clean and without clutter. Paperwork filed and binders squared up neatly to the wall. There were no photos, no unfunny cartoons nor tacky souvenirs. The desk looked unused, like something out of a catalogue.

“You finished yet?” Gallagher lumbered back, spitting pink sprinkles from the donut he was devouring.

“Almost.”

“Wrap it up, huh? Leave the writing to Vonnegut.”

“You like Vonnegut?”

“Hey.” He sat up straight, seeing what lit up on his screen. “We got a hit.”

The database returned a match on the prints. A harshly lit DMV photograph of a woman. Pale and drawn, she looked to be in her late forties. Gallagher gleaned the pertinent details. “Elizabeth Riley, age forty-two. No criminal record, no occupation. Nothing.”

“Then why is she in the system?”

“Who knows.” Gallagher jotted down a few notes.

“There's an address. We can start there.”

“I'll do that,” he said. “Round up a few uniforms and canvass the area where the body was found.”

“We should both check her place. Two eyes and all that.”

“No, we split the work. No sense getting cozy.” He rose. “You file that request yet?”

“I'm writing it up.”

“Good.” He headed for the door.

7

THE DECEASED WOMAN'S apartment was up on the 8800 block of North Edison, where it crossed Baltimore. Elizabeth Riley lived in a dumpy low-rise with a battered intercom box and two yellowed stovetops stacked outside the front entrance. The super was an uncooperative jerk in moldy flip-flops who bitched until Gallagher mentioned the sour tang of weed drifting out of his basement burrow. The prick got the keys and lead Gallagher up to a door on the second floor.

Gallagher waited while the guy squinted at the labels on each key. “You ever see a boyfriend hanging around? Any friends or family?”

“I dunno anything about these people.” He separated a key, tried it. “How soon can I clear her shit outta here?”

“You know she's dead, right?”

The guy shrugged. “And now I got an empty unit that needs to be rented.”

Gallagher crowded the man, stepping on his flip-flops. “How about I plaster that door with police tape until you die?”

The lock popped. The super pushed the door open then slunk away. Gallagher stepped inside and scanned the small room. What a shithole.

He tossed the entire place within the hour and came up with nothing. No personal info, no private phone book, not even a laptop. Any identification she possessed, she must have had on her. Meaning it was lost. He flopped down onto the couch. What had he missed?

His cell rang. The caller ID read Cheryl. He grimaced. “Cheryl, what's up?”

“You need to come get her.” The voice on the other end was sharp.

“I'm picking her up Sunday.”

“I'm bumping you up. When can you get here?”

Stick to the damn routine, woman. “What happened?”

“I don't have time to go into it right now. How soon can you be here?”

“I'm on the clock, Cheryl.”

“John...”

“Two hours.” She groused. He hung up, put his feet onto the coffee table. Did he have time for a ten-minute nap? Tilted his wrist to see the watch face. Yup.

LARA put the victim’s photo and physical description onto a police flyer and printed copies. She found a uniformed officer named Lee, bored with desk work. He agreed to help her with the canvassing, anything to get out of the precinct.

There wasn't a lot to investigate, considering where the body was found: an auto body shop, a warehouse and a small marina south of the bridge. No one there remembered seeing the woman. North of the bridge was a strip club called The Devil's Backside. The bar staff were less than helpful and the daytime drinkers downright hostile. Lara stepped out of the bar, shielding her eyes from the sun after the gloomy interior of the bar.

Officer Lee smoothed a flyer against a post and staple-gunned it into place. Looked her way. “Where to now, detective?”

“Next place up the road. Start all over.”

They climbed back into the car. She keyed the ignition. “Thanks for giving me a hand with this.”

“No problem.” He squared up another handful of flyers. “Shouldn't your partner be doing this with you?”

“You'd think.”

CHERYL lived out near Tabor Park in a pretty colonial with blue trim and a front garden of native plants. Gallagher wheeled into the driveway, bopped the horn once and watched the windows for movement.

He drummed his fingers on the wheel, waiting. Cheryl was going to make him ring the bell, he knew it. He has to drop everything and rush over here but she's gonna make him wait? He hated this, this stupid brinkmanship that just came naturally with shared parenting.

Hell with it. He climbed out of the truck, having forfeited his pride a long time ago. The front door opened just as he strode up the stone pathway. His daughter stepped outside.

Amy Gallagher was sixteen years old. She looked a lot like her mom but you could still see a little of her old man in there-- there, in the angry lines stitching up her forehead as she dragged a lumpy hockey bag behind her.

Gallagher took the bag from her and tossed it into the back. Amy hauled her backpack across her knees and Gallagher reversed out of the driveway. The front door closed without a glimpse of Cheryl.

Gallagher turned out of the neighborhood and glanced at his daughter. He knew by the set of her mouth and the crossed arms she wasn't going to speak first. Another contest. He simply didn't have the energy for it anymore, so he spoke up. “You want to tell me what happened or do I gotta ease into it with small talk?”

Amy watched the street, houses blurring past through the rain-speckled window. “Neither,” she said. Trying to abort the chitchat with her tone.

“Okay.”

Silence filled up the cab and rain dotted the windshield again.

He caved. “You hungry?”

“Sorta.” She finally looked at him, grateful for the change in topic. “House of Pancakes?”

He smiled. Shrugged an affirmative and took the next left.

RASPBERRY pancakes with whipped cream. Eggs, toast and bacon. They sat near the window and he asked about school. She said it was fine. The school could have burned to the ground in an apocalyptic fire and her answer would have been the same. Fine.

“How's basketball?” Amy played small forward.

Amy swirled a hunk of pancake in the syrup. “I got a game coming up.”

“I know. You working the drills like we practiced?”

“Yeah. Sorta. I got pummeled last game by this bigass dyke.”

“You gotta work on your Spidey sense. Keep your eye on the action but be aware of the bruisers looking to take your head off.” He mopped up the egg yolk with his toast. “So what were you and mom fighting about?”

“Nothing,” she said. “Everything.”

“That narrows it down.”

“She's always riding me about homework and stuff. Like I don't have enough stress right now. You know what she's like.”

“Yeah.” He pushed his plate away. “But we both know that you goof off if someone isn't on you. Right?”

“Whatever.”

Whatever. He wished he could take a pair of scissors and cut that word from her vocabulary forever. Gallagher had to remind himself to mind his temper every time he heard it. He leaned in and squared up with her eyes. Meaning business. “What else? Come on, out with it.”

“I dunno. It's Greg too. He's such a drip.”

Greg was Cheryl's boyfriend. He was a drip, but he couldn't officially agree with his kid on that one. Play nice. Cheryl seemed happy with him. “What about him?”

“He's always on mom's side. About everything.”

“He has to be. That's how it works.” He patted her hand. “Listen, I know mom can be tough but she's not wrong. It just comes out wrong sometimes. Go easy on her, huh?”

The word “whatever” was ready to spill from her lips but Amy checked herself. Instead she slurped her milkshake through the straw and switched gears. “I saw in the paper that that Gunwold guy got sentenced to twenty-five years. Good job.”

Gunwold was a braindead waste who shot holes into his friend and his friend's woman over a bullshit amount of money. Gallagher worked the case hard and came down on the little bastard like a ton of bricks. That was three years ago. The sentencing came down last week.

“I didn't have anything to do with his sentencing.”

“But that was your case. Cheers.”

They got back in the truck and the starter squealed. It did that when it rained. Amy buckled up. “What are you working on now?”

The kid was always asking about work, wanting to know the gruesome details and petty motives. He used to take pride in that. How many kids are actually interested in what their old man does for a living? He even thought his daughter was interested in law enforcement, the apple rolling not too far from the tree, but that wasn't the case. She liked sharing the gory bits with her friends. Like celebrity gossip, it was fun to speculate. A pack of Nancy Drews solving cases through hearsay and a teenager's understanding of psychology.

There were only two kinds of murders he told her about now, of which both had moved out of his influence on their path to righteous justice or complete farce. Cases that had finally gone to trial or those that the D.A. claimed he couldn't convict and thus dismissed. Sensitive cases too, involving a child, he kept mum about. But that never stopped the kid from trying. Amy read the crime section religiously, trying to guess which new murders her dad was working. It was a game.

“Nothing much,” he said and they rode quietly all the way home. After the divorce, Gallagher had settled for the typical dad schedule of weekends and holidays. His work schedule was too erratic for anything else. How he hated it, slowly eroding from father to distant relative with his own kid. So when Amy turned thirteen, they changed up the schedule. Two weeks at mom's and two weeks at dad's. Amy was a responsible kid and Gallagher knew she'd be fine if he came home late. His partner, his boss, hell the whole detail knew that when it was his two weeks with his daughter, he had to be home by dinner time. The other guys ragged him about it but never got in his way. Half of them were already divorced and of the ones still married, half of those were hurtling blind toward divorce court too.

Crossing Fremont Street, Amy said, “I got some movies for us to watch. Borrowed them off Stella's dad. He's got, like, every western ever made.”

“Have I met him?”

“Twice.” She pulled a handful of DVDs from her backpack. “I got the kind you like, too. Violence, crude language and nudity.”

Gallagher silently thanked God his daughter had moved past her phase of watching musicals. If he had to sit through Grease one more time, he was gonna put a bullet through his head.

REGGIE pulled back the curtain and looked outside. His was a small room inside a boarding house and he had been here for two months. Reggie wasn't his real name, it was just the one he told people here. He was happy with the boarding house. It suited his needs. He figured he'd be safe here for a few months at least unless something came up.

Something came up.

A news item on the radio, half heard down in the common room. He told the other guys to shut up but he'd already missed it. He gave Perkins a dollar to go to the corner and get a newspaper for him. Reggie took it up to his room and locked the door. The news item said very little. A woman's body found near the river, the poor condition of her remains. The name was being withheld until family could be notified. Good luck with that, he thought.

Reggie would have to move. He was already hiding from the law, as were half the men in here. The rooming house was a good place for that but it wouldn't be enough now. Something more than the cops was looking for him and his stink was all over this place. It wouldn't be long before it tracked him here.

Reggie felt a tickle in his throat and swallowed, trying to stifle the cough. Didn't work. His cheeks blew out in a coughing jag that left him winded and blind. Reggie was a sick man and the task of diving even further underground might kill him.

8

LARA MENDES DROVE to work early to get a jump on the day. She packed a hastily made lunch in the kitchen fridge and watched the shift change. The graveyard shift was logging off and looking drained, shooting the shit with the detectives stumbling in for the day shift. The night shift was hell on the body but everybody did their rotation with a minimal amount of bellyaching and cursing. The transition was the worst, switching from days to nights and then back again. It left you foggy for days and Lara hated it. She said hello to the night crew and got ribbed a good deal about being the latest cherry on the team. Detective Latimer, whom she initially pegged to be an asshole, was chatty and friendly in his exhaustion. Bingham, the impossibly good-looking one, was grouchy and withdrawn.

Gallagher was a no-show, his desk unoccupied, but she'd expected that. What she hadn't expected was to find Robertson's desk cleared off and his cabinets free of everything but the open cases. Her own box of personal stuff, the one she'd left abandoned on the floor, was sitting square on the now emptied and spotless desktop.

A note clung to the box, scrawled in Lieutenant Vogel's peculiar script: Settle in, get to work.

Yes sir.

She organized her things but left her private stuff in the box. She wanted to update the case file on the Riley woman but had little to add to it. No word from the M.E., the toxicology and trace reports still pending. The results of yesterday's canvassing could be summed up in one word-- nada. She called up the Missing Persons file to see if anyone had reported Elizabeth Riley's disappearance but nothing materialized there. She drummed her nails on the desk, wondering how to proceed next.

Shortly after ten a call came in about a shooting out at Northeast 40th and Sandy. Rowe and Varadero picked it up, signed a car out of the garage and left. Things settled back down and Lara glared at Gallagher's empty chair. She tried the number she had for him but his cell was unavailable. How the hell could he have his phone off on a Wednesday morning?

She thought about the attack on Riley that ended her life. The idea of being devoured by dogs churned her guts. She hated dogs, always had, and the notion of dying that way went beyond revolting. But it led to an idea. Drawing up two windows on her computer, she searched through incident reports and 911 calls with the same query. Dog attacks. There was a man on SE Franklin, mauled by his own pit bull. A woman on Quimby bitten by her neighbor's Rottweiler. Two men severely injured by dogs at a suspected dog fighting pit up in NoPo. Nothing unusual stood out in the reports, all incidents involving one or two dogs and nothing approaching the ferocity of the attack on the Riley woman. She kept digging, working through the current year and deep into the previous year. She ate her lunch over her keyboard, still sifting data, but found nothing.

She gave up, rubbed her eyes and tried her partner's number again. It rang this time. Click. “Gallagher.”

“Hey, it's Detective Mendes.” The partner you abandoned, remember? “You coming in to work today?”

“I am working. What's up?”

“I've worked every dead-end I can think of,” she said. “Did you find anything at the victim's apartment?”

“Zip. No personal phone book, no computer, practically no mail. No names of friends or family. I don't think she'd been living at that shithole very long.”

“Did you get all the other tenants? Someone must have known her.”

“Nobody knows her. That's the usual response when a cop knocks on your door but these braindeads were being honest. This woman kept to herself.”

“Let's canvass her neighborhood. Do every door within a five-block radius.”

“Recruit another uniform to give you a hand. Let me know what you find.”

Lara looked at the phone like it smelled bad. “No. You come help. You're the primary, remember?”

“I'm busy. Keep me posted.”

The guy just hung up. Lara slammed the phone down and ground her teeth. Screw this. She swiveled back to the keyboard and drew up a fresh document on department letterhead. She addressed it to Lieutenant Vogel, keyed down a few lines and wrote out an official request for a new partner.

NO uniformed officers were available so Lara hit the streets alone with a stack of fresh police flyers and knocked her knuckles raw. Working her way out in a circle from the dead woman's apartment block, Lara disturbed every door to find out no one knew the woman in the picture. She got lucky at the corner Kwiki-Mart where the guy behind the counter recognized the face on the police flyer. The deceased woman smoked Marlboro’s, bought two packs every time. That's it, the extent of the clerk's knowledge. Wow, Lara told herself on the way out. What a significant break in the case.

Sweet Hearts was a shitty bar four blocks from the vic's shitty apartment complex. Dimly lit with two TV screens and four daytime drinkers. Lara went to the bar and roused the woman working the taps from the paperback she was reading. Sliding the flyer across the bar, she went into the same preamble about the woman in the photograph. The bartender surprised Lara by admitting she knew her. When Lara told her the woman was deceased, the bartender dropped the flyer like it was contaminated. “She's dead?”

Lara dug out her notepad and a pen. The barkeep told her how the woman, Elizabeth Riley, came in almost every afternoon and always left before the place got busy with the happy hour crowd. She never said much. She came in, nursed a couple of glasses of draft and went home. Sometimes she'd curse at the TV or scratch away at lottery cards. Twice, the bartender remembered, she had complained about her ex-husband.

Lara latched onto that tiny piece of information. Elizabeth Riley was divorced?

The bartender had little to offer beyond that. The woman had grumbled about the divorce and how she had been screwed over by her ex but that was all. No names or details, just surly curses, then the woman would sink back into silence, muttering into her glass.

Lara slid her card across the bar and asked the woman to call if she remembered anything else. She posted the flyer on a wall near the restrooms and left.

LIKE before, a background check on Elizabeth Riley turned up nothing. There was no record of marriage or divorce. In fact, apart from the driver's license, there was no record of Elizabeth Riley at all. No social security number, no employment records. How was that even possible?

The rest of the day was spent on the phone, being transferred from department to department, trying to get answers. She got nowhere. She remained on hold through the shift change and finally gave up when the city departments closed down for the day.

Detective James LaBayer buzzed her desk on his way home, asked if she was making out all right. LaBayer was a veteran homicide man with one of the best career closure rates in the detail. He had an easy smile and a warmth about him that made everyone want to be his friend. Even the bad guys.

His day had been busy with a stabbing in North Portland. Some poor bastard got punctured twenty-two times in a dispute over drug money. LaBayer and his partner simply followed the blood drops down the alley and into an empty loading dock. The suspect was hunkered down lighting a bowl with blood still on his hands.

“That's what you call a dunker. Easy close.” LaBayer looked over the paperwork on her desk. He knew the facts of her case, the mutilated remains. Everyone knew, it was that gruesome. “Now, what you got, Mendes,” he said, “is a stone-cold whodunit.”

“Can't argue with you,” Lara said, smiling at him. “It's a dead weight that won't budge.”

“There ought to be a rule about drawing your first homicide. I'm not saying every newbie should be handed a dunker but nobody deserves to pull a horror show like this the first jump out of the gate.”

Lara loved LaBayer. He was like the favorite uncle in this weird family of cops. When he asked how she was getting along with her partner, she lied and said everything was fine. LaBayer knew Gallagher and knew she was lying but he didn't call her on it. Complaining about one's partner was unseemly and a sure way to bring scorn from every other body on the shop floor. She had seen Kopzyck do it just after starting in Sex Crimes and the haranguing he'd gotten for it was cruel and relentless.

LaBayer knew she wouldn't make the same mistake but left the door open a little. “Gallagher can be a real pill. You want to talk, just drop by. Alright?”

Lara packed up her things, wishing she had been partnered with LaBayer instead of Mister Personality. On the drive home she thought of amending the request she'd drafted for a new partner, asking specifically to be partnered up with Detective James LaBayer. So what if he already had a partner? Maybe the Lieutenant would see the wisdom in switching the lineup. She'd sleep on it.

Driving back into work the next morning, Lara decided to do just that. It could backfire on her but any fallout from that couldn't be any worse than her situation now. Her plan to redraft the request was backburnered by a jigsaw piece waiting at her desk. A phone message from a city clerk she'd talked to yesterday. He had an answer to why Elizabeth Riley had no official history prior to June of 2008. The woman had changed her name and somewhere along the chain of paperwork, the records to her previous name had been lost. Misplaced, misfiled and chewed up in the creaky machinery of an outdated system. Sorry, the clerk said. Click.

9

DECLERK WALKED. GALLAGHER spit when he heard the news, deciding then and there to just kill the son of a bitch.

After he blubbered out his sob story to Lara Mendes, DeClerk got smart and lawyered up. No more questions. The lawyer made him recant and claim it was made under duress. The D.A. screamed at Gallagher over the phone, declaring it to be a shit case with shit evidence. Gallagher told him he was a lightweight and promised to break his legs with a hammer next time he saw him. It was all bluster. Gallagher knew how skittish juries were— skittish and stupid. To convince a jury of the shitbag's peers, you had to catch the bastard with a smoking gun and extract a full confession. Anything less, no matter how compelling, just would not sway those twelve bodies in the box. Add to that the insistence on DNA and fiber analysis they all wanted to hear. The pretty TV cops put away a creep a week with nothing more than a single pubic hair, these people in the jury box wanted the same here.

Raymond DeClerk was back on the streets, limping around in his parka and probably beating another woman senseless at this very moment. So to hell with it. Steal a gun out of the evidence room and blow a hole in the braindead son of a bitch. Toss the piece in the Willamette and go home. Sleep the sleep of the righteous.

At least that was the plan. Instead, Gallagher spent the day haunting DeClerk. Watching him openly on the street and following him into stores. Eye-balling him every time until Parka Man got the sweats and ran home to his mother's house.

Two hours sitting in the Cherokee watching the door but DeClerk didn't come out again. He went home and threw a pork loin on the barbecue while Amy made salad. They watched Pale Rider and munched popcorn. Amy spent half the movie texting her friends.

Sipping coffee the next morning, Gallagher went over the DeClerk case in his head. Trying to uncover something he'd missed, some thin wedge he could split open and crucify the prick. Nothing came. Even on the drive to work, bumpering up on the Burnside bridge to the west side, nothing came to him. A sickening truth flapped into his guts and nested for the winter. The Rae Dawn Munroe homicide would remain unsolved. An open case poisoning Gallagher's desk until it was archived in the cold room.

Turning a corner into his cubicle he damn near dropped the coffee in his hand. “What the hell is this?”

Robertson's desk was awash in loose paper and unorganized files. Photos of the Elizabeth Riley crime scene were pinned to the cubicle wall, along with the police flyer. Lara Mendes was busy hanging up a large city map. “Morning,” she muttered through pushpins clenched in her teeth. “Nice of you to join us today, detective.”

“Look at this mess.” Gallagher gathered up the stray paper that had migrated onto his pristine desk.

“Yeah, sorry. It kind of got away from me.”

“No shit.” He retrieved the paperwork waiting in his in-tray. Memos, policy changes, staff announcements. He tossed it wholesale into the bin and turned his eyes to the rudimentary evidence board she had created. “What's all this?”

“Where have you been?” There was an edge to her tone.

“Went fishing. You gonna tell me what you got or do I gotta guess?”

“Couple of developments.” Lara leveled her tone. Still pissed but eager to share what she'd learned so far. “Our victim may as well be a Jane Doe. Two years ago, she legally changed her name to Elizabeth Riley. Unfortunately her old identity got lost somewhere in the process.”

“Brilliant.”

“I chewed out a couple of department heads over it. They promised to look harder but I'm pretty sure they just wanted to get off the phone. I did find a bartender who remembered our vic. According to her, Riley was divorced and bitter over it.”

“Who's the ex-husband?” Gallagher sat on the edge of her desk, crumpling paper.

“Again, the records were lost and the bartender doesn't remember Riley ever mentioning his name.”

“Too bad. We need to talk to him. Even if this isn't a homicide, we need him.”

“It is a homicide. The M.E. report confirmed it.”

“Where's the report?”

“Under your ass.”

He straightened and rifled through the mess for the report. An envelope fell to the floor. He picked it up and looked at it. Sealed but unmarked. “What's this?”

“Request for a new partner.”

“Good.” He took a pushpin and fixed the envelope to the wall. Skimmed through the medical report, flipping pages quickly. An eyebrow went up. “Semen?”

“Yeah. They're trying to pull the DNA from it.”

“Anything else in here?” His eyes went back to the report.

“Blood under the fingernails. The DNA will take a while but Caroline identified the blood types. It's in there.”

“Type O blood, also canine blood and…what?”

“Yet to be determined,” she said. “Blood sample that's neither human nor dog. She's working on it.”

Gallagher scratched his chin, mulling it over. “So she's attacked, possibly raped. She fights the guy off, gets meat under her fingernails.”

“But she's still alive when the dogs go at her,” Lara outlined the rest. “She fights them off, getting dog blood under her nails.”

“So the dogs actually killed her, not her attacker.”

“Possibly.”

Gallagher looked over the photos on the wall, then down to her desk. Sitting atop loose paper was a yellow legal pad scribbled with notes. Books lying open, pages dog-eared. “What is all this stuff?”

Lara shrugged. “Desperation. I'm trying to puzzle out our attacker.”

He glanced over her notes. “A psych profile? Don't waste your time.”

“There's the semen, right? Whether he paid for it or raped her, he attacks her when he's done. That speaks volumes. It suggests someone who hates women.”

“It's guesswork. Where does it get you?”

She looked at him. Was he being funny? “It's an insight into our perp.”

“It's flashy and the Lieutenant will love it but does it actually help us find the guy? No. Put your time elsewhere.”

“Why be so narrow-minded?” She lifted her hands, palms out. “We have nothing.”

“We have a ton of leads on the tip line.” He counted off the fingers of his left hand. “Two callers claim they did it and three more swear their neighbor did it. And you and I have to follow up every one of those concerned citizens.”

Lara leaned back into the wall and crossed her arms. Going through the calls from the tip line was a tedious, hateful process. Like shoveling shit from a sitting position.

Gallagher smiled, loving nothing more than bursting expectations. “I got one dude who says he's the devil himself and he wants to tell us why he did it.” He fished a quarter from his pocket. “Wanna flip for it?”

THEY suffered through the messages on the tip line, each caller crazier than the last. Lara endured it, grinding her molars until her jaws ached. Half of the callers sounded drunk or strung out. What was wrong with these people? She understood having a beef with a neighbor or someone at work, but to call up a police info line and accuse them of murdering someone? She rubbed the bridge of her nose and went on to the next message. Three days into her inaugural homicide investigation and this was their only lead. These paranoid shut-ins with nothing better to do than watch the news and call Crime Stoppers hoping to make fifty bucks to rat out their serial-killer, baby-kidnapping, dog-kicking neighbors.

Gallagher grinned through it all, knowing full well she hated every minute of it. When they had screened every excruciating nutbar message, he divided up the callers between them. Now she had to actually talk to these people. Looking through the list, she realized he had given her the number for the guy who claimed to be the devil.

“Satan?” She held up the page to him. “Seriously? Can't you take this guy?”

“You got a problem talking to Mister Satan?”

“I'm Catholic.” She couldn't think of anything else.

“All the more reason.” He just laughed. A sinister, grating chuckle like some vaudeville diablo.

THE dogs came out at night, running as a pack along the banks of the river, through the empty industrial yards and over the loamy hillside ground. The alpha led them up the riverbank and onto the crushed stone of the railway line. Following the tracks into the city, they traveled unseen, unheard.

The wolf made forays off the tracks and onto the dark streets, nose in the air, filtering the stench of the city for one particular stink among the many. The dogs grew restless and bored. Fights broke out, one ragged animal challenging another over its place in the pack order. When the sky turned gray in the predawn hours, the pack trotted back up the rail line to the river, retreating to their den to sleep and wait.

RAIN pelted the streets into a soggy mire, an unending drizzle that crept into everyone's bones. The police flyers flapped in the wind and melted in the downpour, the photo of the dead woman shredding into a gray sludge down the creosote poles.

Gallagher watched the rain run down the window, working his way through the tip line, each caller turning out to be a flake. Lonely or bored or just wanting attention. Something to break up the monotony of the day.

When he had time he kept his vigil outside Raymond DeClerk's mother's house. He'd park right out front and watch the front windows. A curtain would fold back and he knew DeClerk saw him out here. The shitbag stayed inside and sent his mom limping out to the Kwiki-Mart for smokes. Small comfort though. The case had dissolved to nothing and there was little left to do. Add to that the stone-cold Riley homicide and Gallagher now had two open cases on his desk, ruining his run of six consecutive closures.

His phone went off. Lieutenant Vogel wanted an update on “this dead woman and dog file” and he wanted it now. Gallagher groaned but wasn't in a position to piss off the big man any further. Said he was on his way.

He took one last look at the house and then turned the ignition.

LIEUTENANT Vogel propped an elbow on the cubicle wall, dwarfing everything around him. His mouth soured, unhappy with what he was hearing.

Lara avoided her boss's eyes like a student with unfinished homework. Gallagher slouched in his chair, nonchalant as he explained how their case had turned to shit in their hands.

“So you got nothing.” Lieutenant Vogel remained unfazed. Foremost among the cops in Homicide Detail, he was a magnet for bad news.

“We searched the area, canvassed the neighborhood and followed up every wingnut on the tip line.” Gallagher shrugged in surrender. “Nothing.”

“We're still waiting on DNA.” Lara spoke up, unwilling to let it be a complete disaster. “We might get a hit when it's put into the system.”

“Yeah and I might win the lottery,” Vogel said. “You've gone three, four days? Any chance of solving this is evaporating fast.”

Gallagher stretched out his legs. “Yup.”

The Lieutenant looked over the chaos of Lara's workspace. “Do you always keep such a clean house, Mendes?”

“Sorry.” Her cheeks turned red. “I'm trying to build a profile on our perp.”

“Really?” Vogel perked up at that, glancing over her evidence board. When he spoke, he spoke to her but squared his eyes on her partner. “Now that shows initiative.”

Gallagher beamed at his Lieutenant, as if proud of his own lack of initiative. It was his personal mission to drive Vogel batshit until the big man popped a blood vessel and keeled over. “Too bad it stalled out too. But there was one interesting development.” Gallagher shot to his feet and plucked the unmarked envelope off the wall. Her official request for a new partner. He crunched it into Lara's palm and folded her fingers around it. He smiled at her. “Detective?”

Vogel straightened, hopeful for any fragile snowflake of good news.

“It needs work.” Lara opened a drawer, tossed the envelope in and shut the drawer. She watched Gallagher's grin drop from his face. Vogel simply looked sad.

The desk phone chimed. Lara picked it up.

Lieutenant Vogel chin-wagged toward the aisle, waving at Gallagher to follow. They went to the kitchen where Vogel searched for a clean glass. “How's Detective Mendes working out?”

“She's all right.”

“Just all right?”

“She's good. Thorough, persistent.” Gallagher rifled through the fridge, opening other cop's lunches. There was a banana with the name “Bingham” written on the skin in marker. “But there's a personality conflict. I'm no good mentoring these kids.”

Vogel searched cupboard after cupboard but there was never clean glassware. “Make do.”

Gallagher went on, a wad of banana bulging his cheek. “You know who's good at this? LaBayer. He loves teaching. He and Mendes would get along great.”

“LaBayer's busy. Deal with what you got. Is there any water in there?”

Gallagher fished out a bottle of water, also marked “Bingham” and tossed it to his boss. The big man said thanks and left.

Gallagher looked out the window. The rain had stopped. He didn't hear Lara come in behind him.

“The animal shelter called,” she said. “They finished with the dog.”

“The carcass near the body?”

“The same.” Lara jangled a set of keys. “I'm heading up there. Are you coming?”

“Sure. Hold this.”

He handed her the half-eaten banana and left the kitchen, passing Latimer and Bingham on their way in. Bingham looked at her.

“Are you eating my lunch?”

10

TRAFFIC HAD STALLED on the highway so Lara shot over to Martin Luther King and headed north. Gallagher sat shotgun. Neither spoke, listening to the dispatcher call out the make and model of a stolen car.

“We had an agreement.” Gallagher broke the ice.

Lara swerved around a delivery truck. Said nothing.

He went on. “You were going to request another partner. Remember? We agreed.”

“Not with a case going cold. It will look like I'm giving up.”

“What, you worried about your wunderkind status?”

She gritted her teeth. “Why don't you ask for a new partner?”

“Missing the point, chief. I don't want a partner.”

“Right.” Lara took the Lombard exit. “You're the cowboy.”

BARKING dogs. Just the sound of it and Lara wanted to turn around and walk back out the door. When they pulled up to the Multnomah County Animal Services, Gallagher said he knew the head guy, Pablo somebody or other. The woman at the front desk waved them through and Gallagher was already opening the door to the kennels.

It was loud in the lobby but inside the kennel it was deafening. A long galley of pens ran both sides of a big space where the noise bounced off the cinder block walls. Each pen had a metal grate door, snouts poking through the mesh. German shepherds barked and paced their pens. A dachshund and two Labs coiled up, sleeping through the racket. A pit bull, chin on the floor, watching everything. A Dalmatian limped round its pen in never-ending circles, unwilling to lie or sit.

Lara winced at the crack of each bark, loathing every minute of it. Her revulsion of dogs was deep, maybe irrational, but there it was just the same. The smell wasn't helping matters, pungent with dog urine and disinfectant.

A tall man with dreadlocks and a stained lab coat knelt before a cage at the far end of the hall. Beside him stood a teenage girl, a volunteer, listening intently to his instructions.

“Pablo!” Gallagher hailed the guy but his voice was lost in the din. He walked over and waved when the man looked up. Pablo straightened up, said something to the volunteer then met Gallagher halfway.

“Hey G.” Pablo shook the detective's hand. “How's business?”

“Booming,” Gallagher yelled back. “How do you work in this noise?”

Pablo pulled a spongy tube from his ear. “These. The kind musicians use.” He wagged his chin at something behind Gallagher. “Hey, is she okay?”

Lara stayed near the double doors. Ramrod straight, trying to keep her cool around all of these crazed dogs.

Gallagher grinned. “She's more of a cat person. Is there somewhere else we can talk?”

They went back out to the lobby, where the air was cooler and considerably less rank. Lara shook off the gooseflesh, hating herself for being paralyzed like that. How could anyone work in all that chaos?

“Do you want to see it?” Pablo turned to both of them.

“The carcass? No. Just gimme the details.”

Pablo stepped past Gallagher, extending his hand to Lara. “I'm Pablo, by the way. You working with this ill-mannered lout?”

“Unfortunately,” she said. Charmed. “Detective Mendes. Did you perform the autopsy on the animal?”

“No, Stella did. She's the expert in that department. But I have her report.” Pablo handed her a copy. “This was a Staffordshire boxer mix. Male, about three years old.”

“What's that in dog years?” Lara didn't know from dogs. “Still a pup?”

“More like a teenager. Aggressive, with a hell of a chomp. We checked the stomach contents and found human tissue. But if you need the DNA profile, you'll have to send it to the lab yourself.” Pablo shrugged. “We just don't have the budget for that kind of stuff.”

“Was there anything wrong with this dog?” Gallagher asked. “Did it have rabies or something?”

“No. No distemper either. There was no ID chip, so it was possibly a stray.”

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Lara looked up from the report. “A pack of dogs killing and eating someone?”

“I've seen dogs and cats chew on their owners after death. You know, trapped in an apartment with their dead owners and starving. But this, dogs stalking and devouring a person? Never. That's something wild animals do. Wolves and coyotes, you know?”

The doors swung open and the teenage volunteer came out leading a shorthaired terrier. Pablo excused himself and went to help return the dog to a mom and daughter. Gallagher watched the family coo over the animal.

Lara stepped away, eyes drawn to a wall decorated with flyers for missing pets. A collie named Rocky and a cat named Mephisto. Photos and contact information. Some flyers offered rewards, others simply bargaining on the kindness of strangers. Typed up neatly or scrawled in marker, each bill pleading for their pets to come home. Hundreds of them, running the length of the wall.

Lara read one after another, noting the sadness in some pleas, the perfunctoriness in others. Something about it all nagged at her. Where were all these dogs and cats now? Were they dead in a ditch somewhere or shivering and dehydrated far from home? Were they taken in by someone kind or snatched up as bait for a dog fighting pit? “Gallagher? Take a look at this.”

He crossed the floor. Ran his eyes over the lost pets. Daisy, Muffin, Oswald, Killer, Freddy. “Did you lose your cat?”

“Look at all these animals,” she said. “What if we're wrong about the dogs that mutilated the vic? We just assumed they were strays. What if they actually belonged to someone?”

“The perp?”

“He used them to cover his tracks. Eat the evidence.”

Gallagher scanned through the snapshots of lost dogs. He turned and hollered at his friend. “Pablo? You get complaints here, yeah? People calling about their neighbor's dogs and whatever?”

Pablo came up, wiping his hands on a rag. “All the time.”

“Any complaints about an asshole with a lot of dogs? Big ones. I mean, anything out of the ordinary?”

“We get calls about pit fights, breeding pens. Offhand, I can't think of anything unusual.”

Lara brightened at the prospect of a lead. Any lead. “Do you log those calls?”

Pablo stuffed the rag into a back pocket. “We have to.”

“Can we see them?”

PABLO led them to his office and called up the complaint log on a lethargic desktop. The calls were logged as they came in: date, time, location and the name and number of the caller. Not everyone offered their name. Following those details were the nature of the complaint, notes on any call back and whether the complaint was investigated. If investigated, the name of the humane officer was listed along with their report.

The log went back six months. And it was huge. Some days they logged as many as twenty calls, other days just a few. The log was chronological, with no way to narrow the search by animal type or location. No way to make it a quick job.

“Christ.” Gallagher peered over Lara's shoulder. “We're gonna be here all day.”

He's already looking for an excuse to leave, she thought. “I can do this if you need to be somewhere. But you'll have to pick me up later if you take the car.”

“We got nothing else to push, let's do this.” He pulled up a chair. “You go through the list, I'll start calling anybody you red flag.”

They were actually going to work together? She stopped and looked right at him. It caught him off guard. “What?”

She got started, plowing through the catalogue of complaints. He made two calls into the precinct then put his phone away. Watched Mendes scroll down the call log but he couldn't sit still. He ducked out.

Back in the kennels, walking the rows of cages, a pinscher barked at him and a collie slept. The crazed Dalmatian kept circling its pen. A long-eared bluetick hound thumped its tail on the floor as he passed. Gallagher kneeled down and the hound licked his fingers through the cage. He had wanted a dog for a long time but the timing was never right. Getting one when Amy was younger seemed a bad idea for a struggling single parent, and now that she was older, neither of them were home enough to look after one properly. The poor dog would die of loneliness or boredom. But maybe a dog like this would be better. An older dog who wouldn't tear the place apart the way a rambunctious puppy would.

The teenaged volunteer was sweeping out a pen. He hollered at her. “Hey! What's the story on this old hound? Is he looking for a home?”

“No,” she said. “Samson got lucky. We found his owners. They're picking him up today. Isn't that great?”

When he got back to the little office Mendes was gone. The computer abandoned. A pad of paper lay next to the mouse, scribbled with notes. He skimmed through it. Names and addresses, a few scattered question marks.

“Hey.” Lara swung back into the room, uncapping a bottle of water.

“I thought you ran out on me.”

“I needed some air. The smell in here…”

“What is it with you and dogs anyway?”

“I just don't like them. Never have.”

He looked at her. “You keep yourself buttoned up tight, don't you?”

“What do you want, a sob story?”

“God no.” He wagged the notepad at her. “You find anything?”

“You thought our tip line was bad? You wouldn't believe the nonsense this place gets. People call in to complain about dog crap on the sidewalk. Not once in a while, I mean nonstop. There must be a dozen calls about that alone, every day.” She shook her head in disbelief. “And here I am, complaining about the complainers. It's contagious.”

He eased up a little. The kid made a funny, maybe she wasn't all bad. “So what'd you find?”

“A couple of possibles popped up, may be worth a call back. Then this showed up.” She circled an entry at the bottom of the notepad. “A complaint about a pack of dogs running wild up near the industrial yards.”

“Not that far from our crime scene.”

“A coincidence, maybe. But then I found this.” She flipped the page and circled another entry. “Two days earlier, someone called in about a vagrant squatting in that area. And the squatter has a bunch of pit bulls with him.”

He took the pad from her. “Did Pablo send someone to check it out?”

“Twice. No sign of the vagrant or the dogs.”

Gallagher straightened at that. “What's the address?”

11

NORTH TERMINAL ROAD WINDS a path through industrial yards and scrub oak. Squat buildings and potholed gravel lots hemmed in by chain-link fence. Broken pavement thudded under their tires as they drove past empty structures and ghost industries, the ground hollowed out and poisoned.

Lara slowed as they rumbled past a yard of sea crates. Gallagher rode shotgun, scanning the road. A few trucks passed them, then one car. No pedestrians.

“What are we looking for?”

“Dunno. Dogs running loose. A squatter's camp.” He eyeballed his side of the road. Flat-topped bunkers of cinder block, a Quonset hut. “Slow down.”

Lara coasted the car to a crawl and lowered her window.

“There.”

She pulled to the shoulder and leaned in to see what he was pointing at. A dog slunk out from the shadow of a tree, trotted across the road and vanished into shade again.

“See where he goes.”

The car rolled forward into a gravel lot, tires sloshing through potholes. The dog stepped into the sunlight again, ambling lazily through a patch of weeds. It stopped when it heard the car. Turned its head to them, tongue swinging. Gallagher couldn't make out the breed from here. It was ugly and big. The dog went on, moving northeast until it vanished into another shadow.

Lara kept a slow momentum, careful not to spook the animal. They rolled under the shade trees but the dog was gone. Just the empty road. “We lost it.”

“Keep going. Let's see what's back here.”

Bleeding out from behind a stand of pines stood a small bungalow. Old and unused, the paint peeling and the porch listing badly. The windows were crossed with duct tape, a cartoonish appearance of dead eyes.

Lara studied the house. “Cute.”

Movement on the porch. A dog rose up out of nothing. Not the dog they trailed but some other dog. Some other bastard breed. The dog watched the car, mouth closed. It padded down the steps and stood in the crabgrass. Hair rising up its back.

“He looks friendly.” Gallagher popped his door handle.

Lara stopped him. “He looks rabid. Let's call animal control. They can take care of it.”

“And what, sit here for an hour while they mosey on over?” He pushed the door open and stepped out. His right palm balancing over the butt of the service issue on his belt. When he straightened up, the dog was gone. “Where'd he go?”

“Took off behind the house.”

Gallagher closed the door and crossed the yard.

Lara stayed under the wheel. Shit. The last thing she wanted was more dogs. Especially these big, ugly mothers here. But the cowboy stood on the bottom porch step, looking back her way. She bit down and got out.

They clomped up the porch, stretching over the third step which had rotted clean through. Gallagher banged on the door. “Police! Open the door!”

No answer, no noise. Lara peered into the window. Dark.

Noise spun their heads around in unison. The dogs were back, the one they'd followed and the one risen from its vigil on the porch. A third dog was with them, this one a pure pit bull. The dogs trotted back and forth across the yard, sniffing the air. One barked, then they all barked. Guttural snaps at intruders in their territory. The dogs paced, knocking into one another, but did not advance.

“Bold buggers, aren't they?” Gallagher watched them from his vantage point.

Lara unsnapped her holster. She fought back the urge to just unsheathe and start shooting.

“Oh look,” Gallagher said. “The door's open.” He punched his elbow through the small plate-glass window. The glass snapped and he bashed out the remaining shards, knocking the frame free of glass.

“Whoa,” she said. “We don't have a warrant.”

“What warrant? The door just happened to be open, so we took a look.” He reached through the frame and groped for the lock.

“Stop. We're not cutting corners.“

A roar from inside cut her off. Gallagher snapped his arm back. A snout shot through the window frame, teeth catching his sleeve. The dog inside the house shook its head savagely. Would not let go. Gallagher yanked his gun free and cracked the dog hard across the nose until it let go.

Nails skittered across the floor and the dog was gone. Gallagher looked at his torn sleeve, checked his arm. No blood.

“Son of a bitch.”

“Are you alright?” She took his arm. “Let me see.”

“He didn't break the skin.” He peered through the broken frame. Nothing moved within. He reached back inside, turned the lock and withdrew quickly. Pushed the door open.

“Gallagher, we need to do this right or not at all.”

“You want to stay out here with them?” He regarded the dogs pacing the front yard and went through. The dogs barked. She stepped over the threshold.

It was dark. Curtains drawn, the windows yellow squares in the gloom. The air was stale and ripe with animal smells. A foyer that opened onto a living room on the left, a kitchen on the right. A hallway with doors, then stairs to the basement.

Gallagher swept the living room. A torn up sofa, its padding bleeding out. Trash over the scuffed floors, more of it on the coffee table. Cartons of rotting takeout and crushed beer cans. A hockey stick propped up in the corner. Flies buzzed the room, dotting the window. The TV was on, flickering pale light over the filth. Grainy porn played onscreen.

“This is rank.” She covered her nose.

“Ten bucks says there's severed heads in the icebox.” He tried the light switch but the overhead stayed dark. Burned out or disconnected. “We need a flashlight.”

“Gloves too.” She looked back to the front door. “In the car.”

“Stay here.”

A racket rose from the back of the house. Thuds. Clicking claws. Barking. Dogs roared up the back steps and charged into the narrow hallway. Three, maybe four vicious looking animals. Jaws popping.

Lara drew her weapon. More goddamn dogs.

Gallagher snatched up the hockey stick and charged, hollering and swinging the stick like some crazy person. “Get outta here! Get!”

The dogs backpedaled, confused and cowed. Gallagher smacked the nearest hard across the snout. It scrambled for the back, the other two scampered through an open door. He pulled the door shut, trapping the dogs inside a bedroom. A clattering sound farther down as the others sailed through the back door.

Lara swung the barrel down and held her breath. Muffled barking from the closed room but that was all. Her hand was shaky from gripping the pistol so tightly.

“Those mutts come back,” he said, “just start shooting.”

He went out the door, came back with two Maglites and latex gloves. They searched the house.

She cleared the kitchen, finding more trash and flies. Bowls of dog food on the floor, kibble scattered across the linoleum. She couldn't step anywhere without crunching it underfoot. She sifted through the trash on the small table but found nothing useful. The dusty cupboards held a few dishes, a can of wasp killer. The fridge last. She gripped the chrome handle and scenes from a dozen horror movies flickered through her imagination. The surprise waiting in the refrigerator.

The interior bulb was out. It stank but all it held was rancid leftovers and cloudy jars. Two cans of Pabst, still in the plastic ring.

Gallagher checked the room off the hallway. Wire hangers on the floor. A crucifix on the wall, hung over a bed that was no longer there. He skipped the room where he had trapped the crazy dogs. They scratched at the wood, noses snorting at the crack under the door.

He played the flashlight over the dark bathroom. The sink and backsplash were filthy with some dark stain. He touched it. Black and brittle, it flaked away under his fingertip.

They reconnoitered at the back stairwell. “No heads in the fridge,” she said. “You owe me ten.”

“Maybe he's got a meat freezer in the basement.”

She tried the wall switch. Nothing. Wooden steps faded down into the darkness.

The stairs creaked, a groove worn into the wood. Their beams didn't travel far, tubes of dust in the air. Lara swung her light up. Pipes and wires exposed between the joists. Her first thought was asbestos.

They moved apart, splitting the search. The walls were damp, beads of moisture on the cinder block. Broken furniture crowded the floor space, a maze of chair spindles and chipped cabinets.

Lara wound through the junk, working toward the front of the house. A card table and chair nestled under the cobwebbed window. On the table, a cracked lamp and a notebook. Cheap school supply with a flimsy black cover, a pen folded inside. She prodded the notebook open to where the pen held. Scribbled notes, cramped and difficult to decipher. She turned the pages. More fevered script, the dense blocks of text separated by a symbol-- a star inside a circle. There was a name for this symbol but it escaped her. Lara blinked, understanding what it was.

The cheap little notebook was a journal.

GALLAGHER scoured the south half of the cellar. Junk and little else. Then his light caught the chains. Heavy gauge link, suspended from the ceiling and trailing down about waist high. Two lengths of it, each chain ending in an iron cuff. Not slim like police bracelets but wide and thick, fastened together with a simple cotter pin.

More chain on the floor, coiled up in a pile. Attached to something at the end. He lifted the chain and threw his light over a girth of tooled leather and metal chink. Some kind of harness or restraint.

“Chains and leather, huh?” He let it fall to the floor. “How original.”

The throw of light played into the deeper corners. An oil-stained workbench hugged the wall, tools scattered on top. Clamps and awls, cast-iron tongs and a bench vise. The whole stinking cellar felt like some kind of medieval torture chamber.

Air blew in through a broken basement window, the breeze riffling pictures tacked to the wall. Pages torn from wank mags. Dull-eyed women cupping overflowing boobs. Scattered among these were pages from a children's book of bible stories. Soft focus illustrations of Mary and Jesus. John with the lambs and Daniel petting lions. The cheeseball sacred and the pedestrian profane.

Gallagher leaned in for a better look. “Well, well, well. Aren't we complicated.”

A slash of red picked up in the light. His first thought was blood but it was too shiny. Just paint. Pulling back, the slash became an arced line of graffiti. It was big, a red circle some four feet in diameter. Within the ring, a crude star with five points. The paint splashed on thick and careless, running in rivulets down the cinder block. It tripped a memory, something on a record cover when he was a kid. Black Sabbath, Alice Cooper, stuff like that.

Lara's voice called out from the far side of the basement. He squeezed past the upright tables and bed frames until he found her sitting at the little card table under the window. Reading something.

“Look at this.” She held the notebook up for him to see. He shrugged, all Greek to him. “It's a journal,” she said.

“Like a diary? Who are we looking for, a twelve-year-old girl?”

“Look at this,” she said, impatient for him to understand. “Most of this is illegible but I could read bits here and there. This guy, whoever he is, he describes an affliction he can't control. One he's powerless to stop. He refers to it as a curse.”

Suspended over the table was a crate nailed into the wall, a hack-job shelf. Filed onto it were more of the same cheap notebooks. He took one down, flipped through it. “There's more here.”

“Six in all.” She glanced up from the pages, her brow creased. “This curse he describes? He fights it off and pushes it down, trying to control it. But it builds and builds until he can't fight it anymore. He explodes.”

Antennae unfolded from Gallagher's brain. “Then what?”

“He blacks out. Wakes up covered in blood. Then he's sick with shame and self-loathing.”

“Get outta here.” This had to be bullshit. Dunkers like this don't exist. And they sure as hell don't just drop in your lap.

“Look closer.” She laid the notebook on the table and turned the pages. “There are no dates anywhere but let's assume each block of text separated by this weird symbol is an entry. Let's also assume an entry a day. When was Elizabeth Riley killed? Best estimate.”

“Seven to twelve days ago. Maybe more.”

She turned to the last entry and flipped backwards, counting down the entries. “The last blackout period he describes was nine entries ago. Nine days, maybe ten if he takes Sundays off.”

Lara straightened her back. Eat that. Gallagher riffled the pages, counting the entries himself. Impressed as hell at what she'd found but damned if he would let her see that. You gotta keep the young guns in line, otherwise they run giddy and trip over their six-shooters.

“Okay,” he allowed.

“Okay?” She spit it back at him. Was he completely dense? “Don't you get it? This is smoking gun territory, Gallagher. Look at it!”

“Put it back.”

“What?”

“How did you find this?”

She closed the notebook and squared it up on the table. “Like this.”

He wrapped his hand round her bicep. “Time to do it your way.” He beckoned toward the stairs. “We get a warrant and seal this place off.”

12

THE SKY WAS dark when they came out of the decrepit little house. More rain coming. Of the dogs, there was no sign.

“Can we call ahead, get things moving?” Lara dug for the car keys. “Maybe LaBayer can write up the warrant and have it ready to go.”

“Yeah. Except one of us needs to stay here and seal off the site. Keep an eye open if this guy comes back.”

Lara stopped cold. No way did she want to stay here alone. “Who goes, who stays?”

He crossed the yard to the car. “Depends which judge we're going after for a signature. You friendly with any of them?”

No response. He turned, saw her staring past him. “Mendes?”

“Behind you.” She pointed. “Up the road.”

A man stood in the distance.

Fifteen, maybe twenty yards up the dirt path. Little more than a silhouette in this light. Tall and bearded, his face hidden under the hood of his tattered raincoat. A dog stood at attention at his knees, as still as the man. It was big. Gallagher guessed it to be a husky. The man watched them. He didn't move.

Gallagher moved away from the car and into the road, facing the stranger. Like a scene in a western, two hombres staring each other down. He half expected the man to reach for his six-guns.

“Easy.” Lara's voice was quiet. “Don't spook him.”

The man moved. Turned and marched away with long strides. The dog at his heels.

Gallagher went after him. “Hey!”

The man broke into a run. Disappeared into a stand of trees. Gallagher hollered back to Lara. “Get the car!”

Gallagher sprinted after the man, turned into the trees. Through a ditch and up the other side. A gravel lot of puddles and pot-holes. Two low buildings and a fence. No sign of the creep.

A clang. Gallagher zeroed in on the noise. The man squeezed through a seam in the chain-link, holding it open for the dog to jump through. Fast mother.

LARA slammed the car into gear and took off, spitting gravel behind her. She gunned it past the trees and farther down where the fence opened onto a lot.

She caught a glimpse of Gallagher hoofing it across the gravel and spun towards him. The car bounced hard over the potholes, forcing her to slow down. She didn't see anything, no movement, no man—

There. Bounding from behind a shed, the man and the dog. Both hurtling fast into the open. She stomped the gas pedal, steering right at him.

The spooky man changed direction and ran right at her. Charging the car in a game of chicken. Jesus. She was going to splatter the crazy bastard. She braked.

The man leaped and stomped up over the hood. Dented the roof and rolled down the trunk. A blur in the rearview mirror. The man sprawled to the ground, rolled to his feet and kept running.

She cranked the wheel hard but Gallagher shot out of nowhere and slammed over the hood. He snarled at her, then bolted away.

Gallagher lost sight of the man when he hit the car but he kept running. Lungs blowing hard. It was raining now. He wiped his eyes. Where the hell did he go?

Movement in his periphery. A sooty building to his left, the door banging closed. That way.

The inside was dark and musty-smelling. Windows a story above his head brought some light into the space but not much. Adjusting to the gloom, Gallagher could make out some heavy machinery. A track of conveyor trestle twisting through the air. The steel rollers sat motionless in the available light. Dust roiled the air, kicked up from the floor. Gallagher leaned over, hands on his knees. He listened for movement but all he heard were his own lungs sucking air.

He slid his weapon from the holster and kept it trained on the floor. He hollered into the darkness. “Police! Show yourself!”

Silence. He ducked under the conveyor trestle, past workbenches. Dust motes danced in the shafts of light, sucking into his lungs. He spat and called out again. “Hit the floor, asshole, and call out! Before I accidentally blow your head off!”

Not a peep. Fine, he thought. We'll talk after I blow a hole through your heart. Where the hell was Mendes?

Noise to his left. He swung the gun up. The dog came at him, barking and snapping. Gallagher drew a bead on it but the husky kept its distance. The barking rang off all the metal, deafening him.

Something made him look up.

The man was flying. No, not flying. Dropping from above.

The man's full weight slammed him to the floor. Knocked the wind from his lungs. Couldn't breathe or even think. The gun knocked from his hand. He watched, almost amused, as it spun across the floor.

He was being hit. The son of a bitch was pummeling him. Gallagher sucked oxygen and rolled, bucked. The creep came back for more. He kicked out like a mule and popped the man's knee. The bastard crumpled and Gallagher groped for the gun. Where is the gun?

A freight train knocked him over. They rolled, tangled. Gallagher kneed, punched, elbowed and gouged. Forget the gun, he'd rip the bastard's eyes out with his bare hands.

An elbow smashed his nose. Blind pain. He felt himself hoisted up and thrown. His skull rang off a machine press. White pixies in his eyes. Shit. Don't pass out. Don't pass out.

Coarse hands locked around his throat, crushing his windpipe. The ragged man leaned in close, grunting obscenely. Long stringy hair, spittle threading into the foul beard. The eyes tweaked. A scar on his brow, a cross carved between the eyes. Words chopped out between the teeth.

“You pigs. Always get in the way.”

The man was strong. Younger, too. Gallagher couldn't hit back, couldn't get free.

Pop. Pop. Gunshots. Mendes.

Lara charged, gun up. Saw Gallagher flat on his back, the suspect choking him to death. She yelled at him to stop, then she fired. Two rounds to get his attention. It was the first time Lara Mendes had ever discharged her weapon on duty.

“Get on the ground! Now!” She drew a bead on the assailant's chest.

He bolted. Faster than she could follow, he was just gone. Swallowed up in the machinery. She sprinted after him, ducking under cables. A glimpse of the suspect scrambling up a trestle. He leaped into space and sailed clean through a broken window.

She climbed up after him, slipping on the greasy metal. Her hands found the window frame and hauled herself up. A vista of rail cars and sea crates in a vast yard. No movement, no telltale dust cloud. The man was simply gone.

She found Gallagher sitting on the floor, one hand folded over the back of his head. Lara knelt down next to him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. Just dizzy.”

She took his arm to help him up, saw the blood on his fingers. She turned his head, saw more blood clotting his hair. “That looks bad,” she said.

“Just help me up.”

She pivoted backward and pulled him to his feet. He straightened up then teetered forward. She propped him upright.

“Shit,” he said. His eyes rolled over white and he timbered down onto her. They both went down. She smacked his cheek, called his name. No response, officer down.

EMERGENCY lights strobed the face of the dead building, red then blue over the mottled brickwork. Two prowl cars and an ambulance parked outside the entrance.

Paramedics wheeled the stretcher out and loaded Gallagher into the bus. All they could tell Detective Mendes was that he was concussed with a lacerated scalp. She held back until the ambulance was away before turning to the uniformed officers waiting on her.

Lara led two of the uniforms back to the rundown bungalow at the end of the lane. She told them about the dogs trapped inside the house and warned there were others in the area. They searched the house again. The dogs locked in the bedroom went berserk, barking crazily behind the thin wooden door. One uniform, a kid in his twenties, shied away from the door as it jostled and banged in its frame. “If that busts open,” he said, “you all better duck, cause I'm just gonna start shooting.”

The other chided him for being so willing to kill a poor dog. Did he hate animals? The young man loved animals as long as they were kittens or bunnies and such. Rabid street dogs he had no time for.

When the property was cleared, Detective Mendes closed up the front and back doors to contain the dogs should the bedroom door fail. She called the precinct and spoke to detective Bingham, asked him to send out the crime scene techs. He took the information, offered his help. She thanked him for that. It was a small place but there was a lot of crap to sift through.

The uniforms waited on her. The one who didn't care for dogs asked what she wanted to do next.

“Seal off the property. One car here at the house, park the other up at the road. Stop anyone who turns in. Get their name and details.” Lara walked back to her car, a plastic evidence bag tucked under her arm. The officer followed. “Call the animal shelter, get them down here. Tell them we got two big dogs in the house and more strays in the area. I'll be back soon.”

“Where you going? Isn't this your crime scene?”

“It's the tech's scene now. I'll be at the hospital.” She climbed under the wheel, tossed the evidence bag onto the passenger seat. Inside was a cheap black notebook.

13

IN A BUSY emergency room, even a cop has a hard time getting a straight answer. Lara had to reach over the counter to find out where Gallagher was. Up to the third floor, east wing. Follow the green lines.

She found the room, looked in the window. Gallagher sat on the bed, shoulders slouched forward. A doctor was in the room, speaking to him but Gallagher didn't seem to be listening. Quel shocker.

There was a third person in the room, a girl in her teens. Lara put her age at sixteen, maybe seventeen years. Hair falling down her face, arms folded. Gallagher put a hand on her shoulder but the girl shrugged it off and flopped into the chair. The doctor kept talking. Gallagher's eyes went back to the floor. He looked defeated. Ashamed, maybe.

Who was this girl?

Lara pilfered a pair of latex gloves from an untended cart and found a chair. She slipped the notebook from the plastic bag. The handwriting was frenzied, the paper grooved from the pen strokes. Hard to decipher the words but the first entry was an obscenity-spewed rant against someone who had wronged him. It was a laundry list of torments planned to make the person suffer but the target of the rage was never mentioned by name. She found sketches scattered throughout. Dogs or maybe wolves. Nude women in supine poses. Skulls. A house bordered by trees. Then more pages of cramped writing. No dates. The entries, if that's what they were, separated by the crude star inside a circle.

Lara fanned through the pages, hoping the suspect had scrawled his John Hancock somewhere in the book. Nothing. A face flipped by. She thumbed back through the pages, found a man's face taking up the entire page. Long hair, beard, the eyes shaded under the brow. A cross-shaped scar marred the skin between the eyes. Was this a self-portrait?

Damn. The creepy dude provided his own police sketch.

She tucked her feet under her and got comfortable. Flipping back to the beginning of the notebook, Lara settled in to decipher the gibberish.

THE click of the door brought Lara's eyes from the page. The girl in Gallagher's room stepped into the hallway, her eyes tired and puffy. Is this who she spoke to on the phone when she called Gallagher's house? Lara put the book aside and peeled off the gloves. “Is he okay?”

Amy looked at the woman in the hallway. Shrugged. “Doctor says so,” she said. “Not that it really matters to Dad. He doesn't much like doctors.”

“You're Amy,” Lara said. The name on Gallagher's emergency contact was a daughter, not a spouse like she had assumed. “I must have frightened you when I called. I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. Kinda freaked me out. But no, I'm glad you did.” Amy rubbed her eyes. “None of Dad's other partners ever called when he got hurt. I'd never know till it was all over. So… Thanks.”

Lara swiped a pack of tissues from the cart, handed it to the girl. “Do you need a lift home? I can get someone to drive you.”

“I'm okay. My friend's waiting for me. She has a car.” Amy turned to go then stopped. “What's your name?”

“I'm Detective Mendes.”

“No. Your first name.”

“Lara.”

“Thanks, Lara.” Amy gave a little wave and went down the hall, backtracking along the green line on the floor.

Lara watched her go. Nice girl. How could she be Gallagher's kid?

GALLAGHER fumbled the buttons on his shirt, still woozy. Why do doctors always make you strip for anything? The knock he took was to the head but still they insisted he remove all his clothes. Why? Probably so they could swipe every damn cent from his pockets.

When the door opened he thought it was Amy, forgetting something like she always did. Mendes entered instead, a white box tucked under her arm. “How are you feeling?”

“Who the hell told my daughter I was here?” He knew it had to be her but he needed to bark at someone.

“My mistake,” Lara said. “I saw her name as your emergency contact. I just assumed it was your wife. Sorry”

Gallagher slung the tie round his neck, measured the length.

“She's a sweet kid.” Lara put the box on the bedside table.

“You know why she's a sweet kid? Because she doesn't get calls about her old man winding up in the hospital.” He scooped up his keys, dropped them into a pocket. “You need to file that request. We made a break in the case so it won't look like you're giving up.”

“Are you kidding me? This is just getting good.”

He growled. “Mendes.”

“I got a warrant on the way,” she said. “Not that we need it now. We got probable cause up the ying yang with this guy. Maybe you should go home, rest up.”

He scalded her with a look. “What's in the box?”

“Get dressed. I'm parked out front.” Detective Mendes left the room.

Gallagher looked at the box on the table. He flipped the lid open. Donuts. Every one of them covered in sprinkles.

TEETH popped and chomped, trying to bite Pablo, bite anything. Two loops of rope choking its neck, the Staffordshire twisted and jerked against the restraints. Pablo and another man kept the snapping dog at bay with restraint poles noosed around the animal's neck. Both men strained against the animal, pushing the Staffordshire to the truck marked Animal Services. Pablo dropped his pole, leaving the other man to hold the dog still, while he grabbed the tail and hoisted the animal into the cage. They slackened the cord, slid the loop off the dog and locked the cage.

“I told ya we should of used the tranq,” said the other man, out of breath.

“Lot of fight left in these hounds.” Pablo nodded at the first dog they removed from the premises, already caged in the truck. “Look at them.”

“Is that your buddy?”

The unmarked car trundled past the CSU truck to a spot on the weed-choked yard. Gallagher climbed out and waved to Pablo. The shelter director looked at the bandage on the detective's forehead. “What happened to you?”

“Dog bit me.” Gallagher checked the dogs caged inside the truck. “These the two in the house, yeah? You find any others?”

“There was one sniffing around when we pulled in,” said Pablo. “But it took off. We'll take a spin around, see if we can find him.”

Gallagher thanked him and went on up to the house. Lara gave the penned dogs a wide berth and ducked under the police tape.

Portable lamps trucked in from the CSU vehicle lit up every dingy corner. A crime scene technician sifted through garbage on the floor while another popped photographs. Two uniforms stood in the kitchen clutching cold cups of coffee.

Lara stepped over the cables running along the floor. “Forensics are still bagging stuff. I held off on the APB, you got a better look at him than I did.”

“What's the story on this dump?”

“Condemned. Our boy's squatting.”

Gallagher picked through the litter on the kitchen table. “Any luck finding a name?”

“Maybe. Come see.”

The basement steps still creaked but there was nothing spooky about the place now, with floodlights pushing every shadow to the corners. Gallagher followed Lara to the little card table under the window. A shoebox sat on top. She upended it on the table. Credit cards and driver's licenses spilled out.

“I found these all over the house. The guy likes his aliases.”

“Any of these belong to our boy?”

“You tell me.” Lara fanned the licenses across the table. A police lineup of DMV photos. “Can you pick him out?”

He scrutinized each one. “He's not in here.”

“Okay.” Lara pulled one of the notebooks off the crate shelf and flipped it open to a page she had dog-eared. “How about this?”

Gallagher studied the drawing. The hair, beard and that cross-shaped scar, all rendered neatly in pencil. “That's him. Quite the Picasso.” He leafed through the rest of the notebook, skimming over the fevered handwriting. “You find a name in any of these?”

“Nada,” Lara said. “But the techs lifted a lot of good prints. Fingers crossed, this guy's in the system.”

“I can't read this chicken scratch. Is it even English?”

“You're not going to believe what I found in here.” She took the notebook back. “At least the parts I can decipher. I told you how he describes this affliction he has? Sometimes he refers to it as a disease, a chronic ailment he tries to manage. Other times he calls it a curse.”

“Right. He gets all pent up and boom. Someone's dead.” Already dismissing it, Gallagher turned to the graffiti on the basement wall. “Sounds like he's laying the groundwork for an insanity plea.”

“It gets better. Way better.”

“Yeah,” he said. Barely paying attention.

“This affliction he describes? His curse? He's given it a name.” Lara balked, unsure of even how to pronounce it right. She blurted it out. “Lycanthropy.”

“Like-a-what?”

“Lycanthropy. The guy thinks he's a werewolf.”

That stopped him cold and he turned his eyes to her. Parsing what the hell she just said. The word just hung there in the air between them.

“Great.” He finally shrugged, like he came across this every day. “Now he's the dogcatcher's problem.”

Not the reaction she was looking for. Lara pulled down the rest of the notebooks and shoved them into his hands. “There are six of these journals. Most of what I've deciphered describes the same thing over and over. Pushing it down, fighting it until it overwhelms him. He comes out of it racked with remorse. Suicidal over his guilt. This guy has killed before. God knows how many times.”

Gallagher’s dismissive turn of mouth dropped away. He flipped through the top notebook. “You find any names or dates? Locations?”

“Nothing solid to go on. So far, anyway.” She crossed the floor to where a chain dangled from the joists overhead. “But I found out what these are for.”

Lara trailed up the end of a chain, held up the iron cuff. “My first guess was this stuff was some bondage gear, but it's not. They're his restraints. He chains himself up when he feels the urge come over him.”

THE Siberian sniffed the perimeter of the rooftop, padding through puddles in the warped tar. It found a dry spot, circled twice and bedded down. Chin to the ground, waiting.

The man sat on the roof's edge, one leg dangling over. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, teeth flashing through the whiskers of his beard. From his perch he could see his home. What used to be his home. Now it was ringed by police vehicles with their stupid flashing lights. He watched the pigs come and go, tearing apart his home. He cocked his head and spit. After a while, he turned away and crossed the tar roof to the exit.

The Siberian rose and fell in line behind him.

THE premises search turned up nothing else to identify the squatter. No other identification, no correspondence nor bills. There was no landline and no cell phone to go on. Nothing with a name on it.

The CSU techs came back with a number of fingerprints. All of these were sorted and fed into the system, fingers crossed that something would match up. DNA swabs were taken from the beer cans and utensils and sent to the lab. With any luck it would match one of the myriad profiles found on the victim. But that would take time, their job joining a backlog of samples in a logjam of other investigations waiting to move forward.

Lara stuck her nose in the pages of the notebooks and didn't come up for air. She studied the crazed writing for any tangibles like locations or names. She scrutinized every sketch, the renderings of wolves and naked women. The drawings of the house seemed important. Always the same house but rendered from different perspectives. Significant but with no context, useless to her.

She found seven self-portraits peppered throughout the notebooks. She photocopied each one and pinned them to her evidence board. With no dates, she hazarded a guess to their chronological order, based solely on the increasingly sordid look of the subject. Lines etched deeper into the face, the hair longer and the beard progressively more foul.

Gallagher stayed with the premises, canvassing every business around the site of the little broken-down house. He tramped into the trees, searching for anything. He dropped to his knees twice, winded and frail but waved off the concern of the uniforms and resumed the search. It took a direct call from the Lieutenant himself before Gallagher went home to rest up.

Detective Mendes called early the next morning while Gallagher was making breakfast. They got a hit on the prints and the system just spit out a name.

14

IVAN PRALL.

Lara's screen popped open a partial list of priors. No photograph available. She turned to her evidence board, which by now resembled an art project stapled up by some deranged child. She tore one of the photocopied self-portraits from the wall and handed it to Gallagher. “Ivan Prall. No fixed address, no known relatives.”

“What the hell kinda name is that?” He nodded to her screen. “What do you got?”

“Not a lot,” she said. “Both parents deceased. The father beat his mother to death, then hung himself inside the county jail. At age ten Prall enters the system, gets shuffled through a number of foster homes.”

“Where was this? Here in town?” Gallagher took his chair, stretched out his legs.

“Damascus.” Lara toggled down the screen. “Later on he lands in a foster home here in Portland and gets into trouble. Theft, arson, assault. Two years in a juvenile detention center, then he's released to a halfway house for troubled kids.

“Prall flees the halfway house, missing for a couple days and then shows up in a hospital ER with wounds from—” Lara leaned into the monitor to read the details. “An unspecified animal attack, probably a dog.”

“Sad story. Then what?”

“Nothing. He disappears from the hospital and he's never seen again.”

“When did he disappear?”

“Six years ago.” Lara tapped a pen on her knee. “Where's he been all this time?”

“Living off the grid. What about this halfway house? Somebody there must remember him.”

“I checked.” Lara read from her notes. “The place was shut down over a year ago. The guy who ran it was charged with abusing the kids in his care. All the records were sealed.”

“Who worked the case?”

“Doesn't say.”

“Find out, talk to them.” Gallagher stood. “I'll check in later.”

She tossed one of the black notebooks at him. “Hold on, cowboy. We got six of these to decipher. Pull up a chair.”

“It's insane gibberish. There's no specifics to these attacks he describes. Nothing to work from.”

“Where are you going?”

“I know a few paranoids who live off the grid. Maybe they know our boy.”

He left. Lara swiveled her chair around and got to work.

“IT was a horror show.”

This was Detective Roy Hammond, sitting across a checkered two-top in a diner off Quimby Street. He pushed the chair back to make room for the basketball swishing inside his shirt. He and Lara ordered coffee and discussed the weather until it arrived.

Mendes had spent the morning digging up the files about their suspect's last known address, the Gethsemane House of Transition and Redemption. She found the name of the investigating officer in the Child Abuse Team, a primary partner of the Sex Crimes unit. Detective Roy Hammond had handled that charge but was now working in Fraud Detail, a lateral career move for a man of his age but he had to get out of C.A.T. He did not want to see anymore of the tragedy it wreaked.

Having put it behind him, Hammond didn't want to talk but Lara persisted. So here he was, stirring two sugars into his coffee while Lara left hers black and let the detective talk.

“The Gethsemane House was supposed to transition kids out of juvie and back home. If they had one.” Hammond slurped his coffee. “But this place, it just screwed them up worse.”

Lara stayed quiet. Hammond's distaste for his former detail was clear by the grimace on his face. How many ruined kids had this guy seen? She kept her questions in check, letting him come around to it. He was doing her a favor after all.

“One of the former residents came forward, spilled the beans about how he was abused as a kid there. We investigated and shut the place down.”

“Who was the abuser?”

“Ronald Kovacks. He'd been at it for years. Really did a number on those kids. We nailed him on four convictions but there was more. A lot more.”

“None of the other victims wanted to press charges,” Lara guessed.

“In a nutshell. Kovacks and his wife ran the place like a bible camp. He really indoctrinated the kids in his care. Even fifteen years later, these people deny anything happened to them.”

“What about the wife? She was never charged.”

Hammond shrugged. “We didn't have enough on her. She knew what was going on but kept herself pickled most of the time. So we focused on him.”

Lara took out a pen. “What was her name?”

“Betty? No, Bethany Kovacks. See, these two started out as foster parents. They got money from the state to provide for the boys in their care. Then they realized they could get more money if they turned their place into a halfway house. More kids that way, plus they got money from the city in addition to the funds from the state level.”

“Where's Kovacks now?”

“Disappeared. The wife puts up the bail. He goes home and promptly disappears. Dunno what happened to her. She lost the house, everything. She signed a complete statement against him and then she disappeared too.”

Lara unfolded a piece of paper, smoothing it down on the table. The self-portrait, photocopied from the black notebook. “What about this man? He was one of the residents about six years ago. His name's Ivan Prall.”

Hammond studied the picture. “Don't recognize him. You think he's another abuse victim?”

“Could be. He's wanted for homicide.”

Hammond studied the sketch again but nothing more jostled his memory. “Sorry.”

“Where would I find the records from the Gethsemane House?”

“Stored away somewhere. I'll call my old partner, she still works C.A.T.”

There was little else to move on. The conversation drifted back to the mundane, both trading gripes about the job. Lara got the bill and thanked him for his time.

“You're working with Gallagher on this, right?” He held the door as they left the diner.

“Yup.”

“Keep your eyes open. The man's hard on partners.”

THE kitchen was dark, save for the bulb under the hood fan. Music filtered down from Amy's room. Gallagher had long given up trying to understand his daughter's taste in music, just as she withered painfully at his. He left his keys in the bowl and pulled the holster from his belt, remembering a time when they both sang along to the Tammy Wynette disc in the truck. Those moments he thought, “Wow, my kid's cool.” Then Amy turned twelve and declared his music stupid.

He thumbed the release and the magazine slid into his palm. He made sure the chamber was empty. The gun, clip and holster went into a cupboard over the fridge. Routine habit.

Last night's chicken was in the fridge. Easy enough to make a sandwich. Instead he got a glass and poured a lethal length of Bushmills. Put his feet up. The whiskey warmed his gut but teased out a dull ache along his shoulders.

“Tough day at the office?” Amy padded barefoot into the kitchen, carrying dirty dishes from her room. All of it clanging as it went into the sink.

“Why are you still up?” He flexed his fingers, warding off the swelling.

Amy took hold of his hand and looked at the raw knuckles. “You should ice that.”

“How was school today?”

“Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt.” Amy had read that in a book for English class and the sarcasm of it stayed with her.

He took his hand back. “Go to bed.”

“You gotta watch out for this stuff, dad. Remember Grandmama's arthritis?”

His mom, Amy's grandmother. Her hands gnarled with it. She adored Amy and spoiled her rotten every chance she got. It was mutual, Amy doting on her grandmother, helping out when her hands curled up into knotty stumps. Gallagher thought about it whenever his knuckles went stiff.

“Do you know how obnoxious it is to be scolded by your own kid?”

“Get some ice,” she said. “I'll find the Advil.”

A new picture hung from a pin on the evidence board. A medieval woodcut of a young girl being devoured by a werewolf, the figures stiff and doll-like. Lara had found it in a library book. Something about the picture— the simple lines, the expression on the woman's face— appealed to her. She couldn't say why, it just did. There were other pin-ups like this, not evidence but reference points and visual cues. Anything to get her brain stirring, to string together some insight into what she was dealing with.

The last two days had been spent searching the system for any suspicious deaths involving dogs or remains that had been interfered with by dogs. Starting within the city, then expanding out to the surrounding towns and then the state. A few results had trickled in. Nothing conclusive, nothing even classed as a homicide. A body found by hikers outside of Longview, the remains partially devoured and scattered by animals. C.O.D unknown. A similar incident across the state lines near Shelton, Washington. Badly decomposed remains found near a creek, the pieces scattered by animals. In both instances the bodies remained unidentified, their deaths unresolved. Intriguing, but there was nothing to string them together, nothing to tie in with the death of Elizabeth Riley.

“Where's Gallagher?”

Someone looming up behind her. She looked up to see Lieutenant Vogel, big as a mountain.

“God knows. He doesn't answer his phone.”

“That's because he knows it's you.” The Lieutenant opened his cell and dialed. Lara watched him drum his fingers on the chair and then bark into the phone. “Where the hell are you? What? No. Stop talking. Stay put.”

Vogel ended the call, turned back to her. “He's down at the amusement park. Oaks Bottom.”

She spun her jacket off the chair, scooped a notepad off the desk.

“Hold on.” He blocked her way. “What's he been up to? Have you seen him pull any stunts?”

“Stunts?”

“Has he been cutting corners? Abusing suspects, bullying witnesses or otherwise treating procedure like dog shit on his shoes?”

Was this a test? In the short time they had worked together, Lara had watched Gallagher threaten and cajole half a dozen people so far. He broke procedure the way he breathed, made up his own stupid rules on the fly. She looked her boss straight in the eye. “No.”

Vogel was silent. Staring down at her, sniffing out a lie. A tinge of disappointment in his eyes. Was he regretting his decision to make her Homicide? An eternity, then he turned away. “What are you waiting for? Go catch him before he takes off again.”

She marched quickly for the door. Lara had always considered her mother, being both Mexican and Catholic, to be the master of the guilt trip. She realized now the woman had nothing on Lieutenant Vogel. The man was a ninja master of refracted guilt. She wondered if she had time to stop at the nearest church and light a candle to the Guadalupe. Probably not.

OAKS Bottom was a rank marsh of black oaks and reeds, and a long time ago someone had built an amusement park at the butt end of it. The smell of popcorn and corn dogs had settled into the trees and the asphalt, a greasy haze of fun hanging like a mist.

Gallagher had been here as a kid and came back when he was a dad. Lifting Amy into the kiddie rocket ride or blowing twenty bucks on the ring toss to win a stuffed froggy that spilled its stuffing two days later. He hadn't been back since the summer Amy was ten. Amy still came to the park but only with her friends now, not her old man. Another door slamming shut on his connection with a daughter eager to grow up. No more Tilt-A-Whirls.

The smell finally got to him. The last two hours spent hunkered behind the wheel in the parking lot, playing a hunch. Waiting for the owner of one of the food stands to come back to his vehicle. Gallagher neglected to pack a lunch and his stomach curled in on itself. The smell of onion rings was too much.

The lot was half full of cars. No one had come or gone in the last twenty minutes. He made a dash for the nearest stall and came back with two cheeseburgers and spicy fries. The paper in the tray already translucent with oil before he got back into the Cherokee.

Detective Mendes sat in the passenger bucket.

“Thanks for returning my calls, pardner,” she said.

He settled the tray onto the dashboard. “What do ya want, Mendes? I'm on the clock.”

Her eyes swept the amusement park and came back to the tray steaming up the windshield. “Doing what exactly?”

He unwrapped a cheeseburger. “You want some spicy fries? Best in town.”

Lara leaned back in the seat, watching the Ferris wheel circle over the fairgrounds. Why didn't she send in that request when she had a chance?

“Unclench, chief. You're wound up too tight. Eat something.” He held out the tray. She took a fry. “So what do ya got?”

“I found five deaths where the remains were partially consumed by animals, possibly dogs. One in Oregon, two in Washington state and two more across the border in B.C.” She licked her fingers, reached for another. “All of them inconclusive because of decomposition, cause of death undetermined.”

“You think it's him?”

“There's no consistency to it,” she said. “The deceased are both male and female. Two were in their twenties, the last one was a man in his fifties. But if it is him, it shows his movement over the last year-and-a-half.”

“That's more than we had yesterday.” Gallagher's eyes looked past her, scanning over the parking lot. Watching people return to their cars. “Just don't fall in love with it. You might have to dump it all later on.”

She tucked into the fries again. Last time. Promise. “I went through his journals again, the parts that I can decipher. And the thing is, this guy knows he's got a problem but he can't stop it. Weirder still, he's remorseful. Ashamed even.”

“That's the Catholic in him. Did you see all those Jesus pictures in the basement?” He wiped the mustard from the corner of his mouth. “The guy's a loony tune, Mendes. Don't waste your time crawling into his head.”

“Dismissing him as crazy is too easy.” Lara caught the disappointment in Gallagher's eyes when he realized half his fries were gone. Oops. “He knows right from wrong. He's even tried to cure himself.”

“Dude thinks he's the wolfman. That's as crazy as they come.”

She shook her head. “No. He's misdiagnosed his own psychosis. Instead of seeing the real problem, he believes he's a wolf. It actually makes a weird kind of sense.”

Crumbs flew from his teeth. “How does that make any sense?”

“Prall was abused at this halfway house, like all the others. What happens to these kids when they grow up?”

He shrugged. “Tough lives. Drugs, suicide, downward spirals. Some of them become abusers themselves.”

“Right. Once subjected to it, the affliction or pathology or whatever it is, is passed on. The werewolf myth works the same way. If you're bitten by one, you become a wolf too.”

Gallagher knocked the idea around. “That's real interesting and everything but, again, it doesn't help us with the practical.”

“Well what do you have? You're scarfing burgers at an amusement park.”

“Me? I'm just trying to find a crazy dude who likes dogs—” He sat up suddenly, wiped his hands on his jeans and reached for the ignition. “I gotta go.”

Lara followed his eyes across the parking lot. A rotund man waddled through the cars and unlocked the door to a Land Rover. The man huffed in, the Rover tilting under his weight. The brake lights lit up.

“See you at the office.” Gallagher started the truck, waiting for her to get out.

Lara pulled the seatbelt around. “You're not ditching me again.”

“You're not gonna like this, Mendes.”

The Land Rover backed out of the spot and rolled to the exit.

“Just go. Before you lose the guy.”

15

THE ROVER TURNED south on S.E. Seventeenth and merged onto the Milwaukee Expressway. Traffic wasn't bad yet, allowing Gallagher to lay back four car lengths behind the Rover.

The takeout tray slid across the dashboard. Lara caught it, tucked it away under the seat. “So who is this guy?”

“Eugene Shockton,” Gallagher said. “Douchebag I busted years ago. He's got a concession booth at the park and a lunch counter in NoPo. A coin laundry, too.”

“And how is he a douchebag?”

“Eugene likes to gamble. He got himself in hawk to some bad people a while ago. Now he launders money for them through his businesses.”

Lara kept her eyes on the Rover. “Was he involved in a homicide?”

“No. I busted him back working Burglary. Eugene's got his mitts in a lot of things. Sometimes if I'm stuck, Eugene's a good guy to talk to.”

“Your informant.” She lost sight of the Rover and leaned her head against the glass to see around the ass-end of traffic.

“A reluctant one. But he responds well to pain.”

“So why are we following him? Just ask him if he knows anything about Ivan Prall.”

“I'm not interested in what Eugene knows. It's his hobbies that interest me.”

A blur of green up ahead, Lara's eyes tracked the Rover as it weaved to an exit ramp. “He's getting off the expressway.”

Gallagher took the exit but there were no cars between them and the Rover now. He slowed, putting distance between them. A minivan rode up their tail, honking. Gallagher touched the brake, forcing the infuriated driver to pass and roar up behind the chase car.

The Rover veered into an industrial strip, trawling past a carpet cleaner and a Japanese food importer. Gallagher swung into a parking slot and killed the engine. They watched the green truck roll behind the strip to a squat bunker of yellow brick.

“What is this place?” Lara scanned the other vehicles lined alongside, blocking the roll-up doors. Eugene Shockton wobbled from his vehicle to a side door. “A gambling house?”

“Sort of.” Gallagher crooked an arm over the wheel. “Eugene loves to gamble large. He plays the ponies, the cockfights. Whatever you got, he'll lay a wager on it. But his true love? Right yonder.”

He waved at a pickup moving through the strip toward the bunker. Built into the box was a kennel with mesh windows. Behind the mesh were dogs, their noses pressed to the cage windows.

“Dog fighting?”

“Our perp likes dogs, right? Maybe he tests his mutts in the ring.” He reached behind the seat and dragged up a black hoodie. Tossed it into her lap. “Put that on.”

She shook dust from it. “This smells.”

“There aren't a lot of women at these things. Put it on, pull up the hood.” He grinned at her then climbed out. “Told ya you wouldn't like it.”

She made no move to follow or even open her door. More dogs? Gallagher took her measure and strode toward the bunker. He didn't look back.

Shit.

THE wedge of sunlight thinned until the door clanged shut behind them. Lara barely made out Gallagher, quickly paying the brute manning the door and pulling her along after him. The doorman looked her up and down but said nothing. A riot of noise flooded out, dogs barking, people hollering overtop a heavy-bottomed beat thrumming the floor. The corridor opened into a warehouse space, bodies milling about in the dark. Lights fingered up from somewhere in the center.

Lara kept her head down, eyes peering out under the dip of the hood. Too-tough black guys with masks of stone. Cracker whites with ball caps reversed on shaved heads. Asians in suits and cigarettes. Some with jailhouse tattoos and others with soft, manicured hands. Everyone peeling off twenties and laying down. Bikers, bankers and candlestick makers.

The dogs brayed and barked, shut up behind grates or chained to poles. All of them alert and tensed. Teeth filed down to razors by their flabby owners, muscles pumped with steroids. The newbies patted their dogs, trying hard to look bored. The pros scrawled their dog's names onto fight cards. These men batted their animals in the snout to aggravate them, key them up to fight. Many held kits; scalpels and needles to stitch up their prize fighters after each bout. Hypodermics topped with pentobarbital to euthanize the losers too ripped up to save.

Lara squeezed through the bodies toward the lights at the center. Up on her toes to peek over shoulders at the main event. Straw bales, packed three high, formed the arena where two dogs were killing each other. A Staffordshire bit down hard, its teeth ripping the snout from a Rottweiler mix. The Rotty whimpered as the Staffordshire sawed its head back and forth, peeling the face off the lost dog. The dog owners hollered foul from the hay bales and the gap-toothed referee leaned his hands on his knees but no one moved to stop the bloodshed. The Rottweiler's legs gave out and it dropped to the straw but the other dog didn't let up, given over to its mindless frenzy.

Lara turned away, unable to stomach any more. God Almighty, is this what happened to Elizabeth Riley? Was she alive when she endured that? Without thinking she made the sign of the cross, something she hadn't done in a very long time.

A man stepped over the bales, boxing the ears of the referee and chasing him from the ring. Clad in a leather butcher's apron that glistened with blood, no shirt beneath it. Thick arms inked to the wrists. He tried to haul the victor off but the Staffordshire would not relent. The butcher man snatched an ear in one hand and stabbed his fingers into the dog's anus with the other hand. The animal released and he hurled it into the bales.

The Rottweiler lay wheezing in its own blood. It raised its head to its master, the snout all but sheared from the bone. It wagged its tail twice and lay back down. Someone threw a blanket over it. The owner carried his dog from the pit and laid it down near a wall. This man had no hypodermic to end the animal's suffering nor could he buy one from another contender, having lost so much money already. He didn't know what to do. The dog panted at his feet, unable to even whimper.

In the pit, the man in the butcher's apron threw sawdust over the blood on the floor. The men leaning over the bales drank and settled their bets and wagered anew, calling out for the next match.

“Are you assholes ready for the next fight?” Butcher man turned around inside the pit, addressing all. “Entering the ring we have three time champion Popeye! Bitch killer of Multnomah County!” Two more dogs were walked into the pit and positioned at opposite ends of the ring. The onlookers cheered and cajoled and thumped each other like apes.

Lara backpedaled from the horror, felt a hand grip her elbow. Gallagher asked if she was okay but she didn't answer.

“Wipe it from your eyes, Mendes. Stay on point. We sweep the room and look for Prall. If he isn't here, we'll call this in and stop it. Okay?”

“Agreed.” She looked over the crowd, their backs to them. “Where's your friend? If he spots you, we're sunk.”

“He's probably leaning over the pit. Any luck, he'll fall in and get bit.”

The noise grew louder, the butcher man bellowing over the crack of the barking. The onlookers pressed in, jostling for a better view. Gallagher nodded at the crowd arcing around the pit. “Circle around, eyes peeled for Prall.”

He went east, she west. Ducking through the flailing hands and spit-laced cries, Lara peered out from under the hoodie, searching every face. Lager sloshed from a can and spilled down her shoulder. A heel crunched her toes. Keep moving.

The butcher man whistled to start the fight. The men holding the pit bulls let them slip. The dogs collided, each snapping for the other's throat. A roar went through the crowd.

Lara was elbowed and shoved but kept moving, scanning every face. She caught sight of Gallagher on the other side, then a stray arm caught her in the ribs. She fought the urge to club the bastard over the head in return. The task at hand, she muttered to herself.

Gallagher was waving crazily, drawing her gaze due north. She spotted him.

A tall man at the far end of the crowd, his hood pulled up over his head. Mirrored sunglasses hid his eyes but his scraggly beard stuck out. Ivan Prall.

Don't run. Too far away, too many people. Lara pushed forward, looking to flag her partner. Gallagher found her eyes and she signaled to him. Gallagher spotted her target.

The man turned and slipped toward the exit sign.

She bolted, shoving assholes out of her way. She heard Gallagher bellowing for the man to stop. He ran for the door but got sidelined hard into the bricks. Gallagher jackhammered his face before yanking the hood back.

It wasn't Ivan Prall. Just some loser in a filthy beard. He struck Gallagher's chin, rabbit punches. Gallagher laughed like some crazed banshee and pummeled the man mercilessly, as if blaming him for not being their suspect. He kept hitting him, even as he crumpled to the floor and begged Gallagher to stop.

Eugene Shockton looked up at the ruckus and clocked Detective John Gallagher beating the bejesus out of some poor bastard. He screamed. “COPS!”

Everybody ran.

Lara was swept back in the rush for the exit. Shouldered this way and elbowed that way, tripped up and kicked down. Someone yelled “bitch.” A boot stomped her knee and the man leered down at her, called her a bitch again. Lara struck hard, an uppercut to the groin. A blur of running legs all around her, pumping for the doors. Where the hell was Gallagher?

The man in the butcher's apron marched upstream through the refugees clutching an enormous shillelagh in both hands. He arced it overhead and brought the mallet down cold on Gallagher's back. Gallagher flopped onto the hooded man, the air punched out of his lungs. The butcher man swung again, like a contender at a fairground trying to ring a bell. Gallagher rolled out of the way and the shillelagh broke two ribs of the hooded man.

Onto his back, kicking the butcher's knee. The big man fell to the floor but didn't let go of the Irish bludgeon. Gallagher pulled his weapon and cracked the man's temple with it. He didn't see the biker coming up behind him but he felt the boot to his ribs. The biker raised his boot again, eager to trample the cop again but found a gun barrel in his face.

“Get off him.” Lara aimed the Glock dead on the biker's face, keeping the butcher man in her periphery. She'd had enough. Everything had gone to hell so fast.

The biker called her bluff. “Go fuck yourself.” Lara shoved the barrel up his nose and the man shut up after that. She looked to Gallagher, saw his knee pinned over the butcher's throat.

The room had cleared. Three dogs remained chained to a post, abandoned by their owners. A wet twenty dollar bill was pasted to the floor. Gallagher watched Mendes cuff the biker. When she looked up at him again, he laughed. Like they had just stumbled off a roller coaster together.

Her hands were shaking. “This is a mess,” she said.

“Think of the overtime.” He straightened his tie but it remained mangled. “How do I look?”

“Like a guy who got his guts kicked in.”

“Perfect.”

She took hold of his tie, tugged it straight and smoothed it flat.

Her face up close. She had freckles, faint and not many. He'd never noticed that before. His grin went lopsided, forced.

Lara stepped back, self-conscious. “We better call this in,” she said.

16

MOPPING UP OPERATIONS ate the rest of the day. The butcher and the biker were charged with assaulting police officers, a charge that would stick better than running a dog-fighting ring or animal cruelty. Both men had prior arrests and each knew how to carry themselves in the box. Gallagher and Mendes took turns questioning each man about their suspect. They were shown the self-portrait sketch, asked about any violent characters who owned a lot of dogs. Hints were dropped that their charges would be reduced if they knew anything about the man named Ivan Prall. The biker tried to play out some useless information but in the end neither man knew anything.

By the evening shift change, Detective Mendes and Detective Gallagher were still at their desks writing up incident reports and the charges against the two men. No new information was added to the investigation into the Riley homicide or the suspect Ivan Prall.

They went down to the break room for coffee. Gallagher stole an apple from the fridge. When they came back, a black-and-white photo had materialized on the evidence board. The Wolfman. Lon Chaney Junior made up in yak hair and rubber fangs. Scrawled in Sharpie at the bottom of the picture were the words: Have you seen this man?

“Cute.” Lara crumpled it into a ball and pitched it out over the bullpen of cubicles. It came sailing back a moment later, over the cubicles and bouncing onto Bingham's desk. The homicide detectives returned to their keyboards, hoping to finish up before sundown.

“Hi Lara.”

Amy stood at the cubicle entrance, giving a little wave. “Hey Dad.”

“Hello Amy.” Lara smiled back. She hadn't seen Amy smile when they had met her in the hospital. Understandable. She had a beautiful smile. All girls do really, Lara thought. “How are you?”

“Alright.” Amy dropped into her dad's chair, poked through the papers on his desk. Gallagher was flummoxed but he masked it with sternness. “What are you doing here?”

Amy shrugged. “I tried to make a curry for tonight. It didn't go well.”

“So use the phone. You know I don't want you coming down here.”

“I know.” Amy's roving eye found the evidence board. Her jaw gaped at the crime scene photos. The remains of the dead woman. “Oh my God, is that real?”

Gallagher crossed to block the worst of the photos. “Alright. Let's go. Out of here.”

“But it was my turn to cook. I messed up.”

Lara shifted in her chair, suddenly stuck in the middle of a family squabble.

Gallagher took his daughter by the shoulders and turned her toward the exit. “Just call next time. I'll pick up something on the way home.”

“Or,” she held up a finger, “there's that Indian place you always rave about. The one near here.”

He sighed through his nose, the way he did to show his frustration. It meant no. Even Lara saw that coming, so she interrupted. “Go on. I'll finish this up.”

His eyebrow shot up. Why was she being nice? “You sure?”

“Yeah. Go on.”

“Why don't you come with us, Lara?” Amy asked.

“Honey,” he said, having none of it. “Detective Mendes has better things to do.”

“I do have work to finish.” Lara was right in her initial assessment. She was a sweet kid. “But thanks.”

“Aw, come on. Get your stuff.” Amy couldn't be bothered with either of their nonsense. She was hungry. “Paperwork can wait, dinner can't.”

Amy marched to the elevator. Lara looked at Gallagher but he simply shrugged. What are you gonna do?

THE Blue Ganesha was a closet sized eatery three blocks from Central Precinct. The decor was frugal. Mismatched chairs and a chipped statue of the blue elephant deity. Indian pop music squelching out over bad speakers. But the food? Outstanding.

The three of them squeezed into a table near the window, one uneven leg stabilized under a wad of matchbooks. The waiter brought a cola and two Kingfishers.

“So?” Amy tilted her head. “Anyone get hurt today?”

Lara felt Gallagher's stare. “Just another day at the office.”

“You're working the dead prostitute case, right?”

“Amy,” Gallagher scolded.

“What?” Amy rolled her eyes, then leaned in to Lara. “He never talks about work.”

“That's probably a good idea. Ruin your appetite,” Lara said. “What about you? You play basketball, right?”

She nodded. Gallagher beamed, said “We got a game tomorrow night. You ready?”

“Always.” Amy turned back to Mendes. “How long have you worked homicide, Lara?”

“Not long. Your dad's showing me the ropes.” Lara caught him wincing at the remark. Good.

The waiter brought a basket of papadams and Amy tucked into it. “Is it true the prostitute was eaten by dogs?”

“Stop already,” Gallagher ordered. The kid just didn't listen.

“Do you have a boyfriend Amy?”

“No,” he answered for her. “No boyfriends until she's seventeen.”

Amy shared a look with Lara. Dad was clearly clueless. She pointed a shard of papadam at Lara. “What about you? You got a boyfriend?”

Gallagher cringed. Why was his kid so nosy? He blamed her mother. Lara didn't seem to mind. “No,” she said. “Too busy for that stuff right now.”

“Enough already.” Gallagher got to his feet. “Everybody to the buffet. Before dad has a conniption.”

Lara didn't need to be told twice. She was starving and the long buffet table was right in front of them. Gallagher was already troweling food onto a plate.

Amy hung back, taking a pull off dad's Kingfisher when no one was looking. Her eyes stayed on Lara, watching her every move. An odd glimmer of apprehension on her pretty face.

“SO Dad’s got the guy in cuffs but he's late for the game. So what does he do? He brings the perp with him and sits in the front bleacher.”

Amy was telling the story. The table was littered with plates and small bowls. The wicker basket rested on the windowsill.

“Do you have to tell this story?” Gallagher reached for his beer but it was empty.

Amy ignored him. “This guy, he's higher than a kite. Starts yelling stuff to us on the court, rude stuff. Dad clocks him in the head to shut him up. All the other parents are looking, shocked. They can see the cuffs on the guy's wrists. I turned beet red. Blew the game. I was so embarrassed.”

Gallagher's face reddened. “I didn't want to miss the game.”

“Aw, that's cute.” Lara laughed, leaning forward on the table.

“That's not how the Lieutenant saw it.”

“How did you get away with that?” Lara asked. “Vogel must have had a fit.”

“I have compromising photos of the Lieutenant with a Shetland pony.” He winked at her.

Amy caught that. It was a nanosecond, that little wink, but she saw it. She saw everything. Everyone was loosened up, relaxed under a full belly. Amy liked Lara, thought it was cool that she was a homicide detective. All the other cops in dad's unit were men. They were nice, cracking jokes and acting the goofy uncle around her but Lara seemed different, a certain frankness about her Amy responded to. But then there was that look between Lara and dad. What was that about?

Gallagher took up his plate. “If you're finished embarrassing me, I'm going back for seconds.”

“You mean thirds,” Amy said.

“Go to your room.”

He lumbered back to the buffet table. Amy huddled toward Mendes. Girl talk. “So how come you're single?”

Lara leaned back from the question, unaccustomed to a teenager's tactlessness. “I broke up with someone not too long ago. So. I'm just not looking right now.”

“You're really pretty,” Amy said. “You must have guys buzzing around you all the time.”

“No. Not really.”

“You know Dad's single. But he's kinda clueless when it comes to women.”

Disquiet spilled over the table. Lara pushed her plate back. “Amy, you're not playing matchmaker, are you? Because, well...”

“I'm not. The opposite actually.”

Where was this going? Lara couldn't tell. So she listened. Amy filled in the silence. “Cops hook up all the time. Especially partners. Sort of a job hazard. But it always ends badly.”

“It happens,” Lara said. “But not to everybody.”

“I saw the way he looked at you. You're pretty, you're smart. And worse, you're considerate.”

“You're watching out for your dad.” Lara relaxed, understanding what the girl was trying to say. It was kind of endearing.

“It's happened before. That's how he and mom met.”

“Your mom is a police officer?”

“She was. But that ended badly. For everybody.”

Lara tilted her head. “You're warning me away. Right?”

“Yeah. I guess so. Just think it through.”

Gallagher came back with another plate and felt the chill. He looked at Amy, looked at Lara. “Who died?”

NIGHT shift at the Multnomah County Animal Shelter. Reben Bendwater worked security alongside one other staff member on the front desk from six till midnight. Staffing these two positions was a tough but necessary dent in the shelter's budget. All manner of people brought animals in once the sun went down. Sometimes there was trouble. Reuben's job was to keep the crazies at bay.

Ruben made his rounds through the basement level. He didn't mind the cold room where the carcasses were kept but the crematory always gave him the creeps. Like everyone at the shelter, Ruben was an animal lover and this room was both macabre and sad.

Upstairs in the kennel the dogs were quiet, even the feral ones brought in last week. One was a Belgian malamute mix and the other a bull mastiff with a tan hide and black mask. Ruben had tried to befriend these dogs as he did all the new arrivals but these animals were skittish and aggressive. Sometimes street dogs went that way, nothing you could do. The feral strays did not sleep but were quiet, chins on the floor. Their eyes watched everything.

Down the row of pens to a cage near the double swing-doors. A droopy-eyed hound stood up and wagged its tail. Ruben slipped a strip of beef jerky from his shirt pocket and fed it to the dog. He knew he shouldn't but it was just a small piece and the hound was old. No one adopted old dogs.

He scratched the hound's ears. “Here you go, buddy.”

Every dog woke at the same moment. On their feet and pacing their cage. Ears up. All barking in an ear-cracking cacophony. Scratching at the grates. The feral dogs stood, tails up, the only animals not howling.

Ruben jolted as if stung. The racket echoed off the painted cinderblock, amplified until the security guard covered his ears. He shouted and shushed but the dogs would not quiet. They barked and yowled and clawed their pens.

Something wrong materialized inside the kennel, down near the rear exit.

A man rose up out of the shadows, out of nothing, at the far end. All stringy hair and beard. A vagrant in a tattered jacket and bare chest. He squatted before the cages holding the latest arrivals, speaking softly to the wild dogs.

“Hey!” Ruben strode forward, his left hand finding the baton. “Get away from there!”

Homeless dudes and crackheads were no stranger to the shelter, wandering in after finding an unlocked door. They usually bolted when Ruben hollered at them. Not this guy, he didn't even look up. Instead, he slid back the bolt and opened the cage door.

“Hey! Stop!” The guy must be crazy. “That dog will bite, asshole!”

That big bull mastiff lumbered out of the cage, licked the man's hand and swung its squared head towards Ruben.

Reuben stopped, boots skidding on the linoleum.

The mastiff charged, nails clicking on the floor. Ruben ran for the doors. Instinct pumping his legs.

It slammed into his back, pitching him to the floor. Its jaws clamped his calf and the great dog whipped its head back and forth in violent jerks.

Ruben rolled, kicking out like he was on fire. It wouldn't let go. Something loomed into his field of vision, upside down. The stranger kneeling over him. His grime-encrusted hands ripped Reuben by the hair and bounced his skull off the floor. More teeth punctured his groin, the second brute ripping into him.

The other dogs barked and spun in their cages.

PABLO slung his bag over his shoulder, heading out the door. He stopped to go over a few things with Jenny at the front desk. Details that probably could wait but he couldn't help himself, car keys jangling in hand. What's another minute?

Then the clamor from the other side of the swing doors. The dogs going nuts like he had never heard before. Jenny shot out of her chair.

He pushed through the kennel doors with Jenny on his heels. Every dog was loose, running crazily. The door to each pen stood wide open.

Ruben Bendwater lay on the floor.

Pablo waded through the bounding dogs and the animals buckled into his knees. The security guard's face was a mask of blood, the cheek torn loose in a wet flap. More blood seeped dark over his crotch and bloomed into a widening pool on the tiles. Ruben convulsed, going into shock.

Jenny sprinted back to the lobby to dial 911.

Pablo didn't know what to do. He folded the torn flesh back onto Ruben's face and told him to hang on. He looked up and saw someone else inside the kennel. The dogs raced back and forth, blurring his sightline but he saw it. A figure striding through the frenzied dogs, slamming the release bar on the rear door. Two dogs trotted at his heels, the feral canines collected at the crime scene.

The man led the two dogs out to the alley and disappeared behind the shutting door.

17

THE DOGS RAN crazily along the riverbank, tumbling together and nipping at each other's ruff. The mastiff and the malamute ran flat out, tongues flapping. The frustration and energy pent up inside the cages now pumped their legs through the weeds and they ran ahead of the others in a deranged glee. When the others caught up, the pack doubled back to find the man.

He scolded them to close ranks and stay away from the lights. They crossed one road and then another, slipping from shadow to shadow. Silent as cats. Off the asphalt road onto a service road of packed gravel to a driveway choked with raspberry bushes. Down a rutted track of mud that bent and curved until they saw the house.

Hidden behind the swaying branches of a weeping willow, a three-story clapboard with a porch wrapping the front and north side. The ground floor windows boarded over with plywood, the upper windows dark. The dogs bounded through the blackberry bushes growing wild on every side, lifting their legs to mark territory.

Ivan Prall slipped the duffel bag from his shoulder and looked up at the house. It looked smaller now and the elements had battered it senseless. Paint peeled from the clapboard in curls. The porch sagged this way, every angle tilted out of plumb.

No plywood blocked the back door but it was locked. He kicked it in, the dogs bottlenecking the door frame to get inside. The place smelled of damp rot and earth. Kids had been here, leaving behind their empty bottles and graffiti on the walls.

He dragged the duffel through the mouse droppings to the front of the house, the dogs banging his knees as they raced from room to room. The front room was big, originally a parlor, and some little moonlight fingered its way through the bare windows. The Rottweiler sniffed a corner and lifted a leg to spray. Prall booted the animal away, berating it.

A folding chair lay flat on the floor. He snapped it open and sat. Rummaged through the bag until he found the bottle of Jack. It spilled into his beard and he wiped it away with the back of his hand. More spray paint marred the walls in this room, the misspelled dirty words of juvenile boys. The knife unfolded with a snap and Ivan Prall carved into the old sheetrock, cutting through the painted glyphs of penises and breasts. The pentagram he carved was crude but it was big and it sanctified the room.

He went back to the chair and took up the bottle. In a while he would go upstairs to where the horrors had taken place and he would consecrate those rooms too.

THE monster on the television screen roared. Grainy 1970's Technicolor. A stuntman geared up in a hairy monster costume. Ears flopping crazily, the rubber mask unnatural and stiff. The scene was dark, hiding the poor production values and slim budget.

Lara sat on the couch, her feet tucked under her. On her lap was one of the black notebooks, a pen and notepad in her hand. Deciphering more of the illegible handwriting. Doing her homework in front of the idiot box, a habit formed in childhood. Flipping over to the news, she’d found this old monster movie and let it run. Italian, badly dubbed into English, the plot centered on a priest who had been mauled by a werewolf. Struggling to hide his curse, the priest administered mass during the day and transformed into a beast at night, slaughtering his own parishioners.

The climax unspooled and Lara put aside her work altogether. A young nun, secretly enamored of the cursed priest, had uncovered his secret and was now running for her life through a medieval graveyard. She had armed herself with a crossbow, the bolts blessed and sprinkled with holy water, hoping to end the priest's suffering. Hiding among the graves, she struggled to notch another bolt into the heavy weapon but didn't have the strength. The monster tracked her scent through the churchyard, stalking closer and closer. The beast sprang just as she locked her last bolt and fired. The blessed missile pierced the werewolf's heart and it thrashed in the leaves. With tears streaming, the young nun took up a torch and set the monster ablaze. The frame pulled back into a widening shot of the flames among the tombstones and the credits crawled up the screen.

Her cell buzzed, floating across the coffee table. The desk sergeant. There was an incident at the animal shelter and Detective Gallagher was already on scene. How soon could she be there?

DETECTIVE Mendes badged her way past the uniforms, saw Pablo sitting with Detective Rowe. Rowe waved hello and cocked a thumb toward the kennel area.

More dogs. Again the smell of urine and disinfectant. The dogs had been corralled back into the pens and they stood watching but still agitated.

Gallagher kneeled over a body on the floor, hands sheathed in latex as he peeled back a bloodied flap of shirt from the ribcage. Blood grouted the yellow ceramic tiles. Beyond that the floor was smeared with wide swathes of blood, telling of a violent assault. A plastic ID tag swam in the red stuff. Lara knelt down and read the name without touching it. Ruben Bendwater, security.

Gallagher nodded hello. “What do you think, chief? Heart attack or stroke? My first guess was spontaneous human combustion but I may have to revise that theory.”

Lara swept her gaze over the body. The wounds not dissimilar to her first homicide. “What happened?”

“Break and enter,” Gallagher said. “Security guard must have surprised the guy, got his skull crushed for his troubles.”

“But he's ripped up. Those wounds look like the ones on the Riley woman.”

“Yup.” Gallagher hollered to the uniform near the door. “Ask Pablo to come in here.”

The director returned but kept his eyes from the wreckage at their feet.

“Pablo,” Gallagher said, “tell Detective Mendes what you told me.”

Pablo folded his arms. “I was on my way out when I heard the dogs go crazy. All of them barking like the place was on fire. I ran back and the dogs were all out of their pens. And there's this guy. The son of a bitch sets all the dogs loose and just walks out the door with two of them at his heel. Like it was nothing.”

Lara looked up. “He stole some dogs?”

“Two. The ones from your crime scene. I ran after him but I tripped over—.” Pablo's eyes finally fell to the body. He turned away, one hand over his mouth, the other held up in surrender. “I'm sorry. I can't.”

“That's okay.” Lara waved at the uniform to lead him out. “Thank you, Pablo.” She watched him stagger out then spun back to Gallagher. “He came back for his dogs?”

“Ballsy prick just waltzes in, kills this poor guy and takes his dogs.” Gallagher wanted to spit but choked it back to avoid contaminating the scene. “He's laughing at us.”

“This isn't about us. He didn't do this to show off.”

“Then why? Why risk this?”

“He came for his wolf pack.”

Gallagher gritted his teeth. “What?”

“These animals aren't his pets,” she said. “They're his pack. His family.”

“Don't start with the Wolf-Man shit. Please.”

“Then why risk coming here? Think like him for a second, Gallagher. He's a wolf. The pack leader. But he's a wolf without his pack. So he busts in to get them back.”

A dog barked through the mesh. Lara looked over the pens, found the eyes of dogs staring back at her. “I should have seen this coming.”

“You can't anticipate a psycho, Mendes.”

“Yeah, you can. If you're willing to crawl inside his head.”

The swing doors breezed open and the CSU techs entered. The one with the camera began snapping pictures right away.

Gallagher looked at Mendes. “Show me,” he said. “Soon as we're done here, show me.”

THERE wasn’t a lot to be gained at the crime scene. No workable prints were taken from the kennel, neither the cage nor the exit door. The shelter had no security video and the initial canvass of the area turned up nothing. Pablo had only gotten a glimpse of the suspect's back.

Four hours and two coffee runs later, they went back to the precinct, leaving the CSU crew to do their work. Gallagher grumbled the whole way back. It wasn't even their case, the call having come in on Rowe's shift, but because of the connection with the stolen dogs, Detectives Mendes and Gallagher would share the file. That meant three open cases on his desk.

“Alright detective,” he said when they found their desks. “The floor is yours.”

Lara looked over the riot of photos and notes on her evidence board, groping for a starting point. “Age ten,” she dove in, “Ivan Prall witnesses his father beat his mother to death in a drunken rage. The father goes to jail. With no other family around, the boy is moved into the foster system and shuffled through a number of homes. He gets into trouble as a teen, winds up in juvie jail for two years. After that he's placed in the Gethsemane halfway house where he's abused by the owner, Ronald Kovacks. He runs away and is found three days later on the side of a highway, wounded in some kind of animal attack.”

“Yeah.” Gallagher knew this part. “The doctor said it was probably a dog, not a wolf.”

“Bear with me. Prall is ordered back to the halfway house as soon as he's fit to be moved. But he slips the hospital and disappears.” Lara tapped a finger against her lips, gathering the notes in her head. “Clearly he didn't want to go back to the abuse that waited for him at the hands of this Kovacks guy. But now he's alone, scrambling to survive with absolutely nothing. God knows how he did it. No friends, no family and surviving what he did. No way to process what he's been through. Alone and on the run, his only companions are these stray dogs. They become his family. Prall develops this werewolf fantasy to cope with the abuse he suffered. And the violent rages he experiences.”

Gallagher frowned, unmoved. “That's a lot of speculation.”

“I'm extrapolating from what I've deciphered in his notebooks. But just run with it for now. During this period, there are suspicious deaths similar to ours where the body is mutilated by stray dogs. All of the deceased were engaged in what we call a high-risk-lifestyle.” Three prostitutes, two female and one male. The fourth and fifth were homeless women.”

“But we can't connect any of those.”

“Not yet. But look at the locations of the crime scenes.” She pointed to five yellow pushpins dotting her map. “One here in Oregon, two in Washington state and two across the border in Canada. In that order too.

“Moving north up the coast, away from Portland. The last death occurs six weeks ago in British Colombia. And then, out of the blue, here.” Her finger swung back to a red pushpin in the city of Portland. “He's traveling straight north, not just out of the state but out of the country. Probably headed for the B.C. interior. But Prall stops and beelines back to Portland. Why?”

Gallagher snorted the obvious. “Because he's crazy.”

Lara pulled two newspapers from the chaos of her workspace and handed them over. Gallagher scrutinized the small articles circled in highlighter. Not front page material, the headlines buried in the back pages. HALFWAY HOUSE OF HORRORS, STAFF CHARGED WITH ABUSE.

He shrugged. “The Gethsemane House bust. What about it?”

“Look at the date.”

He checked the date in the header, little more than a month ago. “The halfway house was busted over a year ago. Why is it only being reported now?”

“The D.A. has been trying to track down every former resident of the halfway house before going public with it. And since it involved minors, the judge ordered a publication ban on it. The ban finally lifted a month ago. Then the headlines appeared.”

“A month ago? The same time Prall stops moving north and comes back here.”

“He saw the news,” she said. “That's what brought him back.”

His shook his head. “Why? He sure as shit didn't come back to press charges.”

She took a guess. “Revenge.”

Gallagher skimmed the article, looking for a name. “Where are these people from the halfway house? This Kolchak guy?”

“Kovacks. Ronald A. He skipped bail, disappeared. You know Hammond? He led the halfway house investigation. He thinks Kovacks is still in town, but gone to ground.”

“Good luck finding him.” Gallagher stretched, popping his spine. He handed the newspapers back to her. “It's late. Go home, get some sleep.”

Lara looked at her watch. “Wow, a whole four hours before our shift starts.”

“Better than none at all, detective.” He strode for the exit, fishing keys out of a pocket. He stopped and turned back. “Hey, Mendes.”

She tossed the papers down and looked up. “Yeah?”

“Nice work,” he said, halfway through the exit door.

FOUR hours was nothing. Lara had just closed her eyes when the alarm buzzed. Her morning coffee did nothing to blow the fog from her head nor did the double long espresso snagged before hitting the office.

Gallagher phoned in, asked her to man the desk. He had a court date he'd forgotten about. An investigation from last spring had finally rolled its way into the court and he had to testify. Lara sympathized. Wandering the halls of the courthouse waiting to give your piece was a tedious circle of hell endured by cops of every stripe. Rank and experience held no sway here, all were grist milled to dust.

She wished him luck.

The clock ticked toward noon and Detective Rowe's report on the animal shelter homicide still hadn't landed in her in-tray or email. She had to hunt it down. For some reason, it had gone to the Lieutenant first. Why, she didn't know but she wasn't comfortable with it. Was it an error or something else?

Lara went through it, starting with the initial incident report from the responding uniform, the witness statement from Pablo and Rowe's write-up. There was nothing she didn't already know. She needed to talk to Pablo, hear firsthand his account of the incident but it was too soon. The poor guy was such a mess last night. She started reading Rowe's report a second time when the desk phone rang. She scooped it up. “Mendes.”

“Hey, it's Detective Hammond. Remember me?”

“Two sugars, no cream. How's business, detective?”

“Brisk.” His voice thin down the line. “Course, it depends which side of the fence you're on. The bad guys are raking it in.”

She smiled at that. “You thinking about switching sides?”

“Shit, I wouldn't mind tooling around in a big Escalade, nothing to do all day but smoke weed. I wonder what kinda 401 K plan they got?”

She wondered if Detective Hammond had called simply to chitchat. Fine by her, the workday slowly going nowhere. Detective Hammond got to the point.

“Listen,” he said. “I've been following up on the Kovacks case like you asked. Finally pried loose some answers about the wife, the one who disappeared. Turns out she changed her name.”

Lara sat up, snatched up a pen. “What name is that?”

“You sitting down? Her maiden name? Riley. Elizabeth Riley. Your homicide victim.”

When Lara didn't say anything, Hammond laughed, wishing he could see her face. “You still there, Mendes?”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” he laughed. “Merry Christmas, detective.”

Lara put the receiver down and sat very still. She looked down at her notepad, the doodles scrawled out while Hammond chitchatted. Before he dropped his bomb on her. She had doodled five-pointed stars inside circles. Just like the ones scribbled in Prall's notebooks. Pentagrams.

18

GALLAGHER WAS ASLEEP in the Cherokee, snores bouncing around inside the cab, oblivious to his own racket. What woke him up was the Mazda parked next to him. Its alarm went off for no reason and Gallagher jerked awake. Pain spiked up his neck, a pinched nerve or strained muscle. He blinked stupidly through the windshield. Still in the parking garage.

His day had started off badly and slid downhill from there. Two hours of sleep before the alarm chimed. He got up so tired he felt drunk. The morning routine was slow motion, his brains numb and hands clumsy. Hollering at Amy to get up, checking his schedule. The court date. He'd forgotten all about it. The day hadn't even started and it was already shot to hell.

Then it was a rush to get Amy up and off to school. Her normal morning state was little better than that of a shuffling zombie, deaf to his prompting to get moving. Irritated, he barked at her to snap out of it and get her lazy ass moving.

Uncool, dad, uncool. Amy was silent on the drive to school. He apologized but she wouldn't have any of it. He told himself he'd fix it over dinner. They'd have to eat early tonight, Amy had a basketball game.

Court dates were the worst. And being grilled by some piece of shit defense lawyer wasn't the tough part. It was the waiting that killed you. Something always went wrong, something always got delayed. Your day was shot, that was it. Raised Catholic, Gallagher still believed in hell. It will be this, he knew. Haunting a hallway, waiting for something that will never happen.

The case was shit too. A drug killing last May, Gallagher kneeling over the body of a nineteen-year old kid named Tovar, face down in a puddle. Grilling the victim's girlfriend, he learned Tovar owed money to some braindead named Delaney. He even pried loose a couple of witnesses who saw Delaney talking to the victim earlier that night. They had shell casings at the scene, nine millimeter. Common as dirt but they had no weapon on Delaney. A few other details but it was all small stuff. The lawyer from the D.A. office tried to bully the accused to plea deal but Delaney refused and forced it to trial. Now it was showtime and Gallagher knew they were sunk but there was no way to turn the train around now. So he waited.

The call came after three. Gallagher endured a grilling from a wide-eared defense lawyer determined to make him look like a brainless jackass. Gallagher bristled but kept his face stony no matter what the little shit said. You had to keep your cool. The minute you got angry, you were dead because juries read anger as guilt or denial. Even from a cop.

He climbed back into his truck in the parking garage, exhausted. Testifying is a workout without the work. Adrenaline juices up your heart but all you do is sit there. Five minutes, he told himself. A five-minute nap, then the drive home.

The Mazda's alarm zapped him awake. Pie-eyed and drooling, he glanced at the dashboard clock. Five twenty. Jesus Christ. He keyed the ignition and squealed the tires down the garage ramp.

Amy's basketball game was at six-thirty. He needed to have dinner on the table by five on a game night. Now the poor kid was going to go play ball on an empty stomach. Plus he still needed to smooth things over for barking at her this morning.

“You are the world's worst frakking dad,” he spit. “Put that on a frigging T-shirt and wear it.”

He dug for his phone. If she hadn't eaten already, he'd call Pizzzadelic and they could pick it up on the way, eat in the truck. The cell screen was dark. He'd turned it off before going into the box and had forgotten to turn it back on. Dumbass. He thumbed it on, waited for the stupid thing to boot up. Nine messages. Two from home, three from the office and four from Mendes's cell. He dialed home, the rest would have to wait.

AFTER leaving the second message, Amy got her gear and threw dinner together. Gyro sandwiches using last night's pork loin, a green salad. She caught the phone on the first ring and made his to go. He ate it on the way, steering with his knees.

He apologized for barking at her this morning, said being tired was no excuse. She admitted she hated mornings too and they left it at that. They rolled into the parking lot and Amy bolted for the gym.

He squeezed onto the second bleacher between the other parents. He said hello to the few people he knew and waved at the parents whose names he'd forgotten. All of them couples, moms and dads watching their daughters go up against the visiting team. And here he was, the single parent. An object of pity, a reminder to children of what happens in broken homes. Gallagher loved watching Amy's games, basketball and soccer and all the way back to t-ball, but he never felt comfortable around other parents. Judgment hung in the air, the stacking up of social status and comparable incomes. It was exhausting.

Shoes squealed on the hardwood. The ball was thrown back into play and Amy rushed to position. The visiting team was big, almost all of them looming a foot over Amy. They charged in fast and Amy lunged up to block a shot, got knocked to the floor. The whistle blew and two of Amy's teammates helped her up. She shook it off and limped back to her post.

Gallagher shot to his feet and barked at the ref to open his goddamn eyes. Amy waved him off, her hand gesture signaling two meanings: I'm fine and please don't embarrass me. He sat back down and glared at the offending player with the same death-rays he reserved for shitbags on the street. He couldn't help it.

His phone buzzed. He put it to his ear. “Gallagher.”

“Are you okay?” Lara's voice over the line. “I couldn't get through.”

“Technical problems.” He watched the ball go back into play. “What's up?”

“Our victim, Elizabeth Riley? She knew Ivan Prall.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because she used to be Bethany Kovacks,” she said. “Married to Ronald Kovacks. They ran the halfway house where Prall was abused. She filed divorce papers, changed her name.”

“Damn,” he said. His attention split between the call and the game. “She's the one whose records disappeared.”

“Say that again. I can't hear you.”

“You were right,” he spoke up. “Prall came back for a reason.”

“I want to take a look at that halfway house. How soon can you be there?”

“I can't. We'll do it tomorrow. First thing.”

“Where are you?” She strained to hear him through the background fracas. “I can barely hear you.”

“Amy's basketball game.”

“Oh. Well, wish her luck.”

There was a pause over the line. Gallagher covered his other ear to block out the noise around him. “What?”

“I'll fill you in tomorrow,” she said.

“Don't be a cowboy, Mendes,” he shouted into the phone. “Wait until tomorrow, we'll both go.”

“Cowboy? Is that supposed to be funny?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Have fun.” She hung up.

Gallagher dropped the cell into his pocket, turned his attention to the game. He checked the scoreboard. The visitors scored again and he'd missed it entirely. Amy leaped for the ball and took another hit from the same girl who hammered her earlier. Amy shook off the hit and stayed on her feet. Atta girl.

He fidgeted on the bleacher, one thought nagging him. She wouldn't do anything stupid, would she? Stupid was his department. Mendes played it safe.

Right?

TUCKED inside a dog-eared file folder was a photograph of the Gethsemane halfway house. The files from the investigation into Ronald Kovacks were still tied up in the evidentiary chain but Hammond had sent over some copies he'd made for his own use. Lara hadn't found anything useful in it but remembered seeing a photo of the house. She dug it out and studied the picture. A big clapboard house, sturdy but badly used up. Nothing special.

Still, this was where their suspect had been placed after a stint in juvie and subsequently abused by the man who ran the place. Ivan Prall had returned to Portland, tracked down the woman who used to run the place and killed her. His dogs devoured the body in an attempt to conceal evidence. Something had happened inside this house that sent their suspect into the wilderness, into the company of stray dogs and solitude.

The house looked familiar. Where had she seen it before? She laid the photo aside and pulled out the notebooks taken from the suspect's squat. She flipped through the pencil sketches. In the third notebook, she found a drawing of a house with a porch wrapping two sides, flanked by willows. The Gethsemane house.

The artist was a fair draftsman, the perspective true and the scale accurate. She went back to Hammond's file and found the address. A road she didn't recognize, somewhere north of an industrial park near the river. She printed off a Google map and circled the road in red ink for a quick reference tomorrow morning.

Detective Rowe buzzed by her desk, late on the shift change. He said hello, she said goodnight.

THE rain had slowed to a light mist that hazed the lights on the streets. Lara hit the tail end of rush hour but shot past the turnoff for home. She just wanted to see the place, that's all. What could one look hurt?

She swung west over Columbia and then up North Portland Road over the slough where the road thinned between the lake and the golf course. Into a gravel lot where the driveway was supposed to be. She missed it the first time, overgrown with weeds as it was. Slow over the rutted driveway, the path twisting through the dogwood trees and then the house appeared. The headlights played over the facade. A signboard creaked in the breeze, hung from a chain on the porch roof. She tilted her head to read the words. GETHSEMANE HOUSE - Center for Transition and Redemption.

Lara wanted a closer look. She cut the engine but left the headlamps on. The steps rang hollow under her feet, the floorboards of the veranda uneven and creaky. The front door was boarded up with plywood, as were all the first floor windows.

“Okay,” she said to no one. Herself. “You've had a look. Go home.”

Back to the car. She popped the trunk and found the long handled Maglite. She dug around the mess and pulled out a prybar. The trunk banged shut and she stopped, rethinking what she was about to do. This wasn't like her. This is how Gallagher did things. Just bust in, trample procedure and justify it all later. For Christ's sake, Lara Estela. Go home.

The prybar sunk cleanly under the plywood. She pried the nails up and hauled back the plywood, shredding the edges. The front door was unlocked but stuck tight in its frame. It popped open under her shoulder.

The flashlight cut a borehole through the darkness. A roomy foyer with a small desk, then on toward a common area. An office on her right. The air was ripe with mold and wet carpet. Graffiti on the walls and empty jugs of Colt 45 dead on the floor. The fate of any property left abandoned too long. Down the hallway to a large kitchen. A table but no chairs, more trash on the green tiled floor. Everything desiccated and forgotten.

Back to the hallway and the staircase to the second floor. The light beam rolled up the steps before her, vanishing into a black hole at the top. She stopped on a step and listened. A noise? She realized her heart was pounding. This is crazy. She did not want to run into any vagrant squatter in the dark. Her nerves so keyed up, she'd blow his head off first before asking any questions.

She hollered out. “This is detective Mendes of the Portland Police! Announce yourself now! I am armed!”

Her voice was swallowed up. The house ticked and creaked around her. Crickets in the yard. She went up.

The hallway flanked by a handrail, doors on her right. She pushed open the first one, throwing the light inside. Metal bunks stripped of bedding and two mismatched dressers. A footlocker. She moved on, opening the remaining doors. A bathroom and then another room with empty bunks. The window was broken and the breeze fluttered a rotting web of curtain.

That left the room at the end. No door, the hall opening into another common room at the front of the house. It was roomy and bare. A single armchair near the bay window. A mound of clothes piled near it, another empty bottle rolled to the baseboard. She trailed her light over it.

This wasn't just more random trash. The clothes spilled from a duffel bag, a bedroll next to it. Beer cans, drained and crushed. Something crunched under her heel and the Maglite found kibble scattered on the floor. More dog feed spilled from a bag in the corner.

He's here.

Lara backed up and the light arced over the wall. Carved into the old plaster was another pentagram.

19

THEY WERE LOSING, trailing the visitors by fourteen points. Seven minutes left in the quarter. Amy's knee throbbed, her limp becoming more pronounced. The coach benched her and she turned around to find her dad. He looked worried.

Gallagher hollered down, asked if she was okay. She gave him a thumbs up but her face was flushed and she didn't smile. That's okay, he told himself. She's focused on the game. She needed to be, the visiting team was handing them their asses on a plate. He gave back an enthusiastic thumbs up. You can still turn this around. Miracles happen.

His phone went off and he ignored the first five rings before looking at the display. He cupped his palm over his other ear. “Mendes?”

“He's here.” Her voice was shrill, all wrong.

“What?”

“I'm at the halfway house. I wanted to see it.” Her voice choked, gulping air. “He's here.”

“You went alone? I said we'd go tomorrow—”

“Shut up.” She cut him off. “His things are here. He's camped out in this house.”

She broke in. Gallagher couldn't believe it. Mendes was such a straight arrow. “Get out of there. Call the precinct, get some uniforms out there right now.”

“Oh shit.” Her voice crackled, fading in and out of reception. He jammed his palm harder into his free ear.

“Mendes? I can't hear you!”

The line crackled back to life. “He's here! Oh shit. He's—”

“Lara?”

The line went dead. He lost her.

Gallagher hit the return-call. He gripped the elbow of the woman next to him. Her daughter was on the team, a friend of Amy's. The woman startled but he blurted past her protests, saying he had an emergency and would she please drive Amy home. The woman agreed, seeing the urgency in his face. Gallagher hustled down the row, bumping into the other parents.

The coach pushed Amy back onto the floor and she took her position as the ball was thrown. She glanced up just in time to see her dad race for the exit. Where was he going?

Boom. She got slammed again, landing ass-first on the hardwood.

LARA debated who to call when she saw the pentagram on the wall. Gallagher or backup? She'd broken in without a warrant so Gallagher it was. He had a knack for justifying rash actions after the fact.

He had just picked up when noise broke from outside. She swept aside the tattered drape in the window and looked down. Dogs trotted back and forth over the driveway, skulking around her car. One marked its scent on a wheel, another lunged up and stood square on the hood. These were Prall's dogs. The animals dashed for the house, disappearing from her eyeline under the eaves.

Frost etched up her backbone. Not the dogs. The phone went silent, the screen winking out like a snuffed candle. Her fingers had white-knuckled around it, inadvertently killing the connection.

Something else moved down in the yard. Ivan Prall lumbered out of the shadows. He looked down at the car then swiveled his head up and looked right at her.

She ran for the stairs but everything seemed wrong. Her feet were numb, like dead clubs at the end of her ankles. Clumsy and slow, she staggered through the corridor to the stairs. The dogs were already inside the house. They surged forward at a dead run and hit the landing. Bounding up the steps. Gnashing teeth and foaming maws.

She backpedaled along the wall. Pulled her weapon.

The dogs tore up the stairs, one leaping over the other to get at her. She swung the gun up and fired. One dog yowled but didn't drop. The forerunner balked at the sound of gunfire but the rest pitched forward. Too many, too fast.

Lara fell backward into a room and kicked the door, slamming it into the frame. The dogs thundered into it. The door rattled as the animals slammed against it. Lara shoved back with both heels.

The flashlight rolled an arc over the floorboards. She dug in and leveled the Glock in both hands. Her guts told her to fire straight through the door but the old door might splinter apart, letting them in. Did she have enough rounds to put down all of the dogs? No.

The phone. Where was the phone? It was in her hand but all she held now was the gun. She must have dropped it. Out there.

“Oh God.”

The cell phone lay on the floor in the corridor. It spun around, kicked about by the berserk dogs. A hand reached down, batted the animals away and picked it up. Ivan Prall flipped it open and then snapped it in two.

GALLAGHER tore into traffic, swerving crazily between lanes. Cars honked, one driver thrusting a hand out the window to give him the finger. The dashboard beeped nonstop for him to put on his seatbelt.

He hit the speed dial. Her phone rang three times then went dead. He tried again but this time it didn't even ring.

He called dispatch and barked at someone to get the address for the Gethsemane halfway house. He spelled it for her. The dispatcher came back with an address and he repeated the number to himself. He briefed dispatch on the emergency, any unit in the vicinity to respond to that address.

He hung up and tried Mendes's number again. Nothing. He gunned the engine harder and lay on the horn for everyone to get the hell out of the way.

THE dogs ceased ramming the door, stopped barking. No sound at all from the other side. She dropped her feet from the door and rolled to her knees. Nothing happened.

Lara held her breath to listen. Wind rattled the window but that was all. She gripped the knob, said a prayer and flung the door back, ready to blow the hell out of the first thing that moved. Nothing did. The corridor was empty.

She retrieved the Maglite and threw the beam down the hallway. Her phone lay on the floor, snapped off at the hinge. Moving forward to the landing, the light beam rippled down each step to the bottom. Nothing to see. No noise at all.

The car was in the yard, the keys in her pocket. She had let off one round, still a full clip if she needed it. Move.

Down the stairs, each step groaning louder than the last. More darkness at the bottom of the stairs, the hallway empty. Ten paces to the door and she'd be outside, then a dead run to the car.

Counting strides, she crossed through the front room toward the door. She heard the dogs before she saw them. Panting in the dark. A dozen eyes glinting in the dark, blocking her path. None of them moved nor did they bark. Waiting for something to happen.

“You. You busted up my den.”

Her heart failed. The voice behind her. She swung around until both the beam and the gun barrel found him.

Ivan Prall stood in the doorway, watching her. His teeth shone through the foul beard, eyes thatched under stringy hair. Shirtless beneath a tattered green raincoat. Two dogs at his feet, one a crossbreed pit and the other a pale-eyed husky.

Lara lost and then found her voice. “Get on the ground. On the ground!”

The dogs barked, reacting to the threat. Lara felt them close in behind her. Revulsion inched bile up her throat, made her knees quake.

Prall didn't move. “The cousins don't like guns.”

She notched the barrel from his torso up to his face. “Call off the dogs. Do it now.”

“I got shit to do, sister. Go hunt somebody else.”

He didn't move, didn't react to having a gun aimed at his head. Lara gritted her teeth. One eye on him, one on the damn dogs. Not enough guns to go around. Try something else. “Prall,” she scaled back the tone. “Listen to me. You're sick. You need help. I can help you. But first you have to call off the dogs.”

“You know, don't you?” His nostrils flared, sniffing the air. Smelling her. He stepped forward. “You know about the wolf.”

“I swear to God,” she hissed. “I will blow your brains out. Call off the dogs!”

“You scared, little piggy. I can smell it on you.”

He grinned in the light, teeth wet and stained. Another step closer. “You ain't gonna shoot. Don't got it in you.”

Lara swung the barrel down, drew a dead aim at the pit bull and shot the animal through the head. It flopped back, blood spattering the other animal. Prall went crazy.

“YOU PIG!”

And then it all went to hell. The dogs lunged at her back. She spun and fired and fired and fired.

God knows what she hit, not a single animal fell. The dogs scrambled away and then circled back. Teeth popping, eager to kill.

Lara fought back the raw urge to blast out the entire magazine. She steadied and drew a bead on the nearest animal, an enormous mastiff, but the dogs turned and ran. Bounding away like rats across the floorboards. Slipping into the dark.

She wheeled the gun back to Prall but the corridor stood empty. The dead pit bull on the floor, its legs kicking as it died.

A noise, unnatural and out of place. Low, guttural. Something moved in the dark. The air pressure in the room dropped. She swung the light around to find it.

Teeth flashed in the beam. Big and sharp. The snout massive and terrible like some prehistoric thing.

It slammed into her midsection, folding her in two like paper. Her back hit the floor. Lara screamed.

She pulled the trigger. Bang. Bang. Bang. The thing backed off. She blasted another round but it was gone.

Heels dug in, propelling herself away from the damn thing. Her stomach withered against the pain. One hand instinctively clutching her belly, coming back hot and wet. She was bleeding. How bad? Jesus, how bad?

She had lost the flashlight. It rolled across the floorboards, spinning its beam around and around the room. It strobed past the thing. It was colossal, its dark hackles crested into razor points along its back. Muzzle low to the ground. A wolf and yet not a wolf. A monster dredged up from primeval memories and the grimmest of fairy tales.

Lara raised the weapon but her arm was numb, the gun a dead weight in her hand. She fired, it went stray. The beast sidled forward and grunted, a vile sound like nothing she'd ever heard before.

It launched at her. She fired. Jaws clamped her arm, jerked her back and forth like a rag doll. She clubbed at it. The monster let go of her arm and dug for her guts, pushing her clear across the floor.

Don't pass out. That was all she thought. Don't pass out. Don't die.

GALLAGHER had dinged two bumpers and picked up one cop cruiser speeding on his tail with full lights and siren. Whether this was the backup he called for or a uniform chasing a reckless driver he couldn't tell. It didn't matter.

The Cherokee fishtailed as it hit the gravel road, tires spitting stones at the police vehicle behind it. Gallagher stomped the accelerator, looking for the house. It rose out of the trees, Mendes's car out front. Dogs swarmed over the tilting porch, eyes swinging up to the vehicles. They charged away at the blare of the sirens.

Gallagher sprinted for the door, hollering her name. No response. Something moved inside, crashing and thudding.

He charged in, gun out. A flashlight on the floor. Framed in the cone of light, Mendes. Something big pinning her down, hovering obscenely over her. Too big to be a dog, more like a bear. He aimed and fired.

It spun and loped away. He fired and fired but it was long gone. Whatever the hell it was.

He dropped to Mendes, called her name again. Mendes didn't move, did not respond. A wet gurgle bubbled from her throat. There was blood and a lot of it. He couldn't tell where it came from. He didn't know what to do. He gripped her hand.

“Hang on, Lara. You're gonna be all right. Just hang on.”

He didn't know what else to say so he just kept repeating it.

The uniform burst into the house. Gallagher screamed at him to call an ambulance. Officer down.

20

DETECTIVE LARA MENDES was jostled hard on the stretcher as the paramedics scrambled into emergency. Gallagher was stopped by a nurse who told him to stay back and let the doctors do their job. He watched the gurney disappear behind a set of double doors and someone stuck a clipboard of forms in his hand. Said the best way to help her now was to provide them with her information. The officer who had chased him into the house stayed with him now, prodding Gallagher to a chair. His name was DiMatteo and when they waited for the ambulance to come, officer DiMatteo had had the presence of mind to pull Mendes's bag from her car. The officer sifted through the bag and pulled up a wallet of credit cards and ID, placed it in Gallagher's hands and turned to the exit. The detective watched the officer leave, making a mental note of the kid's name. He'd look him up in the roll and thank him later.

He rooted for his phone and called home. Amy was fine but a little freaked seeing him book from the gym so fast. He apologized, said it was an emergency but did not mention Mendes's name. He told her everything was fine but he'd be late and hung up. Looking down at the forms, he realized he hadn't even asked if they'd won the game.

Some of the information he had to leave blank. He simply didn't know and couldn't find anymore info in her bag. He should call somebody, a boyfriend or family. He leaned back in the chair, realizing he didn't know anything at all about Lara Mendes.

The cell came back out and he called into precinct, told the desk to patch him through to whoever was working night shift homicide. He got Varadero, who immediately assaulted him with questions about the Bendwater file. The security guard at the animal shelter. Gallagher told him to shut up and briefed him on the assault on Mendes. He asked Varadero to look up her personal info and find her emergency contact info.

He listened to Varadero bitch about sharing info as he pulled up the profile. “Got it,” said Varadero. “Marisol Sparks.”

“Marisol?” Gallagher dug into Mendes's bag for a pen. “What's the relation?”

“Sister. You want the number?”

He wrote it down, thanked Varadero and put the phone away. A sister? Lara had mentioned once that she had family down south but that was all. He dug though the wallet and slipped out a photo webbed with creases. Lara with her arm around a dark haired woman at a backyard barbecue. A boy of about four or five with his head sandwiched between them. He could see the resemblance between Lara and her sister Marisol but could not tell which one was older, which one the younger.

He looked at the phone number Varadero had given him for the sister. A New Mexico prefix. He looked at his watch. What time was it in Albuquerque? No sense calling the woman up in the middle of the night with no clue as to her sister's condition. He'd call tomorrow when he knew more.

Why had she never mentioned a sister? Maybe she had and he just wasn't listening. Gee, how unlike him. He'd been hard on her, bullying her into requesting another partner but Mendes hadn't caved. She stuck it out, took the punishment and look where it got her. He had put another partner in the hospital. Great frigging work, Detective Gallagher.

The forms went back to the nurse and he asked about Mendes's condition. The nurse couldn't tell him, the doctors were still with her. She promised to let him know as soon as she heard anything.

So he waited, slumped in a chair and looking around at the other people waiting. He went through the course of events, mentally drafting his incident report, but he kept stumbling on one image. The thing that was attacking her. He had no more than a glimpse of it but it was huge. More like a grizzly than a dog. What the hell was it?

People came and went, the injured and the concerned. He grew tired of figuring out what he had seen and what would go down in his incident report. It was a dog. Just a big flipping dog.

THE dogs ran and ran, a full quarter mile before slowing down or even looking back. Every animal feverish after the sprint, tongues lolling from their chops. The wolf paced and trotted, striking out at the lesser animals. These dogs whined and squatted submission. The others hung their tails low. The pack lead was unappeasable, furious at having been run out of another den. The bitch leaned into the alpha, offering her rump. The only female left in the pack now. The wolf sunk its teeth into her scruff and chased her off. The pack backed away and kept their heads down.

All except the Pincer. An immature male that had joined them three nights ago. It was young and ignorant of hierarchy. The Pincer kept its tail up and crossed broadside before the lead. An affront by a pup who confused agitation with bravado.

The alpha stopped cold at the mutt's boldness. The pack slunk away, sensing what was coming.

The wolf struck without a sound and without warning. Its hellish jaws snapped the Pincer's snout bone into splinters and the animal shrieked. The wolf released and dug into its neck, teeth puncturing to the spine. It rent the dog's throat violently, almost shearing the animal's head from its neck. Blood geysered out to steam on the cold ground. The wolf tore at it until its hide was slick with offal. Then it loped for the trees, a mist of blood clinging to it, and the others chased after it.

IT was two hours before someone came out to talk to him. The doctor, a woman who looked no older than his daughter, stated that Mendes had suffered trauma to her abdomen and left arm and right leg. The puncture wounds were severe and there was some blood loss and the small finger on the left hand was broken. The doctor asked what had happened. Gallagher said his partner had been attacked by dogs. The doctor didn't know what to make of that, having treated dog bites before. She said they would monitor Mendes for twenty-four hours before treating her for rabies. He asked if that was necessary but she thought it better to err on the side of caution.

Gallagher winced at the thought of twenty needles injected straight into the navel, asked if that was wise given the wounds to Mendes's abdomen.

“Oh, we don't do that anymore,” the doctor said. “Rabies treatment is much easier now. We'll monitor her for infection from the dog bites. The real risk now is sepsis.”

“When will she wake up?”

“Hard to say really. She might sleep straight through until tomorrow or she could wake within the hour.”

“Can I see her?”

LARA Mendes looked dead. A loose hospital gown had been fitted on, folded up just below the chest. Below that her torso was bandaged up. Her left arm was wrapped and elevated. She was so pale. Her eyes closed, mouth slightly parted. Gallagher reached out and touched her cheek. Her skin was cool and damp. He wanted to say something, anything, but nothing came.

A figure filled the doorway. Gallagher turned to see the Lieutenant standing there. Vogel waved at him to step out of the room. Gallagher sighed. Time to pay the piper.

They stood in the corridor, looking through the window at Mendes as Gallagher gave his boss a brief rundown of the events. The Lieutenant listened, arms folded. Unimpressed to say the least. “That's it?”

Gallagher shrugged. “She was following a lead. Ran right into the son of a bitch.”

“Mendes?” Vogel wasn't buying any of it. “Mendes acts alone and breaks into this place with no warrant? That's your MO, not hers.”

“She's a quick study.”

“Don't get cute, Gallagher. You put another cop in a sick bed.”

“I wasn't even there.”

“You should have been.”

Gallagher worked his jaw but held his tongue. No choice but to eat it.

Vogel scratched his chin. “The doctor say how long she'll need to recover?”

“They don't know.”

“Okay. I want Bingham and Latimer to step in. You bring them up to speed on this.”

“No.” Gallagher's jaw worked overtime. “No way. Sir.”

“Be practical, John. You're down a detective.”

“She'll get better. And when she does, we will nail this asshole to the wall.”

Vogel's eyes drifted back to Mendes. “Did you call her family?”

“They're out of state. I'm gonna wait until I know more. No need for them to hop on a plane for nothing.”

“Someone should be here when she wakes up.”

“Someone will,” Gallagher said.

Vogel exhaled through his nose. “You got three days. If Mendes doesn't pull out of this, the file goes to Bingham.” He walked away, calling back over his shoulder. “Find a bed, John. Get some sleep.”

HE left his number with the hospital staff and asked them to call immediately if there was any change in her condition. Gallagher drove to work and went up to the Sex Assault unit. He spoke to the night shift Sergeant about Mendes, asked what friends she had in her old unit. He found Charlene Farbre, told her about Mendes and said he needed volunteers to stay with her. He'd work out a shift. Charlene agreed without hesitation, piling work into a tote bag. She'd go now, she could work from the hospital room but she had to leave at three. Charlene jotted down the names of a few other people who could help and then left.

Gallagher made a few calls from his desk and then piled up some work to take home. He looked at the notebooks teetering on Mendes's desk. Prall's journals. He took three of them and headed for the parking garage.

AMY WAS hurting. Her left leg was bruised blue and her elbow ached like it was busted. She pounded the alarm off and blinked at the time. Late. Dad's bark usually woke her before the alarm but not this morning. The house was quiet and still.

She padded downstairs to an empty kitchen. No coffee brewing in the pot. Dad was on the sofa, snoring into a dented cushion. Paperwork and photographs piled up on the coffee table. A cheap looking notebook lay open on his chest.

“Dad.” Amy shook his shoulder. Gentle at first, then not so gentle.

His eyes blinked at her in a stupefied glaze like he didn't recognize her. He tilted into a sitting position, letting the notebook fall to the floor. “I'm up. What time is it?”

“Late.” Amy looked at the mess of work. “Did you pull an all-nighter?”

“Sorta.” He staggered to the kitchen and fumbled with the coffeemaker. “Hey, how'd the game go last night?”

“What happened to Lara?” Amy leaned against the counter but the formica edge bit into her bruised hip. “Is she okay?”

“What? Amy...” He looked over and gave her his patented disapproving-dad glare. Gallagher kept a police radio in his office. Amy had a bad habit of tuning it in and listening when she was bored. Or worried. “What have I told you about listening to the police ban?”

“How bad is she?”

“She's gonna be okay,” he said.

“The dispatcher said she was mauled by dogs. Like that woman, the dead prostitute.”

He poured water into the coffee maker, set the pot on the burner and looked at her. “That's police business, honey. Now go get ready for school. I'll make breakfast.”

She slid off the stool. He noticed her limp. “Hey, are you hurt?”

“Just sore.”

“That kid walloped you good, huh?”

“Twice. That bitch was tough.”

He laughed even though he meant to admonish her language. She limped off for the stairs but he called her back.

“Lara's still unconscious. She doesn't have any family nearby and I don't want her to wake up and find nobody there. We're rotating shifts at her bedside. Can you go sit with her after school?”

“I have practice at four.”

“Right,” he said. “I forgot.”

“No. I mean I'll do it. I'll skip.” Amy shivered. The house was cold. “I can be there by three-thirty. Stay till seven? That means you have to cook.”

“Done.” He smiled at her. The coffee maker gurgled and steamed, fogging up the cupboards.

21

GALLAGHER BYPASSED THE PRECINCT altogether and drove straight to the hospital. His gut told him to lower his expectations but he couldn't help hoping for some good news. He'd walk into the room to find Lara sitting up and wolfing down breakfast. Eager to get back to work.

She looked exactly as he'd left her. Unconscious and unresponsive. A little paler this morning. He pulled the chair up to the bed and spoke softly to her, updating her on the case and griping over the Lieutenant's temperament. He omitted Vogel's threat to pull the investigation out from under them but added some office gossip. When he'd exhausted his news, Gallagher sat quiet for a spell. Then he squeezed her hand and said he'd be back later.

The tired-looking nurse at the desk clicked through charts on her screen and told him there had been little change in Lara's condition. She was stable, that's all. Sorry. He walked back to his truck in the parking lot and dug out the phone number for Lara's sister, Marisol. He couldn't put this off any longer so he dialed Albuquerque.

Marisol Sparks sounded tired when she answered, then became panicked when he explained what had happened. She calmed when Gallagher assured her that her sister was stable and someone was sitting with her at all times. Marisol was an army wife, her husband stationed overseas in Kandahar. She was home alone with their four year old son, trying to make ends meet. Marisol fretted the details, she'd have to pack her boy into the car and drive up to Oregon, there was just no money for plane tickets. Gallagher told her to stay put, there was nothing to do for Lara at the moment. It took a few minutes to convince her but Marisol finally agreed. He promised her that her sister wouldn't wake up to an empty hospital room, her friends at the precinct were rotating shifts to sit with her and he himself would call her the minute there was any change in Lara's condition. Marisol sobbed quietly and then choked up a laugh. “All this time,” she said, “I'm praying for my husband's safe return. It's like holding your breath, dreading a phone call about something bad over there in Afghanistan. Instead, I get a call about Lara. It's almost funny. Or ironic, I dunno.”

“She's gonna be okay, ma'am.” He lied, unsure if it was for her sake or his. “Lara's pretty tough.”

“She is. But dogs? My God, of all things.”

“She doesn't much care for them, does she?”

“God no,” Marisol said. “She hates dogs. Has ever since she was little.”

“Why is that?”

“Didn't she tell you? When she was nine, she and a friend were attacked by dogs. This creep who lived at the end of the block, he had two pit bulls. Kept them locked in the garage all the time. I mean, all the time. The dogs had gone crazy being locked up like that, you know. Well they got out one day. Tore through the neighborhood. Went after two little girls playing on the sidewalk. Lara wasn't hurt but she saw her friend mauled by those two animals. She's hated dogs ever since. Scared to death of them.”

Gallagher listened. Unanswered questions clicked into place and with it, a twang of remorse. Hell, he'd hate dogs too if he'd endured that. He gave Marisol the number for the hospital and the name of the doctor looking after Lara. His cell number too. He said everything would be fine and got off the phone. It was stupid to promise such things but he couldn't think of any other way to say goodbye after dumping such shitty news in the poor woman's lap. “Please,” he said to no one, thin air. “Please don't make a liar out of me.”

HE drove to the crime scene, rain pattering the windshield all the way. Detectives Rowe and Varadero had rotated to the graveyard shift so the incident was theirs. One unmarked car was still here, parked in the gravel beside the CSU truck. Water beaded on the vehicles, the lawn soggy from the overnight rain.

A uniformed officer stood on the porch, blowing into her hands to keep them warm. Gallagher nodded as he came up the steps. “They still here?”

“Yes sir.” The officer stuck her hands in her pockets. “One detective is here, the other one went back. I think the CSU techs are almost done.”

“Cold this morning, huh?” Gallagher watched her shiver.

“I been out here since four this morning,” she said. “The dampness just seeps into your clothes, you know?”

“My truck's still warm. Go sit inside, warm up.”

“I'm okay, sir. But thanks.”

The CSU tech had finished taking pictures and was packing away his camera. The casings spun from Mendes's weapon had been collected and tagged, leaving only chalk circles on the floor. Blue latex gloves were peeled off sweaty hands and tossed in a bag.

Gallagher passed through the foyer into a tall corridor. Detective Rowe sat in a wicker chair sketching a floorplan of the scene into his notebook. A simple but elegant stick figure represented Detective Mendes, with arrows vectoring the angle of rounds fired. Rowe's face was serene as he sketched, losing himself in the simple craft of drawing. At his feet lay the carcass of another dead dog, its hide slick with jellied blood.

“How's Mendes?” Rowe asked without looking up from his drawing.

“Stable.” Gallagher knelt over the carcass. Like the others, the dog was big and fierce, some breed he didn't recognize. But it was mangy too, with bald patches of hide and ribs poking through the skin. “Mean-looking bastard, isn't he?”

“Malnourished too.” Rowe set aside the notepad and pondered the dead dog. “Look at the damn ribs on it.”

“These dogs got a sweet tooth for eating people. Guess it's a long spell between meals.”

Rowe chuckled at that, said, “I read your reports on this guy, how he runs with a pack of stray dogs. Look at these scars.” His pencil ran along scar tissue scored on the neck and snout. “These dogs fight each other. These scars are a telltale sign of signs of some internecine scrap within the pack.”

An eyebrow went up. “You an expert in wild dogs?”

“Saw it on the Discovery channel.”

Gallagher rose and eyeballed the scene. “What do you got?”

“Well, it looks like detective Mendes had a hell of a fight on her hands. She put down this dog then spent her clip in that direction. She ran, got swarmed. See here?” Rowe waved his pencil at the blood smears on the floor. “She got taken down here, put up a fight. See the swipe pattern?”

A red snow angel on the linoleum. Gallagher pictured it in his head, running the events in vivid Technicolor. Mendes, alone and swarmed by dogs, by the animals she feared most. He felt queasy and shook his head to disperse the looping images but they would not leave.

Detective Rowe closed his notebook. “What did you see, Gallagher?”

No response. Gallagher simply stared at the bloody smear at his feet. What the hell had he seen?

“You okay, man?”

“I saw a dog,” Gallagher mumbled. “It took her down. Not this one.” He nodded at the carcass. “Some other dog. Big one.”

“I hear that.” Rowe stepped over the mess and hovered over a red patch further down. “Look at this.”

Gallagher stepped over the blood to where Rowe was pointing. A paw print of blood and dirt, like the others tracked over the floor but this one was clear and it was enormous. Twice as big as the rest.

“That is one big goddamn dog.”

AMY liked hospitals. Which she knew was weird. She liked wandering the halls and peaking into rooms. She'd never had a serious injury or illness and so had no reason to fear them. But they were confusing and twice she had to backtrack her way, uncoding the department names and room numbers that seemed to make no sense.

Even when she found the number she was looking for, she wasn't sure it was the right room. The woman in the bed looked nothing like Lara. A nurse hovered, changing the dressing on the woman's arm. Amy took a tentative step into the room for a closer look. It was Lara, but she was so pale. She couldn't help but look at the exposed arm. Wet puncture wounds marred the flesh, the congealed blood dark against the waxy skin. Amy could smell it from where she stood on tiptoes.

“She a friend of yours?” The nurse didn't even look up from her task.

“Sorta. I was gonna sit with her. If that's okay.”

“I think she'd like that.” The nurse looked up and smiled. “Your other friend just stepped out for a minute.”

Amy didn't know who she was talking about. The nurse smiled at her as she hustled out the door. Amy didn't move, unable to do anything but stare. How could that be Lara? She looks so small in that bed. She took a step closer then startled when she heard someone behind her.

A woman hurried in. Black and pretty. A Fendi slung on her elbow, phone in her hand. “Hello,” she said.

“Hi.”

“Are you the relief shift?” She put her bag on the table and rummaged through it. “I had to make a call so I went outside. I always thought you weren't supposed to use your cell in a hospital but I see plenty of people yammering away on them.” She stuck out a hand. “Sorry, I'm Charlene.”

Amy shook her hand, said her name.

“Amy?” Charlene cocked her head, trying to place the name. “Are you a friend of Lara's?”

“My dad is. I mean, they work together.”

“Oh,” Charlene snapped her fingers. “You're Gallagher's kid. Lara told me about you. Nice to meet you.” She renewed the handshake with vigor.

“Ditto.” Amy glanced at the bed. “Is she any better?”

“She's stable. We're just waiting for her to wake up. I hope you brought a book.”

Amy lifted her backpack. “Homework.”

“Smart.” Charlene hooked the bag back onto her elbow. “I have to run. Shit is piling up on my desk, pardon my French, and I have to get back. You'll be okay? Who's relieving you?”

“I'm not sure.”

“I'll figure it out. Bye Amy.” She rushed out of the room and then everything was quiet. Amy sat in the chair. She got up and dragged the chair closer. Should she talk to Lara, like they do in the movies when someone's lost in a coma? Someone zipped by the open door and she stifled under self-consciousness and kept quiet. She pulled her backpack to her knees, thinking she should start her homework but didn't feel like doing it.

When she looked up, Lara's eyes were open.

“Lara? You awake? It's Amy.”

Zero response. The eyes open but there was no hint of Lara in them. No recognition, no awareness. Amy waved her hand before Lara's nose. Nothing.

Should she call a doctor? Did it mean anything or was it an involuntary response? Full on creepy, Lara's eyes wide like a zombie. And she didn't blink. Wouldn't her eyes dry out like that? Amy gently, gently pulled the eyelids down. There, that was better.

The lids slit open and rolled back up.

Amy stepped back. Screw this. Call a nurse.

22

LARA STARED AT THE CEILING. THE florescent light singed her eyes. She was awake. In a hospital bed. Why? What happened?

And then it all came back. Prall, the dogs, pulling the trigger. The thing. Its teeth, the pain as it ripped into her stomach.

She screamed and tore the drip from her arm. Off the bed and sprinting full tilt down the hallway. At least that's what she wanted to do. She remained prone on the bed staring at the ceiling tiles. Something was wrong. Her muscles didn't work, her hands stone no matter how hard she wanted to flail. No sound came from her throat. She couldn't even move her eyes.

She heard a voice near her ear. Charlene, invisible outside her field of vision. Lara screamed for help but her lips never moved. Charlene was talking, telling her about work. Gossip. How could she not hear her? After a while, Charlene became quiet and the only sound was that of pages turning in a magazine.

A face swam into her sightline. A nurse. Lara screamed again but nothing happened. The nurse went away.

A new face crept into her field of vision. A girl. Gallagher's daughter. Amy's long hair swung and bristled her chin. She could feel it. Why couldn't she move? The girl's eyes were saucers of fright. Why does she look so scared? Oh god, how bad am I hurt?

Amy, help me. Please.

IVAN Prall leaned against a stump of deadfall, his back nestled into the soft moss. Legs sprawled before him in the pine needles. The Siberian lay coiled nearby, bedded down with its chin on its paws. The other dogs stayed close, sniffing the loam or lying sphinx-like on the forest floor.

They had withdrawn to the safety of the trees, the dark of the mountainside. Another den lost and Prall had only himself to blame. Going back to the halfway house was risky but finding it boarded up and abandoned was an unexpected boon. He would have wagered a day's earnings that the old house would have been razed for the hellhole it was. But it wasn't. No one cared. The house sat dark and forgotten. A perfect refuge for the pack since the pigs took their old den. He hadn't expected them to look there. He had underestimated them, the pigs. Especially the woman.

He scratched at a scab on his ribs. Blackened blood flaked away under his dirty fingernails. The Argentino mastiff nosed his ribcage and lapped its tongue over the scab, grooming it clean. Prall smacked it away, hazing it off with blows until it pouted off across the pine needles and joined the others.

Prall watched the dogs. The dogs wrestled and fought. Every animal in the pack unnerved by his mood. They nipped and trampled one another, the aggression growing into full blown snarls and snaps to the neck. The bitch was gone, blown to hell by the guns of men and the pack was feeling her absence. Without a female to nicker, the pack's aggression turned inward and the scrapping was getting out of hand. More than once, Prall had been set on by the younger males, testing his power. He had killed one and marked two others. That should have been enough to dismay the rest but aggression still festered in the ranks.

He looked up at the ripples of blue sky slipping in and out of the canopy of leaves and he questioned the wisdom of his plan. Chased out of the Gethsemane House into this garden, this Gethsemane. Doubting his course of action and recusing himself for the losses they'd suffered and the certainty of more losses to come before it was all over.

And there was the cop who'd found the den. The woman. He had no idea if she was alive or dead. This was a mistake, a sin never made before. What if she survives? Had he ruined his chances for redemption?

He leaned and spat into the dirt. There was no time for weakness. There would be more losses and more bloodshed but no tears would be shed. He could not cry, even if he wanted to. The reformation had sealed his tear ducts forever. Wolves do not cry. All that mattered now was the burning need for revenge and the lasting hope for salvation. Stay the course, the plan would provide both.

BEHIND the halfway house was a footpath that cut through the raspberry bushes into the trees beyond. Gallagher followed the track as it snaked around willows and dogwoods until it dropped to a creek bed below. He looked north towards the source then followed the stream as it trickled past him to where the creek bent leeways and disappeared behind some cottonwoods. The creek graded downward and fed into the river further down. A box turtle sunned itself on a rock. Gallagher climbed down the bank, slipping on the wet leaves and coming up with a damp ass. The turtle dropped into the water and vanished. He crossed the stream, eyes on the muddy banks for paw prints. Cutting for sign. That's what they said in the old cowboy movies. They went thataway. Gallagher couldn't see anything that looked like paw tracks or any kind of tracks at all. He'd make one shitty cowboy. Still, it made sense the dogs would flee this way. The footpath led directly to the creek and from here Prall could lead them further into the trees or south to the river and into the city.

When he got back to the house his knees were damp and his shoes muddy. The police tape had snapped at one end it twisted and popped in the wind. He went through the house again, top to bottom, hoping the fifth time would be the charm but there was nothing new, no overlooked gem that would lead him to the crazy son of a bitch. The techs had gone over everything, leaving dust smears and tape behind, the duffel bag and filthy clothes tagged and carted away.

Upstairs in the big room, Gallagher sat on the floor and studied the pentagram scored into the old sheetrock. He waited for some divine inspiration to drop a lead into his head, psychically cutting for sign that would lead to their suspect. He shivered from being damp. After a while he rose and quit the house.

At the office, he filtered through the paperwork and stuck the essential stuff into a folder to take home. Vogel stopped to inquire about Mendes's condition but he had no news and the Lieutenant grumbled and moved on. Gallagher thumbed through the mess on Mendes's desk until he found her notepad. Skimming through it, there was a note about the Gethsemane case files still held up in evidence. He called down to the evidence dungeon and barked at someone to locate the files detective Mendes had requested. He felt better for having hollered at someone.

He was late getting to the hospital. Amy was watching TV, feet propped onto the bed and her hand in a bag of pretzels. Mendes lay stiff and straight, unchanged since he last saw her. The only difference were her eyes. They were blinded with squares of cotton and taped into place.

“What's wrong with her eyes?”

“They wouldn't stay closed.” Amy sat up, dropping her feet so her dad could move closer. “They just stayed open. It was creepy. The doctors thought her eyes would dry out like that so they taped them shut.”

“Did you talk to her like I asked? Did she react at all?”

“She hasn't reacted to anything. Even her eyes. They were just like, lifeless.” Amy wiped her fingers on her jeans. “Whose shift is up next?”

“No one. Everyone's busy.”

“We can't just leave her alone.”

“I know.”

“Do you wanna stay?” Amy asked. “We can order a pizza or something.”

He picked up her school bag and peeled her sweater from the back of the chair. “No. Let's go home.”

“Dad. Are you sure? I don't mind.”

He wrapped the sweater over her shoulders. “You've done enough. Let's get home.”

LARA dreamt about sex.

Sex outdoors, the smell of damp earth and dead leaves. Stars sparkling dull against a black sky.

She had stared at that ceiling for so long, the dimpled tile with a water stain and the cruel fluorescents. Unable to shut her eyes against it, her pupils shrank and her vision blurred white. Snowblind until the doctor shuffled in and forced her eyelids closed. The feel of tape pulling the upper lid over the lower one and then the pressure of wadding packed against it. Darkness, merciful in its oblivion and she slept.

But now the dream of sex. It started as sensation, something against her skin. She was dreaming but conscious of the dream at the same time. Running through half-memories of all the times she'd done it outside. On a picnic blanket with the feel of mown grass under her shoulders. In a pool she and a boy had snuck into late at night. On the rooftop of a cheap hotel in Mexico with her last real boyfriend. His name was Matt. The breeze warm off the Caribbean and the sound of the beach below. Sand still on their bellies, pumicing their skin raw.

Above her was a night sky pinholed with stars. Beneath her a carpet of pine needles and the smell of dirt. The trunks of pines and elms at each point of the compass. Her palms flat on the ground, propping herself up. Her arms pale blue in the moonlight.

The man behind her. She thought it was Matt at first but it wasn't Matt. Too rough, the way he slapped her and gripped her hair. She looked over her shoulder but he tugged her hair hard, keeping her eyes off him. He was noisy. So was she.

She pulled away, leaving hair in his fingers. A cloud passed over the moon and blocked the light. Too dark to see his face. She didn't care, pushing him flat on his back. She picked up steam, feeling it build inside her. A breath away from coming, the clouds parted and his face shone pale. She knew it would be him but she couldn't stop now. Ivan Prall clutched her arms and held her fast until she finished and wilted onto him.

She pushed herself up, found her hands were slick. Blood all down her arms, her stomach, her thighs. Prall lay stone still. His throat was open, the severed windpipe sucking wet air. His belly was gutted, ribs protruding through the meat. The cracked sternum rose and fell. His entrails squirmed between her thighs like eels swimming in blood.

She bolted off and crawled away. Her skin painted red and nothing to wipe it off with.

The crack of a branch caught her ear. Bootheels crunching pine needles. A figure pushed through the branches and stood in the moonlight, the face hidden under a baseball cap. He wore camouflage underneath an orange safety vest, the kind hunters wore to keep from shooting one another. Rifle in hand, an old bolt action topped with a scope.

She ran. Breakneck through the trees, skin clawed by branches and her feet bare over the earth. Cold teeth swallowed her ankle and she hit the ground. An old bear trap, the iron jaws biting clear through to the bone. She pulled at it but the iron jaws wouldn't give.

The sound of his boots. The hunter clomped forward and bore down on her. She clawed at the trap, clawed at her leg. The hunter seated the rifle to his shoulder and lay his cheek into the stockpiece. Even with one eye hidden behind the scope, she recognized his face.

Gallagher steadied his aim and fired. A clean killshot and her chest bloomed red when the bullet found her heart.

LARA WOKE. She didn't startle or jerk awake like she did from any other nightmare. She couldn't move and she couldn't see and the scream bubbling up inside her had nowhere to go. The paralysis, the cotton wadded over her eyes. How long has she been like this? What day was it?

She heard the creak of the chair, someone in the room. Who was sitting with her now? She knew they were taking shifts so she wouldn't be alone. Charlene and Gallagher and Amy. Even Kopzyck had taken a turn. He had yammered at her, complaining about how she got the homicide promotion over him. How unfair it was. Then he put his feet up and napped until he was relieved.

“You lived.”

A voice she couldn't place. Someone else from the unit? Or a doctor.

Hands touched her face. She felt fingers peel the tape back and the pressure on her eyes lifted away as the batting was removed. A warm palm flattened against her brow, a thumb pulling up her eyelid. The voice again, rumbling low in her ear. “Sometimes surviving isn't the best option.”

The light stung, dim as the room was. The figure hovering over her took on shape. His breath hot on her face. Prall.

She wanted to scream but could not. She wanted to stab her thumbs through his eye sockets into his brain but could not. Prall stroked her cheek, his fingers hot on her skin like he was burning a fever. Her face reflected back in the mirror of his sunglasses. On his brow, the cross-shaped scar was raw as if fresh.

“You know what happens now, don't you?”

Lara willed her muscles to do something, her hands to strike out. Her teeth, anything. And where was the nurse?

Prall leaned over her. He stank of sweat and dirty hair. A gamey musk, like wet dog. He said, “This is the scary part, the paralysis. It's like dying 'cept you're awake the whole time.” His nostrils flared, taking in her smell. “What's your name, piggy?”

He reached over her, his hand coming back with a blue plastic card embossed with information. Ivan Prall looked at it for a spell, his lips moving slowly as he read. He tapped the plastic against his teeth.

“Mendes, Lara. Detective, Portland Police Bureau.”

He flicked the card away and touched a finger to her lips. He traced his fingertip over her chin and down her neck, the rise of clavicle and down her sternum. His fingers circled her breast and spiraled round the nipple. He pinched and twisted.

“You're like me now.”

In spirit, Lara struck out like a rattlesnake, bashing his skull against the floor until there was nothing but froth and bone chips. In body, she did none of this. Still as statuary.

“No more playing piggy for you. You're gonna change, Lara Mendes. And when you do change, you'll come to me. Take your place in the pack.”

He slid the sunglasses off his nose. His eyes were all wrong. They were bloodshot and the irises glowed yellow around the pupil.

“Tell me something.”

His coarse palm smoothed down her ribs and along her hip. Turned in to the thigh and slid under the hospital gown.

“Who's the little girl who comes to sit with you?”

The screams bounced around inside her skull with nowhere to go.

23

LI'L DEE LIT THE WICK ON THE LANTERN now that it was full dark. There wasn't a lot of kerosene left, he'd have to be careful with it now. That crazy bastard Reggie had used some of it, not for the lamp but to rub on himself. Dee had come back to the hovel to find the stupid son of a bitch stripped to the waist and washing himself with it, rubbing kerosene over his armpits and down his neck. Dee snatched the fuel can away and cursed him. The man was getting crazier by the day, you never knew what kind of nonsense the bastard would get up to next.

Reggie didn't even apologize. He pulled his clothes back on, wrapped himself in his sleeping bag and sat by the window. Watching. After a while, he started coughing again. He reached for one of his jugs, thumbed the lid off and spit into it. Great phlegm gobs spackled with blood and God knows what. He jammed the lid back on and slid the jug back amongst the others.

Dee sat and chewed a bun salvaged from a dumpster. The man was bugging and Dee considered moving on. He didn't want to give up the space but Reggie was beginning to scare him. He was sick, that was plain enough from the coughing and the moaning, the fever that rippled through the man. He was hot to the touch, burning up inside. And now this craziness with the cans.

Reggie refused to piss outside anymore. He collected a bunch of cans and jugs, anything that had a lid and these he pissed in, always sealing it up when he was done. The first time Dee saw it, he yelled at him to do it outside. Reggie refused but he weirdly encouraged Dee to piss outside, to piss a ring around their shack to mark territory and cover his scent. Dee just shook his head at the damn craziness. Reggie had taken to burying his shits too, like a cat. He'd go out behind the shack with a little shovel, to the spot where it was sandy and he'd dig a hole and do his business and backfill it. Pure craziness.

Dee weighed his options. Pack up his gear and look for a new squat or stay and watch Reggie go to pieces. Wake up one night to find the lunatic coming at him with a knife.

“I can't do it anymore.”

Reggie had spoken, but not to Dee. He stared out the window and spoke to no one, to the night. “I just can't.”

Now what? Dee watched as Reggie knelt over his belongings in the corner. He rooted into a satchel and came up with a few cards. Drivers license, something with a picture on it. These he stuck into a pocket and then turned to Dee and dropped the satchel at his feet.

“Here,” he said. “Take this. I won't need it anymore.”

Reggie shuffled to the door. He opened it, letting in a blast of wind and then he looked back at Dee. “Don't stay here. Find a new place. They'll find this place sooner or later. You don't want to be here when they do.”

Dee said nothing, blinking his eyes. Reggie pulled the blanket tight and left.

Dee dug through the satchel. He found a can opener and a good jackknife. He dug into a smaller pocket inside the lining and came up with money. Not loose change but paper money. Three wrinkled fifties and two fives. Son of a bitch.

GALLAGHER knocked on doors, canvassing the area around the halfway house for the third time. Nothing useful had been pulled from the scene, just like the earlier squat in the industrial lot. The investigation had stalled out and Mendes remained in hospital. The Lieutenant had ordered him to back up Latimer and Bingham on a homicide up in North Portland. A white male found dead in a laneway behind a drycleaners. The victim's tongue bulged out the mouth and rope burns round the neck. No ID on the body and no cell phone to backtrack through. No witnesses. Another stone cold whodunit without a shot in hell of ever being solved. Every detective got one and this time it was wonder boy Bingham and cracker Latimer. So it goes.

Gallagher looked at his watch. Mendes was alone right now, caught between sitter shifts. As the days dragged on it was harder to find anyone available to sit with her. Including himself. The list was down to himself, Amy and Charlene but that wasn't enough to cover it all. All he could do was hope Mendes didn't wake up in the gap between sitters. If she ever woke up. The doctor he'd spoken to this morning mentioned the increasing risk of coma.

Walking back to his car with a handful of nothing from the canvas, his phone buzzed. On the display, PABLO.

After the animal shelter had been processed and the police tape taken down, Pablo had gone back to work. There was no one to replace him and the pens were full of animals that needed to be cared for, crime scene or no. Still in shock, Pablo did what most people do in crappy situations. He carried on. Gallagher had stopped in to see him two days ago with a request, asking Pablo to monitor all complaints that came in. If anyone called in about stray dogs, no matter how minor, Pablo was to call him immediately.

He put the phone to his ear. “What'cha got, Pablo?”

“Just took a call from someone over in Felony Flats, said her Corgi was almost mauled by a couple of pit bulls.”

“Where exactly?” Gallagher scrounged for his pen and took down the address.

“I dunno how accurate the woman is,” Pablo said. “I asked how she knew these were pits, all she said was they looked mean as hell.”

“Good enough for me. Thanks for the heads up.” Gallagher almost hung up there but lingered, letting the pause stretch down the line. “You doing okay? You should take some time off. Go fishing or something.”

“You kidding me? Who's going to mind the store when I'm not here?”

Gallagher smiled. “I know. Just don't push it, man. You've been through a helluva shock. Deal with it now. Otherwise it just comes back to bite you in the ass later.”

“Thanks, Oprah.”

“Screw you too, buddy.”

THE ADDRESS of Pablo's caller was dark when he rolled the Cherokee past the house. The porch light out, all the windows dark. No sense bothering the lady who called. He'd be stuck on her stoop for half an hour listening to a longwinded complaint. Who had the time for that nonsense?

Most of the houses on the block were dark and quiet. A single window lit up on this house or that. A few homes were permanently dark, shuttered in foreclosure or short sale with a realtor's sign on the lawn. Further down, a rutted laneway ran the breezeway between a tidy craftsman foursquare and a colonial with broken windows. He followed it down where the lane ended at a rough service road behind the neighborhood. On the far side, the ground dropped to a wallow of hemlocks tangled in morning glory.

He cut the engine, left the headlights on and got out. Looked down the seepway. They could have come through here, trailing the path of what was basically a wide ditch. A run-off path for the spring thaw. It was dark and most of the homes it buttressed had fences up, blocking it from view. Like a freeway for psychos. Or monsters.

He walked the edge, past reeds and dried up bulrushes. Nothing more. What was he expecting to find? Prall sitting on the bank casting a line into the dirty water? Just fishing, hoss.

He headed back to the glare of the Cherokee's headlights. Something scuttled across the parked truck, winking out one headlamp then the other.

Gallagher stopped. Could have been a neighborhood dog, sniffing out the truck disturbing its territory. Another shaped passed before the lights, tail up, and then another. Three dogs, at least what he saw was three. He squinted against the headlights, picking out the dogs around his truck. A pit bull brindled with black stripes and a Husky with a white belly and black topcoat. The third animal was thick and muscular but Gallagher couldn't place the breed. Satanic was his guess.

Two more animals appeared. None of them made a sound or charged at him. They trotted back and forth across the headlights and circled the truck. One by one, the dogs lifted legs and pissed on the tires. Marking territory.

Gallagher's palm pivoted on the butt of his Glock. How much trouble would he land in if he drew and simply shot down every last one of them? Of course, at this angle he'd shoot the hell out of his ride too.

The dogs kept trotting round the truck, watching him. Their heads up, tails high. That meant something in dog language but he couldn't remember what. The big Siberian ambled towards him and Gallagher tightened his grip on the gun. The dog turned back and leaped clear onto the hood of the Cherokee. Nails scratching the paint, it looked at him and pissed all over the windshield.

Okay. Gallagher understood that language. Dog speak for ‘go to Hell’.

“Screw you too, Rover.” He drew his weapon and leveled a bead on the biggest animal, that satanic-looking one. At this range he could put down one or maybe two without puncturing his truck. What he should do is call for back-up. If the dogs were here, then Prall had to be close by. To hell with it. Ivan Prall would be a lot less dangerous if he culled half the pack right here, right now. He thumbed the safety off.

The dogs bolted.

Like they knew what he was thinking. Maybe it was the sight of the gun. They were lightning fast too, already to the wallow and splashing through the reeds. He walked to the truck, the piss still steaming off the windshield. The whole thing stank to high heaven.

DEE counted the money again. One hundred and sixty and some change tinkling around in the bottom of the satchel. His patience with the sick man had paid off. Now the crazy bastard was gone and he had the hovel to himself. And this, cash in hand. He dug through his plastic bags, all he owned in the world, and came up with the bottle of Canadian Club he'd found three nights ago. Three fingers left sloshing inside the bottle and he was saving that but tonight was special. He unscrewed the top and toasted his fortune. Tomorrow he could buy more.

On the second pull, he heard the door thunk. He'd latched it shut when Reggie left but now someone was outside. Did the nutjob change his mind and come back? He craned an ear.

It wasn't him. Scratching at the door, nails clawing the wood. A dog wanting inside. Dee went to the window but saw nothing. The scratching at the door went on and then stopped.

He lifted the latch and eased the door back no more than an inch. A snout dove into the breach and popped the door back, knocking him on his ass. The dogs poured in and Dee crabwalked away. The dogs nudged him with their snouts, knocking him this way and that. They stood on him, pressing down with heavy pads.

They tore the shack apart, rooting through everything. They shook his bags to ribbons. Frenzied, darting back and forth like they smelled a cat hiding in the mess. They zeroed in on the jugs in the corner, knocking them over and scratching until the lids popped off and rank piss spilled out over the floorboards. They went crazy.

The floor shuddered under him and his eyes went to the door. The dogs lowered their tails and got out of the way.

It filled the doorframe, whatever it was, ribs scraping the jams. The weight of it shaking the tinderbox shack, bottles dropping from the window sill. His mind shut down at the sight of it. It was too big, too scary to be real. The outsized teeth and yellow eyes, like something out of a storybook he had as a child.

It slammed into him, pushing him whole across the floor, crumpling into the wall. He felt its teeth in his belly and opened his eyes to see the other dogs moving in.

24

LARA OPENED HER EYES. THE LIDS didn't curl up involuntarily like before. She could blink them at will. Panic rose up like bile. Another cruel dream or could she move? She tried her hand, felt the bedsheet on her fingertips. She could move.

She lifted her head but pain shot hot through her stomach. Every limb was jelly and her spine creaked. Take it slow. She rode out the pain, focused on her breathing. She took a gulp of air, bore down and sat up. The room swam, the equilibrium in her ear all out of whack. She fought down the urge to vomit. Okay. Everything's okay.

“Lara?”

She flinched at the voice, unable to find it with her eyes. Who was it? The dizziness evened out. There, in the corner.

Amy Gallagher unfolded herself from of the chair, dropping a book to the floor. “Ohmygod. You're awake.”

Something touched her hand. Lara looked down to see Amy's hand folding over her own. She blinked, still skeptical it was all real.

Amy dipped her head, trying to find Lara's eyes. “How do you feel?”

Her mouth was cotton, the words gurgling out slow. “How...how long have I been out?”

“Three days. You had us scared. Thought you weren't ever going to wake up.”

The number rattled around Lara's head like a roulette ball that wouldn't slot. Three days? She felt Amy's hand squeeze hers. Why was Amy here? Where was Gallagher? She looked at the girl sitting on her bed, saw the backpack and books piled on the floor. She swallowed. “What are you doing here?”

“Dad wanted someone here when you woke up. We've been taking turns.”

“Taking turns?” Lara blinked. Nothing made sense.

“Your friend Charlene too,” Amy said. “A couple of other people from work. Detectives, I guess. I think even your boss, Lieutenant whatshisname.”

“Vogel.”

“Yeah him. The big guy.”

Lara looked at Amy and her heart dropped. The girl had come to sit vigil in a crummy hospital while she laid there like a vegetable. “Amy. I can't believe you're here. Thank you.”

“No biggie. I'm just glad I was here when you woke up.” She put her hand to Lara's brow. “Jeez, you're still kinda feverish. Are you okay?”

“I feel awful. But I want out of this bed. Where are my things?”

“Bagged and tagged. Evidence I guess.” Amy slid off the bed and got her backpack. It was stuffed with clothes. “I brought these. They're just sweats and stuff. Figured you'd need something to wear home.”

Lara smiled and pulled the t-shirt out. A grey V-neck with an orange tiger logo. “This is your basketball team, isn't it?”

“Lame, I know.”

“No. I love it.” Lara smoothed the shirt over her knee, admiring the logo. A small twinge of pride swelled in her ribcage. Silly. But still. Something buzzed around in her head. Words.

Who's that little girl who comes sits with you?

Prall. He'd been here, been in her bed while she lay comatose. Everything crashed back, a riot of sounds and pictures. It was no dream, he had been here. He had seen Amy. She swung her legs down and the cool floor hit her feet. It was bracing but felt good. Solid.

“Whoa. Take it easy, Lara.”

She gripped Amy's bicep and squeezed. “You shouldn't be here. Go home.”

Amy startled, confused. Lara felt a tug on her arm. An IV drip taped to the inside of her elbow. She stripped back the tape and pulled the needle out. Blood welled up in the little hole.

“Hand me those clothes.”

“What are you doing?” Amy looked scared. “You need to rest.”

“I'm fine.” Something righted itself inside her head and the vertigo receded. The pain running down her back faded. “I feel great actually. Are you gonna hand me those or no?”

Amy chewed a lip, gripping the backpack in her hands.

THE cab ride home made her seasick. The driver kept glancing at her in the rearview, ever wary of fares losing their lunch in his backseat. As they turned onto her street, she was relieved to see her car parked neatly outside her front door. She wondered who drove it here.

Climbing out of the cab was slow and she eyed her reflection in the window. Her arm in a sling, dressed in a teenager's sweats. Ridiculous.

A figure sat perched on her stoop. Elbows resting on his knees, watching her come up the walkway. “You're supposed to be in the hospital,” Gallagher said.

No ‘hello’, no ‘how are you?’ She stepped past him and slotted her key into the lock. “You're supposed to be hunting our suspect.”

He followed her inside without being asked and looked the place over. It wasn't what he expected. Artfully decorated with nice things but there was no mess. No clutter, no tangle of shoes to trip over at the front door. Neat and organized, the way the homes of people without kids are. Gallagher envied the orderliness but it puzzled him.

“I don't get you,” he said. “Your desk is a complete disaster but this,” his wave sweeping the room. “This looks a model home.”

She went on into the kitchen without answering or even looking back. He followed, leaning up against the doorframe. Like the living room, it was organized and clean. A cup and spoon in the sink, waiting to be washed.

“Amy called you?” Lara rooted the fridge for a carton of orange juice.

“She was worried about you.”

“I'm fine.”

He watched her struggle to pop the spout on the carton. He didn't offer to help, just nodded at her slung arm. “Yeah, you're in great shape.”

The spout popped and she drank from the carton. “You want coffee, you can make it yourself.”

He pulled out a chair. “Does it hurt?”

“A little. It's mostly just numb.” She wiped her chin with the heel of her hand. “Did you talk to the Lieutenant?”

“Yup. Rowe and Varadero caught this one. They'll want to talk to you.”

“What did you tell them?”

He stretched his legs, crossed one foot over the other. “Told 'em Ivan Prall sicced his dogs on you.”

She looked at him, her face stone. “Did you see it?”

“I saw something.”

Lara chewed her lip, considering what to say next. “It wasn't a dog.”

He blew out his cheeks, shrugged. “I didn't know how to type that up in the incident report. ‘Monster’ sounded too vague and ‘wolf’ sounded too batshit crazy. I settled for ‘dog’. He felt her eyes bore into him but didn't look up. He smoothed his palm flat against the table top. “I don't know. I dunno what I saw.”

“Well I do. I saw it up close.” She let her eyes drift to the floor. “It's crazy, I know, but why not just come out with it? Why keep it to yourself?”

“Vogel is itching to yank us off this. You were down for the count and he's looking for any excuse to shitcan me. What was I supposed to tell him?”

The question hovered there like a bad smell in the room. Lara wrapped a hand round her stomach and lowered slowly into a chair.

“You okay?”

“Just tired.”

“Go lie down.”

“In a minute.”

Gallagher sat up, creaking the chair under him. “Okay. What now?”

“We go back to work,” she said. Like there was any other answer. “We find him. And we stop him.”

“You sure? You look like hell.”

“Thanks. Asshole.”

“Atta girl.” He smiled up at her. She cracked a smile back, unable to stop it. “So. You know where we can find some silver bullets?”

“That's fairy tale stuff. We just need enough firepower to bring it down.”

“Don't make it personal, Lara. Vendettas get messy. Clouds your thinking.”

“Are you for real? All you do is make it personal. It's like, your schtick.”

“It's not personal.” Gallagher got up, opened the fridge. “I just like stomping shitbags.”He tossed stuff onto the counter. Cheese, cold ham, lettuce.

“What are you doing?”

“Making a sandwich.”

“Are you ever not hungry?”

“It's for you, dumbass. Amy said you hadn't eaten anything. Go lie down.”

DETECTIVE Charlene Farbre sat on the bench in the lobby of Central Precinct, waiting. The shift change had come and gone and she should have been gone with it but her phone rang just as she was wrapping up for the day. A good portion of her week had been eaten up trying to track down a witness in a sex assault in Alimony Flats. A young woman had been assaulted by three men at a house party. Over seventy people crammed into this house but not a single one admitted to seeing anything. The victim had identified one of her assailants and Charlene had uncovered the names of his three friends also in attendance at the party. Charlene had tracked the two who participated but the third one was dodging her. James Molliner had not been part of the assault but he was there. If she had any hope of nailing the other three, she needed to get to Molliner but the kid was slippery. Charlene had appealed to Molliner's mother two days ago. Two hours earlier, Molliner had called, said he'd come in to talk to her.

Here she was sitting in the lobby, eyes on the door. Ninety minutes in and tired of it. James Molliner wasn't going to show. She'd give it another half hour, then go on home.

The front doors whooshed open and Charlene looked up, hopeful, then sunk back down. This wasn't Molliner. The man that staggered in was ragged and sickly looking. Homeless. The threadbare blanket around his shoulders was wet, even though it wasn't raining.

Bored, Charlene watched the man as he stood dripping on the floor. He looked confused, unsure of whether to go on or turn around and leave. This wasn't unusual, crazies walked in all the time to annoy the desk staff with their crazy-ass nonsense. Charlene leaned back when the man's stink hit her. She knew the tang of BO and street-living but this was different. The funk was noxious and sharp. Not exactly pump grade gasoline or even diesel but it was fuel. Combustible. Kerosene. The man was dripping with kerosene. And he was shuffling towards the front desk.

Charlene sprang, hollering to wake the dead. “Get down! You, get down!” The two officers at the counter jolted up, caught off guard and confused.

“He's drenched in gas!” Charlene's hand instinctively reached for her belt but her sidearm wasn't there. She'd clipped off the holster and locked it in a desk drawer.

The man in kerosene-soaked rags raised his hands, palms out, but he didn't drop to the floor. His voice broke into a coughing jag. The two officers leaped over the desk, both drawing weapons and barking at the man to hit the floor.

“Wait,” he croaked. “I want to turn myself in. Please.”

Charlene glanced at the two officers. They looked back, just as confused. The sickly man waved his hands in surrender, gesticulating that he was no threat.

“I'm turning myself in. See? My name is Ronald Kovacks.”

25

LARA COULDN'T SLEEP, BONE TIRED as she was. The effort of leaving the hospital, coming home and dealing with Gallagher used up the little strength she had. After losing three days in a hospital the last thing she wanted to do was go back to bed but she could barely move. Get some sleep, she told herself. Start fresh tomorrow.

But every time sleep crept in, she saw the wolf.

The attack was a cobweb of images and sounds, incomplete and out of order. She remembered the pentagram on the wall, the panic when the dogs tore into the house. The small relief when she shot the dog bearing down on her. The rest was spotty and unreal. The teeth. Pain. The weight pressing down on her and the gamey smell.

The wolf. It had other names but she couldn't bring herself to say any of them. Not out loud, not even in her head.

But she saw it. Up close. She smelled it and she touched it. The fur that stung her hands like nettles, like armor. Beneath that, muscle. Ferocious power. She knew in that moment she was going to die, that she was powerless to stop what was happening. It was the most sickening feeling she had ever experienced.

Not like this, she kept thinking. I don't want to die like this.

Her skin bristled and goosed under the bandages. The chafing gauze aggravating the itch and all she wanted to do was scratch and scratch and scratch.

Her bag was on the kitchen table. Someone at the hospital had cleaned the blood off of it for her. She scrounged up the painkillers and antibiotics and chased them down with a mouthful of tap water. The scissors were in the utensil drawer. She took them into the bathroom and cut away the irritating gauze.

The metal was cold. The flesh of her belly pale and oxygen-starved. The puncture wounds were angry red dimes surrounded by grey lifeless flesh. God, was it infected? She scratched at it, scraping off the patchwork of scabs. Release oozed all the way down her knees.

She cut into her bandaged arm, hacking the gauze like a paper doll. More red craters puckered round by dead flesh. Was it gangrene? What did gangrene even look like? She ran the cold water and doused her arm until it was numb.

The tumble of images pushed back to the fore. The teeth and the fur. Hot breath and yellow eyes. Lara splashed the frigid water over her face, wanting to numb her brain.

Noise from the other room. A ringtone, not hers. But her phone was destroyed, wasn't it? A cell phone vibrated on the coffee table, one she didn't recognize. The display read PRECINCT. Gallagher must have left it for her, a replacement for the one lost at the halfway house.

“Hello?” Her voice hesitant, like it didn't belong to her.

“Hey, I heard you were back among the living.” The voice rang unfamiliar down the line. “It's Hammond, we spoke a while ago about the Gethsemane case.”

“Oh. Hi. How are you?”

“That was my question,” he said. “Listen, I know you just got put through the grinder but something came up in the case, thought you'd want to know. It can wait, if you want.”

“I'm fine. What is it?”

“You're not gonna believe this. You remember the perp in the abuse case? Ronald Kovacks? He's been AWOL for months, right? Get this, the guy just walked into central and turned himself in.”

Lara faltered, processing the info. “He turned himself in?”

“He waltzes into the lobby, stinking up the place bad. Soaked in gas or kerosene. The sonovabitch is covered in the shit.”

GALLAGHER bellowed at his kid, a banshee wail of rage boiling up from Irish blood. He'd come home to find a message from Amy's basketball coach asking where she was. She sauntered in an hour later and he demanded to know why she'd skipped practice. Amy simply shrugged, said she was hanging with friends. Gallagher smelled bullshit and hammered at her until she confessed she'd been out with a boy.

Amy stepped back, knowing she'd lobbed a grenade into the room. He detonated. Why, why, would she skip practice just to be with some braindead little peckerwood? Amy steamed at that, her dad's assessment of every boy she'd ever mentioned. He had never met any of them but that didn't stop him from dismissing every single one as a braindead peckerwood.

His cell kept ringing and ringing until he stopped yelling and answered it. Amy watched his face drop and saw his back as he marched out of the room. She knew from experience that something serious had come up and their fight was over. He'd be out the door and gone till morning.

He came back into the kitchen and fished his gear from the cupboard. He told her this wasn't over and they would discuss it in the morning. The door banged shut behind him.

Amy fetched a coke from the fridge and stewed, thinking of all the perfect replies to his hollering now that the fight was over.

RAFTON Correctional had been slated for closure twice but remained running despite its age and disrepair. Perched on a rise overlooking swamp land, it served as part lock up, part psychiatric facility. There was one road in off St. Helens Road and one road only, deep marshland on both sides. It was a pretty drive and Lara was glad she drove. Gallagher had offered to pick her up but that meant going out of his way. Faster if she just met him there.

He was late. Lara took a seat in the lobby and took out her phone. The replacement was newer than her destroyed phone and she was still getting used to it. She hated doing this.

“You need some help, ma'am?”

Ma'am? Lara looked up to see a correctional officer standing before her. He had to be in his twenties but he looked like a teenager. His smile was big and toothy. “I'm good. Waiting to interview a prisoner.”

He sat down next to her. “Ah, you're with PD. Thought you look a little too serious to be a visitor. I'm Johnny.” He held out a hand. “Officer Leto to the civvies.”

Officer Johnny Leto proceeded to ask questions about what detective work was like, peppered with personal questions about herself like what her man thought of having a detective for a girlfriend. Lara couldn't tell if he was looking for professional advice or trying to pick her up but he was funny and charming in his awkward way. It beat trying to sort out her new stupid phone. When Gallagher came through the door, Leto reverted back to business but he pressed a business card into her hand as he said goodbye.

Gallagher watched the young man saunter away. “What was that about?”

“Not sure. That was either the clumsiest pickup I've ever seen,” she said, looking at the card in her hand, “or the sneakiest.”

“A correctional thug?” he sneered. “Mendes, please.”

Detective Hammond entered the lobby and she rose. They shook hands, Hammond inquiring about Lara's health. He looked tired as he briefed them on the surrender of Ronald Kovacks.

“He's been in town this whole time,” Hammond said. “Hiding out, living off a little cash he'd squirreled away somewhere. Playing hobo.”

“You said he was drenched in gasoline,” Gallagher asked. “What was he gonna do, torch himself in the precinct lobby?”

“No, he was just wearing it. He'd been smearing it on himself for days. Kerosene, oil, axle grease. The staff scrubbed him down three times but the sonovabitch still stinks.”

“Why the hell would he do that?”

“To cover his scent.” Both men turned their eyes on her.

“That's exactly what he said.” Hammond's eyebrow went up. “How'd you know that?”

“Just a guess.”

Gallagher turned back to Hammond. “So you've already questioned him?”

“Yeah. I didn't get too far. He's not all there, rambles a lot. And he's sick.”

“Yeah. We know he's a sick freak.”

“Not that. He says he's dying.”

“Of what?” Lara asked.

“Cancer.” Hammond shrugged. “Or so he says. The nurse here said it's likely but they'll have to transpo him to a hospital for tests and stuff. How's that for luck, huh? We finally tag the sonovabitch and he ups and dies on us.”

“Maybe it'll be slow and painful,” Gallagher offered, but no one thought it very funny.

“Well, he's all yours. I told the warder you were coming, they stuck Kovacks in the box.” Detective Hammond jingled his car keys from his pocket. “Go easy on him, huh.”

RONALD Kovacks sat on a metal stool, shoulders sagging over a metal table. Opposite him was another stool, also bolted to the floor. The only other feature in the room was the camera mounted from the ceiling. Kovacks was a scarecrow of a man, shriveled up inside the prison jumpsuit. His arms were sticks spiderwebbed with raised blue veins. His cheeks hung sallow like he was missing teeth, the eyes small and deep set. An oxygen tube pinched his septum, the tube snaking down to a tank on a dolly.

The homicide detectives stood at the door. Gallagher stayed back, letting her take the lead. Lara took a step forward. “Mr. Kovacks, we're with the Portland Police Bureau. We're investigating your ex-wife's death.”

Kovacks scrutinized Gallagher first, then Lara. “Sit down.”

She took the stool, swung her knees under the table. Kovacks fixed his gaze square on her. Lara couldn't help but stare at the scar on his brow, a cross carved into the flesh. Not unlike the mark on Prall.

“How goes the investigation?” Kovacks smiled at her.

His gaze goosed the skin on her arms. She ignored it. “What do you know about Ivan Prall?”

“Who?”

Gallagher slid two sheets of paper from his pocket. One was a photo of their suspect at age fifteen, taken from Kovacks's own files. The other was Prall's self portrait. He slid these across the tabletop. “Prall, Ivan. One of the kids you destroyed.”

Kovacks didn't even look down but he bristled all the same. “That's a vicious lie. I didn't hurt anyone. I loved those kids.”

“Did you love Prall too?” Lara asked.

The red-rimmed eyes rolled back to her. He waved a hand, dismissing the idea like a buzzing mosquito. The effort seemed to exhaust him. He coughed up a wet hack and spit onto the floor. “Ivan Prall was a bad apple. Couldn't be saved. Lord knows I tried.”

“You carved up his face,” Gallagher said. “To match yours.”

“To protect him from the wickedness, yes.” Kovacks stared back at Gallagher, matching his contempt. “Didn't work.”

Gallagher bounced a glance off Lara. This guy's a piece of work. “Ivan Prall killed your ex-wife, Bethany Kovacks. He set his dogs on her and they picked her bones clean. Why did he do that? Why go after her?”

“The boy was troubled, like I said.”

Lara studied the prisoner, looking for a tic, some chink in the armor she could drive a wedge through. “Prall wanted revenge for what you did to him. But he couldn't find you so he went after her.”

“Oh, he wants much more than that.”

She leaned in. “What does he want?”

“You want me to help you? What are you offering?

Her jaw set. She wanted to hit this man. Lara had no problem keeping her emotions out of her work but something about Ronald Kovacks set her teeth on edge. The way he spoke, the way he moved. Everything about him repulsed her. “This isn't a negotiation, mister Kovacks. It's a criminal investigation.”

“Everything's a negotiation. Life is all negotiation. Haven't you learned that yet?” Kovacks held her eyes. “I'll help you catch him as long as this is held in consideration against my other...legal challenges.”

No way in hell was this creep getting brownie points for answering a few questions. She was about to speak when Gallagher cut in.

“Done. Tell us about Prall.”

Kovacks didn't acknowledge him, his eyes hard on the woman and the woman alone. “You know what he is,” he whispered. “You've seen it.”

Gallagher didn't like being ignored, cut in again. “He's a violent psychopath.”

“I'm sorry, I thought you were serious about this.” Kovacks turned to the door, hollered “Guard!”

“He's a wolf.” Lara let it hang there.

Kovacks perked up. “Ding!” He mimed ringing a hotel bell, all smiles now. “Werewolf is the term we're looking for but we'll accept that answer.”

“How do you know that?” Gallagher had spoken but Kovacks still ignored him. She repeated his question.

The prisoner's eyes lit up. “Who do you think turned him?”

Where the hell is this going? Lara didn't want to provoke the man into a psychotic rant and waste their chance. She leveled her tone. “You're a wolf too?”

Kovacks rang the imaginary bell again. “Ding. Another point for the good guys.”

It was Gallagher's turn to grit his teeth. “Then why are you stuck in this hellhole? Why don't you go all wolfman and bust out of here?”

Kovacks still wouldn't look at him. “I'm sick. The change, it takes a lot out of you each time. The metabolism of the wolf burns brighter than that of man. It takes it's toll. And I'm old now. Ancient really, if you amortize it in dog years.”

“Okay, we're wasting our time.”

Lara didn't budge. “You said Prall wants more than revenge. What is he after?”

“He's looking for a way out. A cure. There's one way to exorcise the wolf inside you. And that's by killing the wolf that blessed you.”

Gallagher didn't want to prolong this agony anymore but he had to ask. “So Prall thinks if he can kill you, he'll stop being the wolfman?”

“Yes.”

“That's why you turned yourself in,” Lara said. “To be safe from him.”

Kovacks nodded and the oxygen tube swayed under his nose. “I was running out of tricks to hide from him. He'd sniff me out sooner or later. In here, I can at least rest.”

Lara leaned closer. “How did it happen to you? How did you become a wolf?”

Gallagher shot a harsh look her way, wanting to end this bullshit but Lara wasn't looking at him. Why egg the bastard on?

Kovacks chortled, his teeth were yellow. “That's personal, sweetheart. Like asking when someone lost their cherry.” The laughter convulsed into a hacking rasp. “Tell me about your first time, detective. What was it like? That boy fumbling his way into your virtue.”

“I've never heard of that cure before. Killing the wolf that bit you.” Lara could feel Gallagher glaring at her to end this but she refused to look at him. “Is it true?”

“It won't work for Prall. He's too far gone but he clings to his delusion. We all do, I imagine.” Kovacks smeared the phlegm down his chin with his fist. He pointed a knotty finger at her. “But you, you're a different story.”

She leaned back, bristling. Ronald Kovacks aimed his palsied finger at her slung arm. “He did that to you, didn't he?” A perverted smugness draped the corners of his smile. “You're one of the blessed now too. But not confirmed, yes?”

Gallagher couldn't take anymore. He lurched forward, knuckles on the table. “To hell with you, Kovacks. And your deal.” He propelled himself off the table towards the door. “We're done here, Mendes.”

Lara didn't move.”How do I find him?” Her good hand trembled, nerves or rage, impossible to say. “How do I find Prall?”

“You get back to me on my deal. Then we'll talk about Ivan Prall.” Kovacks strained to his feet. “Guard!”

Gallagher wasn't exactly sure what happened next. He banged on the metal door and glanced back, saw Mendes hurl herself at Kovacks. She drove him into the wall, bouncing his melon off the painted cinderblock. The oxygen tank clanged as it hit the floor, the tube snapped free. Mendes shook him violently, screaming at him to tell her how to find Prall.

Gallagher barked at her to stop but she was deaf to him, deaf to anything but the sickly man jerking crazily in her hands. His head snapped back and forth like a broken bird. Gallagher grabbed her from behind but she was unmovable. She was five foot nothing but she would not let go, a mongoose on a cobra. He dug in and wrestled her off, legs kicking. Kovacks slid down the wall, his legs sprawled. A stupid look on his face.

The warder heard the racket from the hallway and opened the door. “Detective? Is everything all right?”

Detective Mendes stormed past him and just kept walking. Detective Gallagher smiled at the warder and bopped him friendly on the arm. “Get a mop,” he said. “Shithead threw up on himself.”

26

LARA DOUBLE-TIMED IT OUT TO THE parking lot. Every inch of her was shaking from the adrenaline juicing her nervous system. She wanted to hit something. She wanted to run. Just take off blind, bolting away from everything. What had she done?

Gallagher chased her down until he snatched her arm. He wanted to spin her around hard but she was immovable as a brick wall. All he did was slow her down. She stopped but didn't face him. “What the hell was that?”

“Isn't that how you do it?”

“Pick your moment, Lara.” He stepped around, needing to see her face. “You don't do it in a goddamn prison.” The panic in her eyes stopped him, knocking his anger off its axis.

Lara couldn't breathe, still riding out the adrenaline. She couldn't keep up with her own heart as it banged away against her ribs. Is this what drowning feels like?

“Easy.” Gallagher took her arm, afraid she was going to keel over. “Catch your breath.”

Lara doubled over, falling into him, and threw up all over his shoes.

AMY dropped her head into her hands and sighed. On the bed before her sat an open laptop. An old clunker of machine her dad had gotten from work. It was maddeningly slow and froze often. She hated it, cursing her old man for being so damn cheap. It had crashed again and she sat waiting for it to boot up. Again. That's when she heard the commotion downstairs.

She padded into the living room to see her dad and Lara stumble in. He was propping her up, her arm draped round his shoulder. He set her onto the couch. Lara looked green.

“What happened?”

“Get the bucket, honey.” Gallagher looked up at his daughter. “And some water.”

“Lara, you okay?” She took Lara's hand. “God, she's burning up.”

“Amy? The bucket.”

Amy ran to the kitchen. Lara shook off her jacket, put her head between her knees. “I'm sorry. I just need a minute.”

“You need a doctor.”

“No. No more hospitals.”

Amy came back, passed the bucket to her dad. “I brought the Advil. It's all we have.”

“Sorry for this, Amy.” Lara kept her head down, worried she'd heave again if she looked up.

“It's okay.” Amy looked at her dad. “Take her to the hospital.”

“Tell her that.”

Lara sat up, her face drained. “I'm okay. It's passed.”

“Lie down.”

Lara waved a hand. “I'm good, honest. Call me a cab, I'll get out of your hair.”

“Lara,” he said. “Just shut up and close your eyes.”

She had no fight left in her. Her head touched the throw pillow and she dropped to sleep immediately. Amy got a blanket and covered her with it. They left the room without another word.

Amy leaned on the kitchen counter while he rifled a beer out of the refrigerator. “Did you eat?” Gallagher asked.

“I made a sandwich. Do you want something? There's tunafish.”

He shook his head. Sipped the beer, then wagged his chin at her bedroom door. “You finish your homework?”

“Yes. How long has she been like that?”

“It just flared up. Let her sleep it off, see how she is when she wakes.”

Amy crossed her arms. “The doctors were worried about infection from the dog bites. She could be really sick, Dad.”

“Noted.” He checked the time on the microwave. “It's late. You going to bed soon?”

She reached for the book she'd left on the counter, held it up. “I gotta read two chapters for tomorrow.”

“What is that?”

“Lord of the Flies.”

“Hm. Good book.”

Amy said goodnight, promised not to stay up too late. Gallagher was amazed at how easily he lied to his own kid. He had never read that book, knowing it only by reputation. He hardly ever read for pleasure anymore. Who had the time?

The box was where he'd left it, in the mudroom. He emptied onto the kitchen table. Files and reports. The black notebooks of Ivan Prall's illegible ravings. He had reading of his own to kill.

LARA opened her eyes. The room was dark, the sofa underneath her unfamiliar. She tried to move but couldn't and she panicked, thinking the paralysis was back. Her hands moved, lifting to her face. It wasn't the paralysis, just a bone deep numbness in every limb. Sitting up was difficult, her legs dead weights clunking to the floor. Her hands frozen clubs. Sensation came back slowly and with it, the sting of pins and needles. There was nothing to do but ride it out.

She walked stiffly to the light coming from the other room. Her knee smacked into a table and Lara cursed, wondering who rearranged her furniture. Then she remembered where she was.

The kitchen was too bright. A radio playing somewhere. Gallagher sat with his feet propped on a chair. The table littered with notes and three of Prall's journals. A bottle of Jamesons next to a rock glass. “The dead have risen,” he said without looking up from his reading.

“Sorry. I passed out.”

His feet dropped from the chair and he waved at her to sit. “How do you feel?”

“Weird. Better.” Lara eased stiffly onto the seat. She nodded at the mess. “What are you doing?”

Gallagher held up the notebook. “Trying to crawl inside this bastard's head. But this...” He tossed it onto the table. “This is all gibberish.”

“I thought you didn't believe in profiling.” She tried not to wince.

“I don't believe in werewolves either.”

It had sounded funny in his head but voicing it out loud, it just came off ridiculous. So he shut up and the radio filled the empty space.

Lara spoke first, motioning to his glass. “Pass that over.”

“You can have a glass all your own.”

“Yours is closer.” She took the glass and tilted it back. Cold water would have been the wiser choice but water doesn't seep into your shoulder muscles like this. “This is good. I don't even like scotch.”

“That's because it's not scotch, it's Irish whiskey.”

“There's a difference?”

“That's blasphemy.”

She drank again, scaling the weight of the question in her head. She just blurted it out. “Do you think Kovacks was telling the truth?”

“Kovacks was playing you. It's what pedophiles do.”

“I think he was telling the truth.”

Gallagher took back the glass and sloshed more whiskey into it. “I think we both crawled too far into his head.”

“So you think I'm just crazy.”

“No. You've been through a violent trauma. Unconscious for three days. I think you're pushing yourself too hard to get back on the horse.”

“I was awake the whole time.”

That stopped him mid sip. He lowered the glass.

“I just couldn't move,” she said. “Not even my eyes.”

Gallagher set the glass down. Saw the memory of it dredging up in her eyes. The sensation of being dead. Her eye welled up and she wiped it away before it fell.

“That must have been terrifying,” he said.

“You have no idea.”

He took hold of her hand, felt it quaking. His thumb found the contours of her knuckles. “We'll fix this. You and me. Okay?”

Words. Just words. He held onto her hand, long after politeness required him to let go. The moment moved past awkward and became something else. Her eyes rose to his.

“John… “

“I know.”

He pulled his hand away. She wanted it back. Their eyes bounced off each other's like repelling magnets, the awkwardness rushing back to fill the vacuum.

“Hey.” A whisper.

She looked up and he was already leaning in. Already kissing her. Not some big explosion, just soft and tentative. Testing the waters. She kissed him back, her fingertips finding his neck. The water's fine.

Everything fell away in a sharp tiny moment. Bliss is one word for it. When the body takes over and stifles the brain and all its endless loops of second guesses and missteps.

A small thud snipped the moment short like scissors. Above their heads, footsteps on the second floor. Amy. The universe won't tolerate being shut out for too long and it rushes back in hard, returning all the petty details, unpaid bills and common bullshit that boil our brains every day. The universe hates bliss, snuffing it out whenever it bubbles up.

He pulled away and returned his ass to his seat. Amy's footfalls creaked the ceiling over their heads. Both reached for their glass, stalling until one of them had to say something.

“Gee,” she said. “Awkward.”

“Yup.” His glass went back to the table. “Come on, I'll get you home.”

“Are you okay to drive?”

“Hell no. Get your shoes.”

THE dogs skulked through the trees. Restless, chasing woodmice. Ivan Prall sat cross-legged on the ground, chewing the end of a pencil.

The notebook was stolen from an unlocked pickup. The paper was lined and the first twenty pages were used to log hours and gas mileage. These were torn out but there was nothing to do about the lined paper. He penciled over it, sketching another drawing. A simple task that calmed him and focused his mind. He had no streetlight nor lantern to work by, here in this rocky clearing in the trees. He needed neither. The phosphorescent hum of a crescent moon and the pinhole of the lodestar were enough for his eyes to see.

The Siberian trotted up and nosed his ribs. He paid it no attention so the dog circled round and nested at his feet. The pencil worked over the paper, forming the outline of a face. His heartbeat slowed with each pencil stroke and his brain cooled, allowing clarity to his boiling thoughts.

The scent he'd been hunting so long for had suddenly materialized. Filtered up through the asphalt streets and wafting over the river, its signature tang rising up sharp from the city stink. This was the old wolf, the hated lobo. It had mired its scent in the filth of men to hide from him and suddenly there it was. But it was for nothing. The old lobo had hidden himself inside a prison, sequestered in a fortress of barbed wire and pot-bellied men with guns. The old wolf, the baptizer, had outsmarted him. He had disgraced himself by surrendering to the men but he was safe.

That was okay, Prall reasoned. He'd learned patience. He could wait.

His hand moved deftly over the paper, rendering a portrait with strokes true and economic. A woman's face this time. Prall clamped the pencil between his teeth and judged the rendering's merits. The eyes were real enough but the mouth was wrong. The mouth was always elusive. The slant of the corners and the furl of the lips, this was the true measure of a face but the hardest to capture and pin onto the page. The mouth in this rendering was close but not true. Overall, it was a passable rendition of the woman who had gotten in his way twice now. The woman he tore up and let live. That thought sickened him. He had no wish to pass the sin onto another but he had with her. And now she was damned too.

What was her name?

Lara.

27

GALLAGHER'S TAILLIGHTS FADED to red pinpricks in the raindrops. Lara turned away from the window and kicked her shoes off. He had dropped her at the door like it was the end of some weird date. She kept thinking about the kiss. Where had that come from? She didn't like Gallagher. She even hated him sometimes. Yet he was the one who initiated it, ambushing her like that out of the blue.

Then again, maybe not. He wouldn't have done that unless there was something there. Had she done it subconsciously, sending signals without even realizing it? Go over the events, crack the details to parse the meaning of it. What if…

Stop. Her mind was ramping up speed, shifting through a million thoughts at once. A bad habit, overthinking everything until nothing makes sense. It's late. Go to bed.

She wanted another drink but all she had in the fridge was an open bottle of white that was at least a week old. She popped out the cork from the wine. A little stale but it would do.

The kiss kept replaying in her head, despite herself. She turned it over, examined it from all sides like a piece of evidence found at a crime scene. Brilliant. She pushed it away. There were would be no answers, no direction, until the morning when she saw him.

Pain zapped up her arm. Without even realizing it, she was scratching at the wound through the dressing. The itching was unbearable. Maybe the dressing needed changing. She went into the bathroom, unwinding the gauze.

It looked worse than before. The strangled flesh was jaundiced and the brittle scab tissue tore away with the gauze. The puncture marks leaked black blood and puss. It smelled awful too. Good God, was it gangrene? Is that possible? The whole hand looked wrong, the wrist bent. The knuckles looked swollen and the fingers twisted as if the bones under the skin had shifted.

She ran the palsied arm under the cold water, scrubbing it clean. The soap stung the raw flesh but the frigid water numbed the skin a little. She patted it dry with a towel and watched blood well up in the puncture marks. Angry red circles on her arm. And within those circles were tiny strands of hair lifting from the blood, sprouting from the wound itself.

ONTO Lovejoy, joining the traffic headed for the bridge. The column of vehicles backed up so Gallagher veered off, deciding to just drive for a spell. Clear his head. Try and sort out what had just happened.

It was stupid, he knew that. Disastrous too. Sure, Mendes was attractive. More than attractive, if he was honest with himself but he could deal with that. He had dealt with it, hadn't he? He never wanted a partner in the first place but then everything went screwy with the body on the riverbank. Mendes was a pickle and a stickler for procedure but they'd worked it out, got past that. Maybe—

No. This was a time-bomb waiting to blow up in their faces. He knew that from experience. There was Cheryl, of course. They were both young and convinced they had to stick it out for Amy's sake, blindly hoping things would just somehow get better on their own. It didn't. The divorce and the untangling of one life from the other while raising a daughter had been hellish. He was never going through that again.

Yet, dumb ass that he was, he got involved with another woman from work two years later. Pam was too young and he was too angry from the divorce. It was a mess from day one, both with wildly different expectations. Yet, small graces, it had ended cleanly. No lingering details, no fuss.

There were other women after that but none of them from work. No officers nor admin staff, not even a meter maid. He also swore off doctors, nurses and paramedics just to be sure. That cut about ninety percent of the women he met in a day from the potential dating pool. Normal women, the everyday population like the other parents at his kid's school, they just didn't appear in his world. Or he didn't appear in theirs. So his dating history was sparse and unremarkable. So why this thing with Mendes? Of all people, Mendes?

His eyes dipped to the speedometer. He'd been driving for twenty minutes without once paying attention to the road, lost in his own head. Where the hell was he? Cruising northwest up Front, following the river. The water on his right and the railyards to his left. No other cars on the road. He pulled to the shoulder and wheeled round onto the southbound lane. Something flashed in the headlights—

Gallagher braked, dipping the Cherokee's nose. A dog stood in the middle of the empty road, its eyes flashing in the halogens. It didn't bolt or even flinch at the oncoming grill, like the road belonged to it and he a trespasser on its pissing grounds. It was the Canario, that evil-looking hound with its cropped ears and muscular chest. He had looked it up after the earlier encounters, flipping through pictures of breeds till he found it. The dog eyed the truck, mouth open and then turned and trotted out of the beams.

One of Prall's dogs. Had to be. What are the chances? Gallagher wheeled onto the grade and killed the engine. Not much to see, the streetlights only threw so far into the empty expanse of railway tracks. His hand went to his belt but the gun wasn't there. It was in the cupboard, along with his badge. He had his cell. He could call it in, get a radio car out here to help look. For what, one dog?

Gallagher checked the road ahead and the road behind. No cars but on the far side of the road was an old sign listing in the weeds. Harvey's Garage. Why was that sign ringing a bell?

The body on the riverbank. This wasn't far from where Elizabeth Riley had been found.

The dome light came on when he opened the back. Gallagher took up the Maglite and found a field hockey stick under the stack of reusable grocery bags. He had told Amy a hundred times to move her gear out of his trunk but now he was glad she'd forgotten. He gripped it tight, testing its balance. The thing was deadly. He never understood field hockey. Why in the world would you arm twenty hormonal teenage girls with a bludgeon and send them onto a field to murder one another?

The dome light snuffed out and the Maglite went on. The beam didn't throw very far in the vast dark of the rail yard. His boots crunched the stone between the rail ties. Freight cars rusted on the lines, mammoth and silent in the darkness. He cast his eyes down the tracks, where they wound south into the core of the city. Was this how Prall was moving, running his dogs along the tracks? The tracks and the riverbanks.

The grinding stones were loud under his boots so he stopped on a creosote tie and listened. He could hear it, the dog, padding through the gravel somewhere between the cars. And then he heard the others skulking through the freights. He threw the light over the cars and caught their eyes in the beam. Up ahead and behind, to the right and to the left. Smart bastards, surrounding him in the dark like this and him standing there with a schoolgirl's stick in his hand. Maybe they could play fetch? He tallied the dogs up, spotting the Siberian, two pits, the Canario and the Malamute. Where was the Rottie? And that big mastiff?

The dogs sniffed the ground, trotting sideways like shy ponies. None barked or growled. No need to intimidate the man. An easy kill.

Gallagher clocked the Cherokee and gauged the distance. Too far to outrun the dogs, not over these tracks. He stepped back slowly, hoping to ease the distance some. If they charged, he could brain one or maybe two of them with the stick. If he was lucky, the others would balk and he could make a run for it. But these dogs had killed before. They hunted as a pack and killed like one. The cell was still in his pocket but it may as well have been a brick for all the good it was now. And where the hell was Prall?

Show yourself, you creepy sonovabitch.

He sidled back towards the truck. The dogs matched his pace, neither closing in nor losing ground. His foot caught a rail and he stumbled, almost fell. The dogs jolted. The Siberian flashed its teeth, black lips stretching up the tartar-spackled fangs. The Canario broke ranks and rushed him. Gallagher dropped the flashlight, swung hard with both hands and clubbed the dog's skull. It yelped, rolled with the blow and ran off. The others stopped, watching the action. No other dog charged.

Gallagher kept moving, his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. The dogs watched but didn't pursue, tongues hanging from their chops. What the hell are they doing? Who cares. Keep moving. Don't fall.

Something big skulked into his periphery and lumbered in his direction. He knew what it was before seeing it. He knew then that all the rationalizations he'd constructed was all bullshit. The thing moving at him was bullshit too. It didn't exist but here it came just the same.

The lobo lumbered heavy over the rails. Snout to the ground, tracking him with yellow eyes. Hackles up, the fur like blades ridging the backbone. Christ almighty. How had Lara survived an attack from that?

The wolf charged in for the kill. If he ran, he was dead. He charged at it instead. Screaming out some banshee-kamikaze war cry as he rushed it. It worked, the lobo reared back and he cracked the club across its skull with everything he had. It snapped, teeth popping at him. He swung and bludgeoned it again. It reared and shook its head violently at the pain.

He ran. Gallagher ran like he hadn't run since he was kid, full tilt and blind. His feet somehow slamming between the rails, the truck getting closer. The thing was already on his heels, popping its jaws. He sailed over the last rusty spar and spun in midair, hurling the stick at it. The ditch was muddy as he crashed and rolled and kept running. No time to even glance back to see if he clobbered it, he just ran.

Fingers tearing open the door latch. He jumped under the wheel and almost snapped the key firing the ignition. The Cherokee roared and he slammed the shift into gear, kicked down the pedal. The truck lurched forward. The passenger window exploded. The truck sunk portside and lifted on its starboard side. The snout jammed through the window and snapped, slicing its flesh on the shattered safety glass. The truck lurched up and threatened to tip over onto Gallagher's elbow. He punched at it, kicked the accelerator. All four wheels hit the ground and the truck lurched forward and Gallagher didn't let up. Dragging the monster until its head slipped the window and it was gone. In the rearview, the lobo shook it off and chased after him. Gallagher punished the old V8, putting distance between him and it.

No.

He jammed the brakes and cranked the wheel, spinning the truck around. The lobo flashed in the headlights.. The truck shot forward and he aimed the grill right at the damn thing. The monster lunged leeways but he caught a piece of it, nailing the hind end. Like a brick wall, the truck buckled and spun. Gallagher bounced hard and fought to keep it on the road. The truck balanced out. His chin ached from slamming into the wheel. He spun the truck back around but the headlights threw down on an empty road. He saw the dogs loping away through the freight cars, darting past the Maglite he had dropped out there. Of the wolf, there was no sign.

The Cherokee started to clink and sputter. Gallagher couldn't catch his breath, couldn't think straight with the adrenaline still pumping his heart. Rain spackled the windshield. It pattered in through the shattered starboard window. He watched the seat darken with the raindrops, not knowing what to do next. Call the cops? Check the damage to the grill? Call the insurance company or just get it fixed himself?

After a while, he took his foot off the brake and rolled away.

AMY lay in bed listening to the radio. She didn't want to get up but any minute now her dad would holler up the stairs for her to get her butt in gear. She slid out of bed and shivered, looked for her robe. Coming downstairs, the house was quiet. No clatter from the kitchen, no smell of just brewed coffee. The kitchen was empty, the lights still off. Was he still sleeping?

“Dad?” she hollered up the stairs. She couldn't remember the last time she had to yell at him to get up. There was no note on the counter and the phone indicated no new messages. That was weird. There was always a note, a message explaining why he wasn't there. Don't panic, it's too early for that. He just forgot this time.

The coffeemaker gurgled and Amy waited for the toaster to pop. She wanted the newspaper but with dad gone, it would still be on the porch. She cinched her robe tight and unlocked the front door.

Dad was in the rocker, legs straight and crossed at the ankles. Asleep with his head down. Amy stopped, the porch cold under her bare feet. “Dad?”

He jerked awake, the rocker creaking under him. Something slid from his lap and clunked the boards. A gun. Not the one he wore for work but the bigger one he kept locked in a cupboard in the basement. It was black, she didn't know the name of it.

“Why are you out here?”

“What time is it?” He flinched under a stiff neck. Eyes bloodshot. He picked up the gun and returned it to his lap.

“Were you out here all night?” She folded her arms against the chill. She hated it when he blew off her questions. “Why do you have the gun?”

“It's nothing.” He got up slowly, lightheaded. “Neighborhood watch stuff.” He went inside without looking at her. She got the rolled-up paper from the step and followed him in.

28

THE BUMPER WAS KNOCKED LOOSE, hanging down on the driver's side. The headlamp was crushed and the grill punched in. Gallagher slotted the Cherokee nose first into a spot in the parking garage. He preferred to back in but he didn't want anyone seeing the damaged front end, didn't need any questions about it. There was nothing he could do to hide the shattered window on the shotgun side. Clear the shards of glass away, that's all. The truck looked like hell and he walked away from it in disgust.

He went to the desk sergeant, asked for all the incident reports from the night shift. There was nothing there. No reports of the dogs, no dog attacks, no 10-24's about a possible dead body. The desk sergeant went for coffee, letting Gallagher use the desktop to check the 911 calls. Again there was nothing here related to his case or what he encountered last night. When the sergeant returned, Gallagher asked if there were any outstanding reports waiting to be filed but the sergeant said no, everything was in. It had been a quiet night.

In the bullpen, Gallagher found his desk occupied. A flabby kid with a beard sat in his chair, tapping away at his desktop. A flat of unmade banker's boxes leaned against the wall, like it was moving day.

“What the hell're you doing?”

The kid turned round, nodded. “Hey man. I'm gonna be a while.” He turned back to the screen.

Gallagher gripped the chair and swung the kid around. “Who the hell are you and why are you messing with my work?”

The kid leaned back, getting distance from the cop. “I'm transferring all the files, like I was told to. Excuse me.”

“Told by who?”

“My boss, Jim. Down in tech. He got orders to copy and transfer the open case files on this station and that one there.” He pointed at Mendes's desk.

“Get outta my chair.”

“Look man, I got to do this. Go talk to— “

Gallagher snatched the kid's ear and hauled him to his feet. “Get the hell away from my desk.” The guy squealed as Gallagher propelled him out of the cubicle.

“Eff you man!” The kid screamed but he kept walking. “You can't do that to me!” He bumped into Lara as she turned the corner.

Lara watched the kid huff away then looked at Gallagher. “What was that?”

“Someone told that creep to dump our case files.”

“Who?”

He shrugged, took a closer look at her. She looked tired and strung out. “You feeling better?”

“Bad sleep.” Her eyes went to the unfolded boxes tilted against her evidence board. “What is going on?”

“Lara, sit down.” The tone serious, his voice like gravel. “We need to talk.”

“Yeah. About last night. Listen, John, I know—“

“No. Not that.” He rubbed his chin, hesitating. Groping for a way to say it. “You were right about Prall. About what he is.”

She wasn't sure she'd heard him. “What?”

“It came after me last night. Not Prall, the thing.”

“Are you all right?”

“My truck's banged up pretty bad, but that's all. He baited me, with his dogs. I walked right into it.”

“Jesus. Where?”

“Not far from where we found Elizabeth Riley.”

Lara sank into her chair, knocked down by what she heard. “You saw it? The wolf?”

“Up close. I'm sorry I didn't believe you before. I should have.”

Neither moved. Phones rang in the background, the photocopier chunk-a-chunked in the corner. Lara felt a tug inside her, a twisted knot loosened and eased off at this thin life-rope tossed her way. She wasn't alone, she wasn't losing her mind.

“What do we do now?”

“We talk to the Lieutenant. This is bigger than us. We need a SWAT team. Firepower. We can get Pablo's help. Maybe some wildlife experts.”

“The Lieutenant is going to think we're both crazy.”

“I know. You got a better idea, I'm all ears.”

She didn't.

They didn't have to wait long. The Lieutenant banged out of his office, calling for their heads.

MENDES and Gallagher sat before the desk like truant school kids. Lieutenant Vogel brought the wrath of God down on their heads. Lara's gaze drifted to the picture of Vogel in his glory days of wrestling, the tights and tall boots. She wanted to laugh, the whole damn thing was so ridiculous. The Lieutenant's neck cabled up as he bellowed and they had yet to even mention Prall's name.

“The warder at Rafton Correctional is livid. You two waltz in there and assault a prisoner? A guy dying of cancer!”

It was about Ronald Kovacks. What they had done to him. Gallagher had meant to talk to Vogel about it, to ward off any trouble. In the shitstorm of the last two days, he had simply forgotten about it. Time to pay the piper.

“It was just a little misunderstanding.” Gallagher spoke. Lara seemed fixated on the picture on the wall, like she couldn't care less.

“A misunderstanding? Oh I see, I'm the asshole here.” Vogel's face bloomed red. “Not only do I have the prison hammering on me, detective Hammond is furious. This is his prisoner, his case, and you two just screwed him on it.”

Gallagher clenched his teeth. Lara had yet to say anything and he could only carry this one so far. They'd crossed a line, simple as that.

The Lieutenant caught his breath, amped up for another round. “You,” his finger squared at Gallagher, “I'd expect this from you. But the prisoner stated clearly it was detective Mendes.” He all but snarled at her. “What the hell did you do to him?”

She pried her eyes from the picture. “The prisoner was uncooperative. I needed answers.”

“Are you joking? I made you homicide so you could keep a leash on that sonovabitch.” Vogel chin-wagged at Gallagher and hammered on. “Not turn into him!”

“Leash?” Gallagher spun to her. “The hell are you talking about?” She didn't return the gaze.

“Do you clowns have any idea the kind of hell this makes for me? Internal Affairs will crawl so far up my ass I won't know whether to shit or wind my watch.” Vogel wiped the sweat from his lip. “As for you two, they're gonna drag you behind the sheds and burn you at the stake.”

The rage burned off, leaving a vacuum in the room. Mendes and Gallagher looked at the floor. Vogel waited for some sign of contrition. The wall clock ticked away the seconds.

Lara spoke up. “We need to talk about Ivan Prall.”

“Who?” Vogel wasn't ready to change topics. “The dog guy?”

Gallagher groaned. Not now, not with the Lieutenant looking for someone to hang. Lara looked him in the eye, serious as death. We have to do this.

“What about him?” Vogel asked.

Gallagher cut in before she could continue. “Ivan Prall is extremely dangerous. We need to throw everything we got at this guy. And I mean everything.”

“What? Are you telling me you can't handle this?”

“We need more bodies working this,” Gallagher said. “We need a task force and a SWAT unit ready to hit this guy as hard as possible.”

Vogel wasn't buying any of it, that much was clear.

“Are you familiar with this suspect?” asked Lara. “The case file?”

“He's the crazy guy with the dogs. Thinks he's a vampire or something.”

“Werewolf.”

“Whatever.”

Lara sat up. Loud and clear with a straight face. “He isn't crazy. He is what he says he is.”

Tick, tick, tick. It was like someone had passed wind in the room. Lieutenant Vogel just blinked stupidly at her, then Gallagher and back to her. “What?”

“It's true.” Gallagher had never gone skydiving, never jumped out of an airplane, but he imagined this is what it felt like. A freefall with no turning back. “We both saw it. The… uh… werewolf. That's what attacked Lara, not the dogs.”

The Lieutenant waited for one of them to crack, to start laughing at this bad joke but neither flinched. His detectives held faces of stone. Very well. “Collect your open case files, hand them over to Bingham and Latimer. Including the Prall case.”

“Mike,” Gallagher leaned in, “don't do this. Not now.”

The Lieutenant raised a hand, ending the matter. “Both of you are suspended until I clear this up. Surrender your firearms and tin to the desk. Then get out of my precinct.”

There was nothing left to say.

LARA went straight to her desk without looking back. What did she think was going to happen? Was the Lieutenant going to believe them? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

She took one of the empty boxes and placed it on the floor below her evidence board. She tore the photographs down, letting the pins fall around her. The pictures went into the box, no notations, no cataloguing. Next the sketches and journal entries photocopied from the notebooks. After that, the reports and notes. Pushpins tumbled and became lodged in the industrial pile.

“You were supposed to be my leash?”

Gallagher caught up. Lara kept her back to him, tossing pages into the box. “What the hell was that about?” he said.

“I wanted to work homicide. That was the deal.”

“You should of told me.”

“How? When you were busy ditching me? It doesn't matter anymore.” She stepped past him to get another box. “Excuse me.”

She scooped up the binders from the desk, one open case per, and dropped them in. He reached into a box and retrieved a sketch. Prall's self portrait. “We still have a problem.”

“We have nothing.” She snatched it from him, balled it up and tossed it in. “We don't even have jobs anymore.”

“To hell with the job.”

“We blew it.” She took the box and marched past him. “You can go back to being a cowboy now.”

DETECTIVE Bingham kept his ear to the ground all morning, sensing a change in the wind and an imminent internal shift within homicide detail. He'd heard the scuttlebutt about Gallagher bashing up a prisoner and even a blind man could see the Lieutenant had been pushed too far. He decided to move things along.

Ten paces south of the cubicle he shared with Latimer were two meeting rooms. Not interview boxes but utilitarian rooms for procedural meetings or interviews with families. The smaller of the two rooms was closed off for repairs after a grieving father trashed the place in his rage. No serious damage, just patching the fist-sized holes in the sheetrock.

Bingham had taken control of this room, intending to use it as an active workroom for his soon to be doubled workload. He had moved the contractor's material aside and set up the white board. By ten that morning, he'd been informed by Lieutenant Vogel that a team's workload would be dumped in his lap. One priority open case; the apprehension of Ivan Prall on two murder charges.

He and Latimer moved materials in and had a tech from downstairs linking laptops over three workstations. They had recruited a uniform from rookie hall to help out and said rookie was busy humping boxes in and dashing out on coffee runs.

Bingham stood before an enormous street map of Portland, circling crime scene coordinates in red marker. He turned to the tech hunched over one of the laptops. “How goes the battle, Jay? You about done?”

Jay the tech nodded without taking his eyes from the screen. “Almost there.”

“Good,” Bingham said. “When you're ready, I want these coordinates fed into the system. See what we got.”

Bingham capped the marker and stepped back to view the big map. Pleased, he turned around to start on the files. Detective Mendes stood in the doorway. A box in her hands, watching the buzz of activity in the room. This was awkward. He nodded politely.”Detective”.

“What is that?” Lara chin-cocked the big map.

Bingham perked up. “Geographic profiling. We can analyze his hunting grounds and zero in on him.”

“You won't find him that way.”

Now that's just rude, he thought. He motioned to the box in her hands. “You can toss that over there.”

More boxes were stacked unevenly against the wall, the cardboard corners crushed and the whole tower threatening to timber. Her work, dismissed and shunted aside. She dropped the box on the table and left.

TWO floors down, Lara Mendes placed her shield on the countertop. She slid the holster from her belt and withdrew her 9mm Glock service issue. The clip slid out and she placed it next to the shield. She racked the slide forward, double-checking that there was no round in the chamber and set it down. She pushed the shield and the gun across the counter to the desk sergeant. He scribbled details onto a form then spun the clipboard round for her to sign.

Gallagher stood behind her, shield in hand, waiting to go through the same humiliating routine. Their eyes met briefly as she passed him but neither said a word.

29

THE PETTYGROVE WAS QUIET when Gallagher pushed through the door and slid his ass onto a bar stool. Two daytime drinkers at the other end of the bar and three occupied tables. Gallagher checked each face in the room and tagged all but one of them as either a cop or ex-cop.

He needed to go home. Boozing down his shitty day in this place was just a bad idea. He had stormed out of the precinct, intent on going straight home when he remembered Amy was going to a friend's house for dinner. No need to rush home and fix a meal. So here he sat. Just one, to burn off the bad taste in his mouth. Was there anything more pathetic than anchoring his dumb ass at the bar to sulk a shitty day away? He didn't care. Country music spun out from two bashed up speakers, which didn't help matters. Like a license to get maudlin. He hated country music when he was a kid simply because his parents listened to it but had come around to it the older he got. Now he tortured his own kid with it and took no small pleasure watching her squirm when he sang along.

The woman behind the bar came round and called him by name. She knew everyone's name. He asked for a beer in a bottle, not the swill in the taps. The Pettygrove never cleaned their draft lines and more than one glass from the tap was lethal.

The ruckus with Kovacks was going to be a problem. He'd been down this route before, stomping heads when he should have kept his cool. He just couldn't help himself yet secretly relishing how much it drove Vogel up a wall. The funny part here was that he hadn't even touched Kovacks. Ha ha. Not that it mattered. He had history, Mendes didn't. He was the one the Lieutenant was itching to jettison from the detail. So it goes. Investigations like this would take weeks, plenty of time to worry about it later.

He tilted back half the bottle and let himself drift back to the real problem. The thing that came at him in the railyard. The thing that smashed his window and popped its teeth at him. It wasn't coincidence that had led him to it. The dog, the first one, had stood in the middle of the road waiting for him. How did it know where he was? He was driving, for Christ's sakes. The sonovabitch had waited for him to drive up and then lured him onto the tracks. It was a trap and he had walked right into it. Outsmarted by dogs.

They had laid a trap and waited. That requires intelligence and patience. What the hell was he dealing with? Did wolves hunt like that?

And then there was the thing itself. He could still see its teeth when he closed his eyes. The thing was huge. It didn't move the way dogs do. It didn't behave like a dog either. It didn't bark or posture. The damn thing had locked on him and closed in fast, with purpose and intent. Like it was personal. Was some part of Prall still conscious inside that thing?

How the hell could something like that exist? How could it roam back alleys and riverbanks and no one know? He still couldn't utter the word, not even to himself. It was just too crazy.

He killed off the beer and ordered another, along with a tumbler of Jamesons. He meant to nurse it but the whiskey went down too easy and he nodded for another. He'd just been given the axe. Didn't he deserve it? He studied the framed pictures behind the bar. Old black and white photographs of salty lawmen down the decades. Cops in stiff uniforms from the 1970's, all the way back to stone faced sheriffs in moustaches and waistcoats. His favorite picture showed two sheriffs in wide brimmed hats flanking a pineboard coffin propped vertically against a hitching post. Crammed inside the narrow box was a dead man with half-lidded eyes and a gaping mouth. Presumably some crazed outlaw that the lawmen had pursued and brought down with their gunblacked hands. Wagonyard justice.

The bar grew louder. Patrons shuffling in after the shift change. Gallagher glanced over his shoulder and clocked Latimer and Bingham settling into a sixtop with a crew from other details.

Shit.

“Two pitchers, Stephanie.” Bingham leaned an elbow on the bar and nodded to Gallagher. “How ya doing, John? Hey, you wanna come join us?”

“Nope.”

Gallagher drew circles with his glass, widening the little puddle on the bar. Bingham waited for his order, idly fiddling with a coaster. An awkward pall creeped down the bar. Bingham spoke up, needing to fill the void. “It's not fair, man,” he said. “Vogel can be a real dick. Let me buy you one, huh?” Bingham waved his cash at the woman pulling draft. “Get the detective another round too, yeah.”

“Screw you, Bingham. And your drink.”

“Suit yourself,” Bingham shrugged, fronting. “I'm not the bad guy here, G.”

“No, you're the weasel who snookered the case out from under me.”

“You think I wanted this? I got better things to do than fix your mess.”

Gallagher came off the stool in a snap. Itching for a fight and any excuse would do. “Like what? Beg the Lieutenant for a reach-around while he's pegging you to the headboard?”

Half the cops in the bar were on their feet, sensing the brawl about to spill open. Bingham felt all those eyes on him, he couldn't walk away now. “You're drunk, Gallagher. Go home before you embarrass yourself— “

The snap came. Gallagher plowed him against the rail and stove Bingham's face into the bartop. Hissed at him. “You think you can collar this guy?”

A rush to the bar. Hands grabbed Gallagher to pull him off but he would not let go, barking into Bingham's face.”He will eat you alive!”

An arm shot round his neck and choked him backwards. Gallagher punched out blind, looking to hit anyone. Everyone. The off-duty detectives hauled him off and pummeled him senseless with elbows and knees. Threw him out the side door. When he hit the alley, the fight had gone out of him and Gallagher slumped against the chain link fence. Of the four detectives who wrestled Gallagher outside, all knew what had happened to him and Mendes. Not one took it personally, not one got angry. Someone flagged a cab and they piled the sonovabitch into it and told the driver to take him home.

THE drive home was hellish. Twice Lara had pulled over fast to hurl but nothing came. She drove like a senior citizen the rest of the way home and crawled to the bathroom. Passed out with her forehead against the cold tile floor.

When her eyes opened again, the nausea was gone. In its place was a pulsating headache. She slid her phone from a pocket and blinked at the time. After ten. She'd been out for four hours straight.

Easing off the floor, she rifled the medicine cabinet only to find an empty bottle of Tylenol. Damn. She closed the cabinet and her face swung into the mirror. Yikes. She looked like the butt end of a three day bender. Puffy eyes and sallow cheeks. This is what meth heads look like.

There were no more painkillers in her purse. She'd have to go out because the knocking in her brainpan was getting worse. She peeled out of her work clothes and rooted for something comfortable. Anything would do, even the sweats Amy had leant her. She slipped on a pair of flip-flops and locked the door behind her.

The night was cool but the chill air did nothing to dampen the fire in her head. The streetlights hurt her eyes and the traffic stung. North two blocks to the corner store where she bought Tylenol and water and downed two pills right there at the counter. Back onto the street and six doors down, the painkiller kicked in.

Something wasn't right. Vertigo swam up and knocked hard, tilting her too far one way and then the other like she was drunk. Her ears stung. Every noise became too loud and too intense, like God had suddenly turned up the volume on everything. A couple passing by, yelling at each other. A car horn broke her eardrum. A dog tied to a post barked yipped at her, each bark snapping thunderclaps at her. Her palms stoppered both ears, running along in the stupid flip-flops.

Everything was too loud, too piercing. She couldn't think, couldn't breathe. There, at twelve o' clock stood a church. One bare bulb glowed over the arched door of St. Patrick's Church of the Redeemer. She slid out of the flip-flops, gathered them up and ran for the doors.

Slipping through the heavy oak door, pushing it closed. The din outside muted to almost nothing as the door latch clicked. Soft light cast a jaundiced sheen on the wooden pews. Votive candles trembled beneath a gilded painting of Saint Patrick. Eyes cast heavenward. His hand held a crooked staff and at his feet were thousands of serpents.

Lara slid into a pew and exhaled. The church was quiet. She was still cognizant of the racket outside but it was tolerable. The smell of wood polish and wax was heady, bringing up memories of the church of her childhood. When was the last time she had even entered a church? Four years ago, when she'd flown down to Albuquerque for her nephew's baptism. How her mom would have disapproved. To her, a lapsed Catholic was one straw away from an ignorant heathen. Or an Anglican.

The click of metal as a door opened. She didn't bother turning around. Some other penitent looking for peace, shuffling reverently up the aisle behind her.

“Hello.”

Lara flinched. For one tiny millisecond, she expected to see Ivan Prall. A priest stood in the aisle. He looked too young to be a priest. Her own age or maybe even younger.

She nodded, her hair falling loose over her face. She still held her flip-flops in her hands. Barefoot in a church. Her mother would have been mortified. “I'm sorry. I just needed a minute.”

“That's what we're here for.” His voice echoed softly in the enormous space. “Lots of people come in just to sit. Gather their thoughts.” He sat at the far end, the whole length of the pew between them. Folded his hands in his lap. “We could talk, if you like. About anything. The weather, or what's troubling you.”

“Who says I'm troubled?” Her voice cut sharper than she'd meant but the priest either didn't notice or didn't take offense.

“No one comes in here at night if they're content.” He leaned back, resting an elbow on the back of the pew. “But we'll stick to the weather. I think we're in for a storm soon. You can feel it in the air pressure.”

She dropped her footwear to the floor, slipped them back on. “I shouldn't even be in here. I can't remember the last time I went to mass.”

“I'm not a stickler for attendance. I like to see new faces in the church, anytime of the day.”

“You must get a lot of crazy people in here.”

“No, just troubled people. Folks with a lot of worries and heavy hearts.”

Lara felt the tension in her shoulders loosen. The urge to run dissipated, her mortification sharp. She looked at the priest and wanted to ask a question but didn't know how to frame it. It just sounded so stupid.

“Do you believe in the supernatural?” She whispered it, as if lowering the volume made it sound better.

“Of course.” He matched her whisper. “The Lord is supernatural.”

“Of course. But beyond that, I mean. I...” Her voice trailed off, unable to finish.

“You're asking if I believe in ghosts and stuff,” he said, picking up her thread. “Then no. Those bogeymen are human inventions. Projections of fears and hatreds, our bigotries made manifest.”

“I see.” Lara kept her head down. The numbness in her left hand returned and she flexed her fingers to ward it off. “What if I said there really were such things. Monsters. And that I saw one.”

He didn't react, like he heard this all the time. “I'd be very interested to hear that.”

Maybe he did hear it all the time.

“There's a man,” she began, “who claims to be a werewolf. I assumed he was just psychotic and disturbed. He isn't. He was telling the truth. I saw the monster. It attacked me.” She raised her injured arm, as if it was all the proof she needed.

The priest nodded softly, as if agreeing with everything she'd just said. “Go on.”

“You know how the story goes, right? If you're bitten then you too become a monster. You become the wolf.” She kept her eyes on the kneeler before her.

“I think you've been through a very traumatic experience. Physically and emotionally. What you knew of this man has colored your own thoughts. What you are experiencing now is spiritual trauma, and that is what brought you here.”

“That's what I thought too. But something is happening to me. And I'm scared.”

“What's your name?”

She told him her name. He rose and came down the pew to sit next to her. “Lara, there is nothing wrong with you. Nothing supernatural. Look at me.”

She straightened up and pushed the hair from her eyes, folding it behind her ear.

“I promise you there is nothing— “ His words choked off.

“What?”

“Your eyes.”

They were amber. Incandescent around the pupils with an unnatural light.

A rictus of disbelief rippled across the priest's face.

She turned away. The look in his eyes answered her questions. She staggered to the door. He called after her, told her to wait but the oak door clicked shut behind her.

30

CARLY FARINO COULD ROT IN HELL. That was the conclusion Amy arrived at walking home from practice. She had confronted Carly about all the lies she'd been spewing about her. Carly denied it. Amy had shoved her hard to the ground and Carly's friends had jumped to her defense, hitting and kicking at her until Amy stormed away.

She had always hated her dad's temper. Hated it more when it bubbled up in herself.

But Carly. They used to be friends. Through middle school until high school, then they drifted. Where Amy played basketball, soccer and even field hockey, Carly was pulled into the sphere of the poser kids. The ones who made their own comic books and constantly formed bands and broke up said bands to form new ones. While Amy was put through drills by the coach, Carly was in someone's basement practicing on an imitation Fender bass. They had little to talk about anymore and by tenth grade they all but ignored each other.

A week ago, Amy learned of a number of nasty rumors going around. That she routinely screwed the older guys on the basketball team and blew doormen to sneak into clubs. Her friends told her to ignore it, everyone got their turn being rumor-slut of the week but Amy wouldn't let it go. She bullied and grilled everyone for the source of the bullshit and learned it was Carly. Carly denied it. Amy shoved her so hard, Carly flew off her feet and hit the grass hard. Shoved back and booted by Carly's loser friends, Amy walked away. She didn't look back when Carly screamed names at her. Bitch, backstabber, phony, cunt. She didn't let herself cry until she was safely out of sight of school. She walked home.

Her tears dried halfway home and it was hot so she peeled off her jacket and tied the arms round her waist. She worried about what she'd find when she got home. Dad had come home drunk yesterday and made a quick dinner of grilled cheese and Doritos and they barely spoke through any of it. He said he was just tired. Later that night she found him back on the porch, sitting in the rocker. He just grunted the same crap about a neighborhood watch and kept rocking. The grip of the gun peeking out from a pocket. She said goodnight.

Over breakfast, he was grumpy and his eyes were dark. He'd been out there all night but denied it when asked. Said he just hadn't slept well is all. He said he'd be home more now. He was taking time off work and maybe they could catch a Trailblazers game or go to the movies. Shoot some baskets.

None of it sounded right to her ears. Dad didn't just take time off work but he wouldn't budge when she asked why. Everything was fine, he said. Finish your breakfast.

Did he get fired? Did something bad happen, forcing him to take a leave? It would have to wait till tomorrow. She was too hot and too fed up to worry about anything else today. She just wanted to get home and curl up on the sofa with some bad TV.

Amy shifted the weight of the bag on her shoulder. Leaves rattled across the sidewalk and hit her ankles. The street was quiet. No cars, no pedestrians. Just the dog.

It sat on the opposite sidewalk, a big Siberian Husky, white with grey flecking. It sat straight, mouth closed and alert, watching her. Amy knew most of the neighborhood dogs but this one was new. No collar.

She walked on. Looked over her shoulder. The dog trotted across the road and sidled after her. She wondered if it was lost, if it would follow her home. She'd always wanted a dog but her dad never gave in. Amy turned back to see if it was still there.

There were three dogs. Two big brutish-looking dogs trotted dutifully behind the Husky, all following behind her. A fourth dog slipped out from behind a hedge and fell in line at the end.

Okay. This wasn't funny. The dogs weren't running and playing like normal, they followed her with a weird intensity. Tracking her. She picked up the pace. Don't panic, don't look back. Just get home.

Another glance over her shoulder, she couldn't help it. Five dogs now. And all of them getting closer.

Amy ran. And Amy was fast. She bolted across a yard and over a hedge. The dogs charged after her. She dropped the bag and ran faster.

Her house was round the next corner but she knew a shortcut, through the McNiven's backyard and the old man's tomato patch. Then a dead heat to her own backdoor. She could hear the dogs panting behind her but didn't look back.

One thought repeated in her head. Please let it be unlocked.

GALLAGHER hauled in the grocery bags and dropped his keys into the bowl. He checked the shoes scattered at the front door. Amy wasn't home yet.

He still felt like crap. He considered going to bed after Amy went to school but knew he wouldn't sleep. He made a to-do list, all those annoying little jobs he never had time to do and drove to the Home Depot. He replaced the rotting downspout in the front yard and cleaned out the clogged eaves. He made a grocery list and drove to the Safeway. He didn't listen to the news, didn't look at a newspaper. He'd kept himself busy but now he was home and the house was quiet and all the bullshit of the last two weeks started roiling up in his head.

A loud thud scattered his thoughts, something hitting the backdoor. And then a voice screaming for help. Amy.

She was on her knees in the mudroom, locking the backdoor. Amy scrambled away, backing into the washing machine. Her face flushed and terrified.

“What's wrong?” He took hold of her, felt her quaking. Too winded to speak, too petrified to spit. He told her to catch her breath, take it slow.

“Dogs,” she finally said. “They chased me.”

He didn't see anything in the window. He told her to stay put and unlocked the door.

“Dad, don't— “

He stomped outside. Scanned the yard but there was nothing. No sound.

They materialized all at once. Dogs sklathing through the hedgerow, skulking in from the next yard. He counted six of them. Eyes locked on him, fanning out through the yard. Surrounding him.

His hand went to his gun, a reflex movement. It wasn't there.

The pack trotted through the grass, crossing each other's path. Traversing the yard in half-arcs. Watching him.

His eyes darted around for a weapon. A shovel or brick, anything. The Siberian passed right before him, taunting him. It snorted once then suddenly turned and ran. The rest followed, rattling the dry stalks of the hedge. In a flash, they were gone.

He heard the door click open. Amy ran out, clutching a Louisville Slugger in both hands. He coaxed it from her grip and wrapped a hand round her shoulders. Led her back inside.

THE pack raced into a culvert, splashing footfalls off the corrugated metal. Back into the daylight and further down a gulley to a stand of small trees. Where the alpha waited.

Prall sat on the ground and the dogs trampled round and nosed his hands. The Siberian trailed up last, dragging something in its jaws and dropping it at Prall's feet.

Prall scratched the husky's withers and whispered into its ear. He took up the schoolbag and dumped the contents onto the ground. His hand sifted through the papers and pens and clothing, spreading it all out before him. These he studied, as if divining some meaning from them the way a seer foretells the future from dove entrails. Their meaning eluded him so he scattered it away save for the clothing. He scooped up a shirt still damp with sweat and put it to his nose. He discarded this too and lifted the shorts to his face and breathed in their scent. This he tucked away into a pocket. The bag was hurled into the brambles. After a while he rose and quit the place, the dogs falling in line behind him.

AMY slouched in the passenger bucket, her feet on the dash. Her duffel bag was on the backseat, hastily packed. Clean clothes tossed in with the dirty. Her backpack, along with her homework, was lost. They had scoured the neighbor's yard for it but came home empty-handed. Then her dad decided to get rid of her.

Gallagher maneuvered through traffic, past all these turtle-paced drivers who clearly were in no rush to get anywhere. He glanced to the passenger side but Amy was still angry and would not look at him.

“You all right?” He tried.

“I'm not a kid anymore, you know. You can be straight with me.”

“I know. It's just… It's not safe. Okay?”

“They were just dogs.” She finally looked at him. “Why do I have to go back to mom's?”

“Humor me, okay. I'll come get you when this is all over.”

Amy wanted to scream. She hated when he got vague on her. The more vague he became, the more important the issue. “When what is over?”

“Did you pack everything? The clothes in the dryer?”

“DAD!”

That got his attention. He looked at her.

“Don't talk down to me. What is going on?”

He turned onto Delaware and swung into the double-wide driveway of Cheryl's house. He killed the engine, shifted in his seat to face his daughter and came clean. “There's a guy out there. A dangerous guy with some nasty dogs. The dogs that chased you? Those were his.”

Amy's mouth slacked, forming an ‘O’. She hadn't seen the connection till now. “Oh my god, it's the guy you're after. The one who killed that woman. And attacked Lara.”

“Yeah. But now he knows where we live. That's why you're going to your mom's.” He looked up at his ex-wife's house. It was nice. “I need to stop him. Now.”

“So go get him,” she said. “You and Lara can take care of it.”

“She's out of the picture.”

That was news to her. “What does that mean? You're not partners anymore?”

“We're not anything. We've been suspended for assaulting a prisoner. Internal affairs is involved and it's gonna get ugly.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

He didn't answer, eyes roaming over the house. He popped his door and swung out. “Let's go.”

He retrieved the duffel and crossed to her side. Amy hadn't moved. Hunkered down in the bucket, arms crossed. The way she did when she was little. He opened the door. “Come on,” he said. “Out.”

“What are you going to do? Go after this guy alone? That's crazy.”

“It's easier this way. Partners slow me down.”

“You say that, dad, but it's not true.” She slid out of the truck. “You're not Clint Eastwood.”

The light over the front door winked on. Amy took hold of the bag and dragged it up the interlocking brick. Over her shoulder, she said, “Call Lara.”

“Say hi to your mom for me.”

Amy stopped. “Do you like her?”

“What?”

“Lara. Do you like her?”

“We're not having this conversation now. Go.”

“Tell her I was wrong.”

He looked confused. The front door opened and Cheryl stood in the doorway.

“Just tell her. And be careful.” Amy dragged the bag up the steps and into the house. Cheryl waved and he nodded back. That was all.

THE basement lights popped on. Gallagher crossed to a metal cabinet beside the workbench and slotted a key into the lock. He took down the Smith & Wesson and thumbed the release, ejecting the magazine. Full load. On the top shelf was a brick of 9mm rounds, a spare magazine and some oilcloth. He scooped a handful of cartridges from the box and fitted them one after another into the magazine. He set it down on the bench. A pistol and a spare magazine. It didn't feel like enough. What he wanted was an assault rifle, something powerful that would shred the thing out there. Hell, he wanted a rocket launcher for what he was hunting.

He cast his eyes over the workbench, the tools hanging from a pegboard, the mason jars filled with woodscrews and nails. He pulled out a shoebox of blades, all exacto knives and carpet-cutters. None of it useful. Then he remembered something.

Rifling through the crappy Ikea shelves. Dusty board games, sleeping bags and the box of Christmas decorations. Under a stack of Amy's kindergarten artwork was a long box of lacquered mahogany with cherrywood inlay. He laid it on the bench, flipped the latches and folded back the lid. The utensils lay fitted in green baize. It had belonged to his mother, one of the few things she'd left him. He never used this stuff, not even on special occasions. It needed polishing, the metal oxidizing to a dull sheen. Who had the time? So it sat down here, hidden along with all the other stuff he didn't know what to do with. There were pieces for eight place settings plus serving utensils. Fixed to the inside of the lid was the sterling carving set; knife, two-pronged fork and sharpening rod. The knife slid out and he tested the edge against his thumb. The blade was thick and almost a foot long. The ivory handle was grooved with an ornate pattern but it was too thin and too slick to get a good grip. That could be fixed. He rooted up a roll of hockey tape and wrapped it round and round the handle until it was thick.

Gallagher tossed the tape and tested the new grip. Better, firm in his hand. He scrounged up a rag and buffed the blade to a sheen. He was fairly certain that the silver would have no effect on the thing he needed to kill but he felt better having it.

The cell came out of his pocket and he dialed Lara's number. She didn't answer.

31

LARA STOOD BEFORE the doors of Legacy Emanuel, looking in at the emergency room. She ended up here after running from the church, from the horrified look in the priest's eyes. She needed help. There was something wrong within her and she couldn't deny it anymore. A full sprint here but she stopped short of the ER doors. What was she going to tell them? And even if they believed her, Lara pictured herself being poked and prodded like some alien specimen. Cut open and studied.

“Heads up!” Two EMTs coming up behind her, guiding a stretcher to the doors. A woman lay strapped on the gurney, her teeth visible through the oxygen mask. Her eyes looked terrified and those eyes seemed to plead with Lara as she floated through the ER doors. The naked panic in the woman's eyes brought back her own hospital stay. The paralysis.

Lara turned and walked back to the street.

She wandered home wondering what to do next. She didn't notice the mess until she turned the lock and stood in her living room. It was a disaster. Papers were all over the floor and the coffee table kicked over. The notes she'd brought home were shredded and tossed about. Had she done this? Trashed her own place and not even remembered?

The kitchen was just as bad. Food splattered on the floor. Broken jars and opened Tupperware flung from the fridge, the mess smeared across the linoleum. Leftover chicken was ripped from its foil and reduced to thin bones. A package of damp butcherpaper was torn open, the cut of meat ripped raw from the shank bone.

What the hell happened?

The question was rhetorical. She knew exactly what had happened and who had done it. She could still smell him in the room. His stink was everywhere. When was he here and what was he after?

A noise stopped her cold. The creak of wood from the back deck. He was still here, waiting for her to come out. She had no gun, no weapon. She wasn't even wearing shoes. She stretched over the counter and slid the big Heinke knife from its block and moved to the door.

Dark. The bulb that she never got around to replacing. Something stirred out in the yard. The dogs lay prone in the grass but now they sat up, ears swiveling in her direction.

Prall sat on the rail with his back nestled into the post. He held a bottle of Wild Turkey, propped on his lap. It was a Christmas gift from her CO back in the Fraud unit and the bottle had gathered dust since then. Prall tipped the neck to his craw and his adam's apple throttled up and down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes went to the knife in her fist.

“You gonna use that or izzat just for show?”

One dog was on the deck, nestled under its master. The Siberian rose on all fours and uttered a low, sustained growl. Prall nudged it with his foot and it padded down to the steps to join the others in the grass.

Like before, he was shirtless underneath a rancid coat. The belly exposed. Lara judged the distance between them. Was she fast enough to drive the knife into his stomach? He was fast, she'd seen him move.

“Two paces, that's all.” He grinned. “If you're quick, you can gut me.”

“What do you want?” Her voice sounded weak in her ears.

“Kovacks.” He swung his legs off the rail and his boots thudded on the wooden deck. “But he's in lock up. I can't get to him.”

“You want me to help you?” Her gut told her to back up when he came off the rail but she stood her ground. “Are you crazy?”

“All I need is opportunity.” Prall stood the bottle on the rail. “That lock-up is too hardcore for a sick man. They'll transfer him somewhere else, a hospital or the loony ward. I need to know when and where.”

“And then what, you kill him?”

“You protecting that piece of shit, Lara?”

She winced when he spoke her name. Names hold power and the fact that he knew hers made her sick.

He kept talking. “That old prick cheated me when he gave himself up. Thinks he's safe but I've come too far to give him up now.” He tilted off the rail towards her. This time she backed up. “All I need is one shot. Then I'll be gone forever.”

“And that will cure you,” she said. “Killing him.”

“It's all I got left.”

She took her shot, slicing the blade at his guts. He feinted back. “What about me? What do I do?”

“I can't help you.”

She slashed at him again, arcing the air with the blade. He moved fast, leaned out of it. The dogs were on their feet, agitated.

“Easy,” he warned. “Anger just brings it on faster.”

Lara stopped listening. All she wanted was to cut the leer off his face. It was simple really. To kill the wolf inside you, you had to kill the wolf that cursed you. That's all that mattered. Ivan Prall retreated, backing up against the rail. No where else to go.

She sprang at him, aiming for the face. He dipped left, knees crashing a deck chair. Lara swung again, fast. His left hand went up defensively and the blade sliced his palm and nicked the collarbone. He grunted once and lunged.

Sparks popped her eyes as he hit her. Fists clubbing her to the deck. She kicked out wildly but couldn't reach him. Her hair was yanked hard. He dragged her across the plank floor and threw her to the dogs.

Lara hit the ground and came up face to snout with the dogs. They circled round, lips curling back over teeth.

Panic stung her joints. A revulsion so deep it cooked the marrow of her bones. The dogs. Not like this. No way would she die like this.

The pit bull went for the face but caught her arm instead. More jaws locked onto her ankle. The Siberian clamped her bicep. The animals whipped their heads to and fro, near twisting the limbs off.

The pain was too much. Lara felt her mind shut down at its unending intensity as the dogs pulled her apart like a rag doll. And then something changed. The revulsion that iced her blood boiled into hatred, into a rage at what these filthy animals were doing to her. Something hot seared the muscle of her heart, shooting white heat into her bloodstream.

She shook the Siberian free. She stabbed her thumbs into the eyes of the pit bull. She snarled back. She popped her jaws the way they did. She bit down on the pit, tearing its ear off in her teeth.

The dogs backed off, tails between their legs. They sidled back and forth, confused and wary. What had she done? And where was Prall? She spotted him in her periphery, launching himself off the rail.

He hit her full freight and Lara flattened under the impact. Everything after that was a blur.

THE Cherokee blew through a red, forcing an Accord to brake and skid on the wet pavement. Gallagher clocked it in the rearview and sped away, putting the honking horns behind him. He wished he had cherries on the roof. All he had was the horn and the battered appearance of his truck, which told other drivers that he just didn't give a shit so get the hell out of the way. The other drivers, the ones who treated their vehicles like precious heirlooms, complied and he bullied them off the blacktop.

He drove straight up the sidewalk, popping two wheels over the curb. Lara's house looked empty, the windows dark. He still had the ‘Police Vehicle’ sign in his truck and this he tossed atop the dashboard. Vogel could take away his gun and his shield but no way in hell was he giving up that laminated sign.

He jackhammered the door and hollered her name. The door locked. Down the breezeway to the backyard where the gate stood open. He tried the backdoor.

The kitchen was dark save for a dim bulb under the hood fan. A mess of food on the table and the floor. Quarter-sized spots of blood trailed out of the room. More mess in the living room, the place trashed.

“MENDES!”

No sound at all. The bedroom door was closed. The gun came out. He pushed the door open with his free hand. Patted the wall for the switch.

“Leave it off.” Her voice, lost somewhere in the pitch.

“Are you alright? Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Stop yelling.”

He wasn't yelling. The weak light from the hall grew warmer, allowing his eyes to adjust. Lara lay on the floor with her knees tucked into her chest, her hands clamped over her ears. Her whole frame shook with tremors.

“Christ.” He put his hands over her as if to stop the quaking. Her skin was hot to the touch and damp with sweat. There was blood on her ankle. “What happened?”

Her wet hair clung to her face. “Go away.”

“Where are you hurt?” He straightened her into a sitting position, unclamped her hands from her ears. He unglued the hair from her face. Her eyes finally rose to his and he saw unnatural light humming inside them. There was blood on her chin. More of it on her teeth. And her teeth were pointed. Her teeth were sharp, the way a dog's are. Or a wolf's.

“Jesus Christ.” It was all he could get out. Her skin burned under his hands.

Lara winced at the crack of his voice like she'd been stabbed and covered her ears again. “Can't you hear that? They won't stop. Why won't they stop?”

“Hear what? Lara, look at me.”

“The dogs.” Her lip quivered but no tears fell. “They won't stop howling.”

He heard nothing. A little noise from the street but that was all. He sure as hell couldn't hear any dogs. Gallagher felt his mouth go dry. He was in way over his head now.

He scooped an arm under her and lifted her to the bed. He ran a washcloth under cold water and folded it over her brow. Then he went from room to room closing every window and locking all the doors. Sealing off the noise from the outside world.

Lara had rolled onto her side. He touched her brow. Still hot. He dropped into the chair. What happens now? Would she actually change into that thing? Should he lock her up in this room until it's over? Or just put a bullet through her head.

He leaned back in the chair. Wait and see.

THE sky looked grey from the window. Gallagher sat up and his neck screamed from sleeping in the chair. The bed was empty.

“Mendes?”

He eased out of the chair and the screaming in his neck echoed down his spine. You're getting old, man. Stiff and slow to the bathroom and then the living room, calling her name. The kitchen was empty too.

She was sitting on the back stoop watching the sunrise. Folded up with her chin on her knee. She didn't turn when the screen door creaked open. Gallagher saw the mess he missed in the dark last night. The upended patio furniture and the kicked over planter. The red drops darkening on the pressure-treated boards.

“You all right?” He kept his voice low.

Her shoulders rose in a shrug but she didn't turn around. “I'm like him now.”

“He's not human.”

“It's almost funny, you know? Of all things, dogs.”

He went down two steps and planted himself next to her. Eyes face front, away from hers. “How come you never told me about the dogs? When you were a kid.”

She turned to look at this time. Her eyes were puffy and red. The strange amber color was gone. “Marisol told you.” Who else would have known about that?

He nodded. “I pushed you too hard on this thing. I'm sorry, Lara.”

She didn't know what to say to that. Barn swallows gathered in the yard. They watched them hop through the grass. When he spoke, it was slow and cautious, the way one spoke to a jumper on a rooftop. “We have to stop him. And we have to do it now.” His mouth felt cottony. He swallowed and said what he had to say. “I can't do it alone.”

“It's too late.” She shook her head. Can't he see that? “I can't even help myself.”

In his head, Gallagher flipped through a catalogue of assuring words and bolstering aphorisms, stuff he'd told his daughter over the years. Anything to prop her up. It was all bullshit now. What else could make a difference?

“He went after Amy.”

That bit. Her fingers gripped his arm. “Is she alright?”

“Yeah. I packed her off to her mom's.”

The swallows flitted up to the power lines overhead and chirped mindlessly at the morning sky. Lara broke the silence. “We're not even cops anymore, John.”

“I'm not talking about bringing him in.” His voice was level, resigned. “I'm talking about putting him down. Like a dog.”

She turned it over, what he was asking. To abandon everything they vowed to do as police officers as simply kill the bad guy. Kill Ivan Prall. “He was here,” she said.

It was his turn to clench her arm. “Did he hurt you?”

“He wants me to bring Kovacks to him. Get him out of lock up so he can get a shot at him.”

Gallagher shook his head. Ballsy.

“He said he'd go away once Kovacks was dead.”

The sun rose over the rooftops. “Good. Let's do it.”

“What? No.”

“Yes. We get Kovacks out, use him as bait. Prall, or that thing, comes running. We put him down.”

“We can't just walk Kovacks out.”

“Details.” He dismissed it with a wave. “Prall thinks he can break the curse if he kills the wolf that got him. What if it works for you?”

Lara had a thousand reasons why that plan was the stupidest thing she had ever heard. But no words came out.

“Do you have a gun?”

“No,” she said. “But I know where to get one.”

32

MIGUEL HERRERA HAD four TV sets stacked one atop the other behind the cage of Magic Man Pawn Brokers, each one cabled up to a separate DVD player. He loaded up all four machines and hit the play button. Tonight's marquee included Ass Crackers 3, Jingle Ho's and Canadian Beaver volume 5 and 6. Herrera had just opened a box of cannoli when the bell over the door rang.

A tall dude stepped inside and held the door for the woman behind him. His mouth dropped when he saw who she was.

“Shit, Mendes. I'm clean yo.” He chomped the end off a cannoli and turned back to his screens.

Lara approached the counter and peered through the opening in the metal cage. “Relax. I'm just a customer today.”

Herrera laughed, spewing crumbs. “Yeah dog, and I'm Mickey Mouse. You come back for a little mordida?”

“I need a gun. Something powerful and something clean.”

“Shit. That is the lamest entrapment I ever heard. You losing your touch, querida.”

Gallagher drew up alongside Lara. Herrera looked him up and down, dissed him with a laugh. “Who's this, the bad cop?”

Gallagher lunged through the opening, snatched a mittful of hair and collar and hauled the fat bastard through the cage. Gallagher meant to drag him clear through to the floor but the pawnbroker got stuck in the metal window. Herrera screamed and kicked his feet.

“He used to be the bad cop,” Lara said. “Now he's just bad.”

HERRERA sulked on a stool in the cramped workshop behind the cage. Mendes and Gallagher tossed the place.

“Stealing my shit, yo.” Herrera watched helplessly. “Ain't right.”

Lara found a pistol on a shelf but it was a replica Colt Navy, something she recognized from old Westerns. Interesting but useless. “You're not big on irony, are you?”

“Shit,” was all Herrera could muster.

“Bingo.” Gallagher, from the other side of the room. Hidden under a horse blanket inside a foot locker, he slid out a shotgun. The metal was black and parkerized, the stock and slide flat black. He turned it over, inspecting the weapon from every angle. “Mossberg, the kind the Marines use.” He handed the rifle to her, stock first. “The numbers are filed clean. It's got a matte finish too.”

“No fingerprints.” It felt heavy and solid in her hands. She checked the loading gate.

Gallagher dug deeper into the locker. He chin-cocked the pawnbroker stewing in the corner. “How do you know this guy?”

“He's my homey.” She winked at Herrera. “Yo.”

He pulled up a brick of twelve gauge shells. He handed it off to her and kept digging. “A-ha,” he said. “It's a matched set.” He held up a large knife, his fingers clamped to the blade.

Lara took it by the handle. The blade was eight inches of carbon steel, serrated near the haft. A Marine Kabar. It felt absolutely lethal in her hand.

“Semper fi,” she said.

Gallagher wrapped the shotgun in the horse blanket and tucked it under his arm. Lara scrounged a fifty dollar bill out of her bag and folded it into Herrera's shirt pocket.

“Catch you later.”

THEY took Burnside across the river, stitched over on Sandy then swung north to his neighborhood. Gallagher led her through the kitchen to a door off the mudroom and switched on the lights in his office. It was a small room, most of the floor space taken up by a desk and some filing cabinets. A long corkboard was mounted to one wall, pinned with photos and notes from old cases. Gallagher pulled the chain on a banker's lamp and opened a laptop on the desk.

Lara looked over the evidence board, noting the dates on the pieces. None of it was new, the most recent date she saw was from 2005. On the other walls hung plaques and picture frames; citations and commendations. The photos showed Gallagher smiling and clowning with other detectives and uniforms. One frame showed Gallagher and Lieutenant Vogel on a fishing boat, both beaming as they hoisted sturgeon for the camera. Like the evidence board, none of the photos were recent.

She compared the beaming Gallagher in the photo to the one at the desk. It was difficult to reconcile the two. “You and Vogel were friends?”

He looked up from the laptop. “A million years ago. I got partnered up with Vogel when I made Homicide.”

“I didn't know that. He must of been a drill sergeant as a mentor.”

“He stuck my nose in it when I messed up. But he was pretty patient.”

“Really? Must have been nice” she said, putting enough edge into her voice that even he registered the sarcasm. “So what happened? You two have a falling out?”

“Nah. Vogel earned up, became CO. Things changed. Hard to be pals with your boss.” He moved out from under the desk and waved at her to sit down. “Do me a favor. When this piece of shit wakes up, key into the precinct site and look up Kovacks. We need his details.”

She took the chair while he rifled a cabinet. The laptop creaked and ticked like it was dying a slow death. She looked over the pictures on the wall. “What happened, John?”

He looked up. “What?”

“All this stuff.” She nodded at the pictures. “The citations, your evidence board. It all kind of stops. There's nothing new in the last five years or so.”

He stuck his nose back in the drawer. “Cheryl and I divorced in oh-five and I became a single parent. Which, at the time, scared the bejesus outta me. This room has gathered dust since then.”

“That must have been hard.”

“Yup. Thing was, I couldn't balance the two, you know? Amy and the job. She was the priority and work took a backseat. I only had her on weekends that first year but I was scared shitless I was gonna screw it up and lose even that.” Gallagher stopped digging and his eyes drifted off somewhere not here. “Something had to give. And it couldn't be her.”

Lara watched his face almost crack. He shook it off and went back to the drawer. She wanted to say something but drew a blank on exactly what. The laptop limped to life, sparing her. She called up the PPB site, keyed her password and waited again. Ping.

“I can't log in. We must be blocked.”

He came round the desk with a handful of crumpled paper and leaned over her shoulder. There was no other chair in the room. “Try Bone Slab.”

“Bone Slab?”

“Vogel's password,” Gallagher said. “His stage name from his pro wrestling days.”

It worked. She called up Ronald Kovacks's sheet. His mug shot appeared onscreen. “Now what?”

He slid one of the pages to her. “We fill these out. Prisoner transfer requests. Then we fax it into the prison.”

“And what, we just go pick him up? We're officially suspended.”

“They won't know that. We say it's urgent and bullshit our way through.”

“Using what for ID? Our Costco cards?”

He held out a small folder, a little bigger than a wallet. Inside was a PPB shield and ID. Gallagher's unflattering photo looking back at her.

“I lost mine three months ago, got it replaced. Then I found the old one under a floormat in the truck.”

Some of the skepticism fell away from her eyes. But not all. “They'll still call the precinct to confirm the transfer.”

“That's the point we need to rush it past them. How are your bullshitting skills?”

“Rusty.”

“You can practice on the way over.” He found a pen and began filling out the form. “Find the fax number for Rafton.”

LARA knew this was a bad idea and said so for the third time when the security guard lifted the gate and waved them through. She would have mentioned it a fourth time but Gallagher marched on ahead to avoid hearing it. He was already arguing with the on-duty warder, a big man with de rigueur goatee and shaved head.

“Look, I wasn't informed of any prisoner transfer.” The warder slid the forms back across the counter to Gallagher. “Come back tomorrow.”

“My crime scene is gonna be stale by then. I need this guy now.” Gallagher pushed the form back. “This was faxed through an hour ago. Check your machine again.”

The warder folded his hamhock arms, refusing to even entertain the idea.”There's a protocol here, detective. You can't just walk a prisoner out.”

“When I got a crime scene going cold and the tech crew standing around waiting for me, I can do anything I need to. The prisoner knows the suspect and I need him on scene to confirm some details before it's picked apart. And I sure as hell can't bring the scene to him.”

The man's mouth soured but doubt rippled across his eyes. “This is bullshit.” He took up the paperwork and lumbered deeper into the office.

Lara watched the man cross into a cubicle further back and confer with another warder, presumably a supervisor. This man listened then glanced up at the two ex-detectives crowding the counter. Annoyed and suspicious.

“They're going to call the precinct,” she whispered.

“Hang on.”

They watched the supervisor dial a phone. The warder waddled back and huffed onto his stool. “No transfers after six PM. Unless it's an emergency.”

A low growl uttered from Gallagher's throat. Lara took his elbow, worried he was going to pull his Wolverine schtick on the man. “Sir, we are three hours into a homicide investigation. That qualifies as an emergency.”

The warder narrowed his gaze on her, hearing her speak up for the first time. “Then you need to warrant the request. And we need approval from your CO.” He tossed back their paperwork. “None of that is here.”

“Kid, get your supervisor over here. Now!”

Lara felt Gallagher coil up under her grip, threatening to lunge. She anchored him to the spot. “Forget it, John. We'll come back.”

“I didn't see your ID, ma'am.” The bald man fixed his eyes on her again. “What was your name again? Mendes?”

“Next time.” She peeled Gallagher from the counter.

“No, there's a problem with your clearance here. I need to see it, please.”

Lara clocked the supervisor. Still on the phone but rising out of his chair, his eyes fixed on her. Gallagher tried to shake his elbow free but she gripped down and made him wince. “Move,” she ordered.

The warder yelled at them to come back but Lara kept marching Gallagher out to the foyer. A guard on the other side held the door for her.

“Lara?” Correctional Officer Leto smiled at her, nodded politely to her partner.

“Hi Leto.” She tried to be nonchalant but her tone was too hard.

“What was all that hollering about?” Leto shot a look at Gallagher.

“Procedural bullshit,” Gallagher spat.

“We needed to see a prisoner.” Lara leveled her voice. “But we didn't cross all our T’s.”

“Who? That Kovacks creep?” Leto chucked a thumb towards the exit. “Cause they just rushed that guy outta here.”

“Kovacks? Where did they take him?”

“The hospital. Dude collapsed in his cell. He was turning blue.”

Gallagher snapped at him. “When?”

“Not ten minutes ago. Hell, you can probably catch them on the road in.”

Lara was already running for the door, hollering back her thanks to the correctional officer. “You're a peach, Leto!”

Leto watched them disappear into the parking lot then pushed on to Chesler at the front desk. There was still a hubbub brewing because the Supervisor had actually left his cubicle and came round to Chesler at the front desk.

“Whassup?” Leto said. Chesler and the supervisor nodded a curt hello and then huddled into whispers. Leto tried to eavesdrop but the Super was already walking away. The senior officer barked one last order on his way back.

“Get the central precinct on the phone. Homicide detail. Find out who's in charge there.”

33

THE NEAREST HOSPITAL WAS BACK downtown. Gallagher swung out of the parking lot, hoping to catch the ambulance on St Helens. Lara looked out her window at the marsh passing by. The knot in her guts refused to slacken.

They found the ambulance one minute later.

It was cribbed to the shoulder of the access road, lights flashing but no siren. A paramedic stood in the headlights, looking down at the front end.

“Something's wrong.” Lara felt the knot constrict her stomach more.

Gallagher eased the Cherokee past the stalled bus and swung to the gravel run. “Get the shotgun.”

The ambulance's grill was busted in, the left headlight shattered. The bumper hung from one end like a loose tooth.

“Are you alright?” Lara approached the paramedic, the shotgun behind her back. She looked in the cab but it was empty.

The man's face was etched in shock and he couldn't stop rubbing his head in dismay. “I didn't see...” He stammered, tried again. “It came out of nowhere. Just ran out in front and bang.”

She looked the man over. He was dazed but seemed unhurt. “You hit something?”

“Yeah. An animal. It was huge.”

Gallagher went to the rear door and yanked it open. The bay was a mess of equipment and supplies heaved loose from the impact. The second paramedic straddled the stretcher trying to restrain the patient. Ronald Kovacks bucked and kicked his legs, thrashing about in a fit.

“You hurt, son?” Gallagher climbed in, pushing debris out of his way.

“ I'm fine.” The young man looked panicked. “Help me restrain this guy, would ya?”

Kovacks thrashed his head to and fro, tearing loose the oxygen line taped under his nose. His teeth chomped, trying to bite the paramedic.

“What the hell's wrong with him?”

“I don't know.” The paramedic pinned one arm across the convulsing patient and reached for the restraints. “After the crash, he started screaming about someone trying to kill him.”

Gallagher threw his weight onto Kovacks and the young man ran the belt over the thrashing man's shoulder and cinched it tight. A sickening pop came up out of Kovacks like his back was breaking. Pop, pop, pop. Kovacks chomped his jaw in a blur of teeth and gums. He caught the paramedic's sleeve and bit down. Gallagher froze as the pervert's teeth grew, elongating from the gums and tearing the young man's cuffs. Veins roped up his neck and swelled hot on his brow. The eyes dimmed and altered color, something not human.

“Mendes!” Gallagher's voice boomed through the bay.

Lara crawled into the cab, squeezing through the seats. She saw Kovacks's spasms, the maw of teeth growing sharp before her eyes. “He's changing,” she said.

“What?” Gallagher felt the bones shift under his grip like some knotty parasite beneath the man's flesh. Kovacks flailed on. The clasp of the restraint belt bent, popped off. Gallagher pulled back, looking up at her. “What do we do?”

Past Mendes, he could see the first EMT through the cracked windshield. Still talking to himself, pacing back and forth before the bus. Something swallowed him up and he was gone.

And then everything went to hell, the world kicked off its axis.

The ambulance rolled. Hit hard on the leeside, crumpling the panel wall inwards. The bus tilted on two wheels and toppled over. Gallagher hit the far wall, now the floor, and the stretcher timbered onto him. Kovacks thrashed on him, his gnarled teeth grazing wet against Gallagher's ear.

Caught in the crawlspace between the seats, Lara spun and tumbled back into the cab. Off the dashboard, landing hard on the passenger door. Knees in the air, her elbow flat on the pavement that now filled the shattered window. Lara scrambled to get upright in the cramped space when something skulked past the front end. Dark pelage filled the windshield. The monster swung its head and looked at her through the glass. Yellow rimmed eyes held her own. Its enormity took her breath away. Terrifying in power and beautiful in symmetry, Lara Mendes was transfixed by the wolf.

The shotgun was angled under her, wedged between her back and the door. She squirmed in the floor well, trying to pry it free. The thing's snout pressed the windshield and fogged the glass. Lara clawed the shotgun up. No room to shoulder it, she simply fired from the hip. The fogged glass exploded, the boom punched out her eardrums. The wolf was not there.

The rear doors remained propped open, a square of night sucking the light from the interior. The wolf burst through, its maw stretched wide as if to swallow them all. The jaws sunk fast onto the legs of the restrained man, clicking as they locked. The EMT kicked out and screamed. Gallagher drew and swung the gun up to aim. The lobo pulled back and the gurney banged along after it. Ronald Kovacks was dragged, stretcher and all, out the door and into the night.

Gallagher blasted at it, the crack of gunfire booming inside the ambulance. Something told him to stop, to hold his fire for fear of hitting the victim. He ignored it, unloading five, six rounds at the damn thing but it was gone. He shot at nothing, at the night itself.

The young man scrambled away from the doors, slack-jawed in terror. Crawling right over Gallagher to the far corner, his mouth jabbering up and down.

“John!”

Gallagher's arms remained locked, the barrel still trained at the door. A hand shook his shoulder. Lara crawled over the terrified EMT into the bay and looked him over. “Are you hurt?”

He lowered the gun. “No.”

“Move,” she said.

THE ambulance lay on its side, two wheels in the air like some dead carcass. Gallagher banged out the door and swept the barrel left to right. Lara right behind him, crawling free of the dead bus.

The ambulance driver was on the pavement. He was alive but his breathing was shallow and his eyes were fixed, shock setting in fast. There was blood all over the road. Gallagher knelt over him. The man's left hand was gone and the open arteries pulsed hot blood onto the pavement.

Lara was already back inside the toppled bus, dragging the other EMT out. “Get out here. Help him.”

He pushed her hands off. “No way!”

She smacked him hard across the face. It didn't register so she hit him harder. The man looked at her in shock, anger. That was better. He took his kit and scrambled outside. Instinct and training took over when he saw his dying partner.

Lara chucked up the shotgun and swept the perimeter but all she saw was the road and the marshland beyond it. “Do you see him?”

“I don't see anything.” Gallagher lowered his weapon. “Where are the dogs?”

A breeze ruffled the trees all around them but nothing moved, nothing sounded.

At their backs, the young man worked frantically to stop the bleeding. The face of the downed EMT took on the color of ash. “I need another bus out here,” the younger man barked. “He's bleeding out.”

Lara called it in, giving the dispatcher their location and relaying details of the injuries from the younger paramedic. When the dispatcher asked for her name, she hung up. She told the young man to hang on and looked for Gallagher but he wasn't there. She called out.

“Over here.” His voice, further up the road. She jogged up and he chinned at something on the asphalt. “Look.”

The oxygen tube lay coiled on the ground, flecked with blood. Gallagher dangled it between his thumb and finger. Lara crunched over the gravel shoulder to the ditch. She plucked a strip of fabric from the weeds, the same pale blue as the ambulance gurney. Another step into the long grass and her foot slipped down the muddy embankment. The ground dropped steeply to a gulley and beyond that, dark trees. Lara kicked her way back to the crest of the ditch. “Here,” she panted. “Down this way.”

He caught her hand and hauled her back up the grade. “Time to arm up.”

From the back of the Cherokee, they took the two longhandled Maglites. Gallagher tore open the box of twelve gauge shells and Lara filled her pockets. She slid the Kabar into her belt and he found the carving knife, a dishcloth for a sheath.

“What is that?” She eyed the knife with its crudely taped handle, took it from his hand. The sterling blade caught the light, unpolished as it was. An eyebrow shot up. “Silver? Seriously?”

“Last resort,” he said. “You should see this bad boy cut turkey.”

“You know silver doesn't work, right?”

“Yeah. But does he know that?”

She conceded the point. He shoved the trunk closed.

THE slope was muddy, their heels slipping in the wet leaves all the way to the bottom. The flashlights threw short against the dark. Beams hitting a few mossy tree trunks but little beyond that.

Gallagher fanned his light back and forth, already losing his bearings in that stygian pitch. He looked up at the sky, hoping to navigate from the stars but the night was overcast with clouds. Some cowboy you are, he scolded to himself. “Which way?”

Lara arced her Maglite round but seemed no more grounded than he was. “I don't know.”

“Best guess?”

She aimed her beam north, then adjusted northwest. “This way.”

They trudged off under that bearing, aligned with the pole star, their feet sucking into the muddy ground. Twenty sloppy paces in they found another strip of hospital linen. She pressed on, Gallagher following her lead. Thirty more paces and Lara stopped short.

“What is it?” His hand went to the holster.

She struck east, the beam of her light rolling over wildgrass until something pale poked up from the foliage.

An arm, torn off at the elbow. The gnawed ligaments and protruding bone drenched with black blood. The pulse monitor remained clipped to the index finger.

LIEUTENANT Vogel was supposed to be home an hour ago. This wasn't unusual for the commander of a homicide unit but his son was home from Washington State for the weekend and Vogel was looking forward to a big family meal and then a night of WWE on the flat screen. This was his son's second year at college and Vogel missed him dearly. His first year away had been a delight; the house was calm and there was no trail of dirty clothes. No one pilfering everything in the fridge. The novelty wore off by February and the house became too quiet, too clean. He and his wife found too much time on their hands without the trainwreck of their son to look after. This second year at college, the stillness was unbearable.

The Lieutenant had moved with grace and efficiency that afternoon; returning calls, shuffling paperwork and putting out fires all around him. He was wrapping everything up when the phone rang and a boatload of shit poured out of the receiver.

Correctional Supervisor Susan Dade called from the Rafton lockup and wanted to know why two of Vogel's thugs were not only still on the job but back here looking to have another go at the same prisoner. She was livid and Vogel asked her to back up and relay the details. His jaw set when he learned what had transpired. Vogel spoke calmly to Supervisor Dade, assuring her that this was a big misunderstanding and apologized for his officer's actions. He gave no details of their suspension from the unit, no information at all about the state of affairs within his department. He listened dutifully, said he looked forward to seeing her official complaint over the incident and promised to get back to her with some answers as soon as possible. When he got off the line, the roar issuing from his office echoed clear across the bullpen.

DETECTIVE Bingham sat in the makeshift task room comparing the big wall map to a corresponding map on his computer screen. He had put so much work into building a geographic profile of the suspect that had eluded two other detectives and now it just hung there mocking him. The profiling program had spit out nothing but erroneous estimates and the entire case had stalled out. His partner Latimer, refused to sink anymore overtime into this and went home on the shift change. Bingham had taken to simply staring at the map, waiting for God to drop a lead into his lap. He was still waiting.

He flinched at the roar bellowing across the cubicles. He went to the door and spotted the Lieutenant issuing orders to detective Rowe. The veins on Vogel's brow bulged, and that was never a good sign. The Lieutenant eyed him in the doorframe and marched right for him.

Shit. Bingham kept his smile light, his tone casual. “What's up, boss?”

Vogel shooed him back and closed the door halfway. “We have shit to shovel.” He looked around the war room. “Where's Latimer?”

“He went home. Family stuff.” Bingham didn't want to ask but knew he had to. “What shit are you talking about?”

“You're friends with Mendes, right? Have you talked to her?”

“No. Not since, you know, she got her walking papers. Why?”

“She and Gallagher are up to something.” Vogel took a breath to calm the rage. “They tried to boost a prisoner from lockup. The one tied to this case.”

“Kovacks?” Bingham blanched. That didn't sound at all like Lara. “Did they take him?”

“No. The warder smelled a rat.”

“Why would they do that?”

“They're playing vigilante,” Vogel said. “And digging their own graves in the process.”

“Shit.” Bingham reached for his cell. “Did you call her?”

“Neither one are answering their phones.” Vogel leaned against the desk, leveled a finger at him. “We need to find them pronto. And we need to do it quietly. If this gets out, the whole department is in for hell on a popsicle stick.”

“No shit. Let's get some uniforms, start tracking them down.”

“No uniforms. We keep this in-house for now. Rowe's coming with us. Call Latimer, have him meet you at Mendes's place. Rowe and I will hit Gallagher's house.”

Bingham followed the Lieutenant out to the bullpen. Detective Rowe marched up fast to meet them. “This just got worse,” he said.

“That isn't possible.” Vogel kept walking, making the detectives fall in behind him.

“That Kovacks guy was being transported to hospital but the ambulance never showed. A 911 call came in about twenty minutes ago. The bus was in some kind of accident. One paramedic is seriously injured, the other one's shaken up. But he said there were two police officers on the scene. Plainclothes cops.”

Lieutenant Vogel stopped cold. “What about Kovacks?”

“Disappeared.”

34

THE SMELL OF DAMP EARTH FILLED the dying man's nostrils. The musk of rotting leaves and the tang of earthworms cleared his senses. After the godawful stink of antiseptic floor wash and old paint and unwashed blasphemers, the smell of soil and weeds was a boon.

He lay face down in the dew, the restraints long gone. He clawed at the earth, trying to crawl away but the going was hard. The torn stump of his arm floundered in the muck like a tortoise's flipper. He was losing blood fast.

He had to change, had to become the wolf one more time even though it might kill him. The other lobo was still out there, circling in the darkness. Choosing its moment to strike. The bastard Prall.

Triggering the change took no effort at all. It was simply letting go, unclenching a muscle in the heart. Keeping the wolf down was the hard part. Any emotion could set it off, not just rage or anger. Fear, lust, hatred or jealousy, all of them poked the monster to life. All Ronald Kovacks had to do was let go and let slip the wolf.

The wolf's blood sang through his veins, pumped coarse through the ventricles of his venal heart. But it wouldn't be enough. The lobo in the dark circled closer and closer. At the first hint of the old man's transfiguration, it sprang.

GALLAGHER couldn’t keep up. Even with the Maglite on the ground before him, the way was hard. The terrain was treacherous, jarring drops and dips hidden under the algae scum. Gnarled tree roots tripped him up. He'd already fallen once, scraping his palm bloody and losing even more ground on Lara.

Lara ran effortlessly through the dark, sidestepping every obstacle like she ran this course every day. She was breathing hard but not winded. Wanting to run faster but holding back to keep from losing Gallagher. Why was he so slow?

They pressed on like this for a while, Lara chasing ahead and Gallagher splashing slow through the marsh. He cursed her each time he fell, called out for her to stop but she was too far ahead. He trudged on and he thought he could hear the river up ahead. And then he saw her.

Lara stood in a hollow of black oaks. Her back to him as he caught up, her gaze fixed on the ground. Gallagher swiped a palm over his brow. She was still, not panting and heaving the way he was. Then he saw what held her eyes, the thing on the ground.

There was little left that could be identified as Ronald Kovacks. Or even human. What was there, in the mud and rotting leaves, was a butchered carcass, some godforsaken thing rendered into obscene pieces. Bone and meat and fur and all of it sopped in an impossible amount of blood. Webs of fur strung white with flecks of grey, the coarse coat of the wolf. The thing's entrails were strewn and scattered, its ribcage broken and snapped. Strung between the meat and splintered ribcage were shreds of orange cloth, prison scrubs rent over the gore like webbing.

The stink of it steamed into Gallagher's nose. It was all he could do to keep his stomach down. Lara hadn't moved, still as the oaks around her. She didn't even blink.

He turned away from it and spoke her name. Nothing. He touched her arm. She flinched like she'd been tasered, snapping out of her trance. Her eyes looked confused, like she didn't recognize him.

“Don't look at it,” he said.

“It's nothing.” She knelt down for a closer look, unfazed by the smell or the horror of it. “It's less than nothing.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Lara rose and stepped through the gore and knelt again. Studying something round nestled against a tree root. “Look at this.”

The head. Neither the man nor the monster but some profane misalignment of the two. The thing's snout but the man's eyes, agape in what could only be terror. The jaw piece was missing, shorn away whole at the hinge. Lara reached down and gripped it by the hair and raised the dripping mass up to eye level.

“Jesus, don't touch it,” he spat. “Put it down.”

Her eyes met his and Gallagher saw nothing familiar in her gaze. She seemed some other person and her eyes put a chill down his back. She turned the head back and forth, inspecting it, then let it fall. It rolled onto its side in the mud, one wet eye staring up into the night sky.

“Get out of there, for Christ's sakes!” He barked at her the same way he barked at Amy when she was little. His anger coming out of nowhere. He stepped into the blood, snatched her arm and pulled her from the mess. “What the hell is the matter with you?”

She jerked out of his grip and stepped forward, eye to eye. “Keep your hands off me.”

Her eyes seemed all wrong again. That weird flicker exploding in her irises. “Something is wrong, Lara. You should go back to the truck.”

“No. He's too close.”

He squeezed her arm again, he couldn't help it. “Take five.”

All she meant to do was push him off but the shotgun was still in her hands. She crossbeamed it across his chest and he flew back as if hit by a bus.

“Oh God.” It happened so fast, it didn't seem real. How could she have done that? This wasn't her. She wasn't violent, she didn't have fits of rage like this.

Gallagher rolled onto his hands and knees, the wind punched out of him.

“I'm sorry.” She went to help him, to do something but her spine froze up and she became still. Something washed over her and tweaked the nose of her rage again. It was so alien to her senses that it took a moment to register.

She could smell Prall.

Turning her head, she could almost pinpoint the direction it was coming from, wind or no. Prall or the wolf, one and the same to her.

Gallagher kept his head down and gulped oxygen back into his lungs. He hated getting the wind knocked out of him, hated that moment of panic when you couldn't breathe like you're drowning. It had happened plenty of times, playing football or dust-ups on the job, but every time it spooked the hell out of him. When he looked up, Lara was long gone. But he knew she would be.

That sting of panic came back. Mendes had teetered on the edge but now she was slipping down the far side and he had no idea how to help her. He couldn't stop her, couldn't even keep up with her.

He was in way over his head with no clue of how to stop any of it. Who would? He was just a cop and his only real skill was threatening and pummeling people who were weaker than him until they told the truth. Or the truth he needed at that moment.

“To hell with you.” He lowered his head until it touched the ground. He gave up. “I can't fix this so to hell with you.”

Go get your kid. Go home. Lock the doors.

IVAN Prall knelt under the awning of a willow, its tendrils swaying over him like a jellyfish. The breeze that riffled the leaves cooled the sweat on his flesh and the earth was cold under his knees. Of that he felt nothing, only the hot tears on his face registered at all. The lecher Kovacks was dead and he emerged triumphant. He had spilled the blood of the old beast and its blood had cleansed him, washing away the sin of the wolf. He looked down at the object still clenched in his fist. The jawbone ripped from the head of the Kovacks-wolf, still warm in his fingers. A relic to verify the redemption of his sins.

He touched his fingertips to his tears, tasted the saltiness of it. Wolves cannot cry and Ivan Prall hadn't wept since his transfiguration all those years ago. Praise God.

Yet the tears didn't last long and his eyes dried and he wept no more. The flame of triumph flickered and snuffed, leaving a cancerous hollow inside him. He tried to remember the last time he had seen the bastard Kovacks. Some three months after he'd been attacked and fled the hospital. He had transformed twice in that time. His baptismal change had left him racked with guilt and shame. After the second transformation, he realized what had happened and what he had become. He had gone back to the Gethsemane house, that hateful pit for the wretched, to confront Ronald Kovacks. The man had chased him from his door like some rabid dog. He had never meant to pass the curse onto him, Kovacks had said. He had meant to kill him. He blamed Prall for his own circumstances, for being too stupid to just die. Prall ran alone and ashamed into the wilds of the mountain. And every day after that, he had cursed himself for not killing Kovacks on the spot, not gutting him with the knife hidden in his belt but the old man still held power over him and he ran away frightened. He didn't know it at the time but he could have ended the curse then and there. It wasn't until years later when he hit upon the solution, the ablution of the curse after so many attempts at other cures and still other redemptions. All that time wasted, all that suffering endured. His cross to bear.

So why did his heart ring hollow now?

Kovacks had begged for his life at the end. Like a mouse, like a woman. Caught halfway through the change, Kovacks writhed between man and lobo and begged like a leper. He tried to bargain for his life, promising that there were further mysteries to be divulged, hinting that there were others like them. Whole packs of their kind, running free somewhere north. Unafraid and unashamed of what they were. Prall was too far gone to hear. Even his wolf half knew Kovacks to be a snake and a liar, willing to say anything to purchase his life with thirty shekels of lies. His wolf showed no mercy, granted no clemency. How else could it be? The end had been written since the beginning and neither could deviate from their role. Only a snake could think it could slither out from under the paths God had set for them.

His ears picked up the thumping of pads and the dogs burst from the underbrush and circled him. The wolf had left them behind but when they saw Prall they nudged him with their snouts and licked his back and pawed his hands. Did they realize the wolf was gone? Couldn't they sense the alpha was dead and he was no more than a man now? If they did, the pack gave no hint of it. They nuzzled into him and leaned their ribs against him.

The Siberian came up last of all, trailing his clothes in its maw. It dropped the bundle at his feet, sniffed at him and suddenly jerked back. Prall reached out to scratch its ruff but the Siberian shied away. He wasn't surprised. The husky was the most intelligent of the pack, the beta. He would be the one to smell the change in him before the others. A sting of sadness pricked his heart at the thought, how the distance would grow between them now.

No time for that now. He pulled on the filthy jeans and rancid jacket. He was cold now, so vulnerable to the environment like all the other weak humans. The price to pay.

The wind blew harder, tossing the willow branches around him. The Malamute chomped at the dipping vines, playing. He smiled at its play, its youth but then something fired through his brain and knotted his guts. One single smell burned above all the million other odors in his nose. The tang of the woman, the one still hunting him. She was closing in fast through the grove.

And now the pack caught her scent. Every snout turned to her direction, ears up. They looked at him and then looked back south, downwind of the woman as they were. They ducked and circled round, anxious for some sign from him, some command to carry out. Would they withdraw or turn and hunt the female?

His brow creased. How could he still catch her scent if the spell was broken and the curse washed from his soul? Maybe some vestigial powers remained with him, he reasoned, after being the wolf so long. Maybe the beast's powers dissipated slowly over time rather than vanishing all at once. Something like this, some reasonable answer. The other implication was too awful to contemplate and he chased it from his thoughts.

The dogs grew restless, waiting. Prall made no move. He crossed his legs under him and straightened his back. None in the pack wanted this, just sitting and waiting for the enemy to come. Suicide. The pit bull leaned into him but he swatted it away. The Siberian barked in his face, openly disrespecting the alpha's decision. The others froze, expecting the beta to be brought down for its insubordination.

Prall stymied them all and did nothing. He picked up the jawbone from where it lay in the grit, thumbing the sharp contours of the teeth.

“Let the woman come.”

LARA CLIMBED uphill, moving out of the marsh to higher ground. With the breeze at her back she was upwind of Prall. He'd know she was coming. It didn't matter. Nothing was going to stop her from blowing his rancid head off with twelve gauge buckshot. Not Prall, not Gallagher and not the goddamn dogs.

She crested the rise and saw a pinprick of light twinkling through the trees up ahead. The road couldn't be that far away. The smell of the river was close. Tracking him was easy now, his stink clear in the air like an arrow pointing the way. The dogs were with him

The ground was firmer here, hardpacked earth instead of the muddy slosh of the grove. She moved on through a stand of willows and up into a clearing.

Ivan Prall sat cross-legged on the ground watching her approach. Waiting for her.

“Hello,” he said.

35

THE DARKNESS WAS OVERWHELMING. Gallagher looked ahead and then back but it all looked the same, dark trees and uneven ground. He couldn't tell which way Mendes had run nor could he decipher north from south. The sky was clear and the stars visible, the moon a thin crescent. All of which was useless to him, a dumb-as-brick cop lost in the woods.

Pick a direction and march, he'll hit the road or a fence. The river. He knelt and patted the wet ground until he found the Maglite he'd dropped when Mendes walloped him. He couldn't believe how hard she'd hit him. She outran him, overpowered him easily. How far gone was she? To hell with her. She'd have to fend for herself now.

Ivan Prall would be long gone by now. The crazy sonovabitch got what he had come for. Now he would vanish along with his mutts and the file would remain open until someone consigned it away to the crypt of cold cases.

His fingers hit the flashlight and thumbed it on. He chose a direction and just started walking. He'd find his truck and drive to Cheryl's house. Make sure Amy was okay. That was all that mattered now.

And tell his daughter what? That he'd ditched his partner out in the swamp? He stopped and looked down at the muddy ground. What if Prall wasn't gone? Lara was chasing through the trees after a monster plucked straight out of a fairy tale. And the dogs, that pack of vicious dogs. How would he look his daughter in the eye and tell her he abandoned Lara to that?

Damn.

He killed the flashlight. Cast into darkness, he listened. Nothing at first, then he heard it. The low murmur of the river. The river was north. Lara had fled north.

Orienting his way to the sound, he hit the light and started walking. Every twenty paces, he stopped to listen again, to keep his bearing straight. The ground was slick and uneven so he couldn't walk very fast. This was going to take a while.

LARA didn’t trust her own eyes. Ivan Prall sat on the ground in a copse of willow trees. He made no move to run or even get up. Waiting for her.

She brought the shotgun to bear and drew a bead on his chest. The dogs, invisible until now, rose out of nothing. Ghosts that made no sound, baleful eyes that watched.

“Get on the ground,” she ordered. “Face down. Do it slow.”

Prall didn't move. “It's over.”

“I will blow your head off, Prall.”

“No. You won't.” He tapped at the dirt with something in his hand. “Our business is finished. I win.”

Lara inched further, eyes registering the position of the dogs. “Nothing is finished,” she spat.

“Didn't you find Kovacks?” Prall raised the object in his fist and Lara tightened down on the trigger. No weapon. Just some bloody piece of bone. The missing jawbone. “Then you know,” he went on. “The monster is dead.”

“You're still here.”

“But the wolf is no more. The hex is broken.”

Lara scrutinized his face, his hands. He was human again. The bastard was even grinning. Could it be true? Was the wolf really gone? “Where does that leave me? Screwed?”

“No, no. Don't you get it?” He nodded at the barrel squared at him. “Lower the goddamn gun.”

She didn't move.

“You're still playing cop?” Prall laughed. “What're you gonna do, arrest me?”

“I'm going to kill you. That's how it works, isn't it?”

“No. I killed the wolf. I'm healed. That means you are too.”

Nothing moved. The ghost dogs watched the standoff, waiting for a cue. An outcome.

Her arm muscles constricted, the heavy shotgun quaking in her hands. Grit stung her eyes. Prall watched, divining the indecision in her face. “You haven't shifted yet. You haven't given in to it. You're healed.”

“Then why do I still feel it?” The words spat through clenched teeth. “I still feel it. And I can still smell it on you.”

“Because you got no faith.”

“No.” The rifle dipped, becoming heavier. She notched it up a hair and sighted the barrel square at his face. “Kovacks said it wouldn't work for you. You're too far gone to ever go back.”

He looked right down the barrel. “Kovacks was a liar.”

Movement in her periphery. She turned but it was too late, the Siberian launched at her. She fired but the shot went wild. The Siberian's weight took her down, landing on her as her shoulder hit the earth. A dull click as the dog's jaws locked onto her arm. The gun fell away as her free hand wrenched the dog's head round until something popped and the dog yelped in pain. She kicked it off and scrambled upright but Prall knocked her back down, pinned her with his bulk. One grimy hand locked onto her windpipe as the other ripped her hair and stove her skull into the earth again and again.

“Liar.” He spat the words at her. His eyes bloodshot, his breath blowing fetid and hot. “You liar. I'm saved!”

She recoiled from his stench, trying to breathe. She pushed back, locked onto his eyes and spat back at him. “You're deluded, Prall. You're still a monster. Still damned.”

Her words stung. He screamed his rebuttal but the words came out garbled and gibbering and he smashed her face with his elbow. Her eyes flashed. He slithered up her body, pinned her arms under his knees and locked his filthy hands round her throat.

The air cracked. And then it cracked again. The chokehold disappeared. Lara recognized the sound. Gunshots.

She rolled away, gulping in air and coughing it back up. Prall was gone, vanished from her field of vision. Further out, where the light disappeared into the grove, was the source of the gunshots. Gallagher, running in fast, the gun locked in his fist. Calling her name over and over.

She called back but her voice snapped into a coughing jag. Her arm went up, waving. Gallagher caught it, sprinting for her. Still calling her name.

He didn't see the dogs bounding up behind him. She called out but her voice was broken. She watched as the pack closed in fast and took Gallagher down.

LIEUTENANT Vogel swung his car to the shoulder, pulling in behind the one cruiser on scene. Detectives Bingham and Rowe were out the door before he killed the engine and the three of them took in the road before them. One ambulance, lights going round and round, with its back doors open. The other ambulance lay tilted on its left side, its lights dead. Shards of safety glass littered the pavement. The rear door hung open and debris trailed from it like gutted offal.

Detective Rowe let out a slow whistle. “Christ almighty.”

Two EMTs strapped their bloodied colleague onto a stretcher, working a ventilator tube down his ruined trachea. The surviving paramedic slouched on the ambulance bumper. A uniformed officer patted his shoulder, telling him gently that everything was going to be okay.

Vogel marched for the uniform. “Is he hurt?”

“He's shaken up pretty bad,” the officer said. “But he ain't injured.”

The Lieutenant bent low to get eye-level with the trembling medical tech. “Son? Can you tell me what happened here?”

The young man didn't react. The uniform answered for him. “He hasn't said anything since I got here. He's in shock, I guess.”

“When did you get here?”

“Ten minutes ago. Right on the ambulance's tail.” The officer chin-cocked the injured man on the stretcher. “That guy? He was all over the road, sir. His guts, nasty.”

“Lieutenant?” Detective Rowe leaned into the back of the lopsided bus. “Prisoner's gone.”

Vogel paced the pavement. “They took him.”

Bingham looked over the mayhem but couldn't hide his skepticism. “You honestly think Gallagher and Mendes did that?” He ran his light over the impact side of the downed ambulance, the way the panel crumpled inwards. “That doesn't look like any car impact to me.”

“Then what was it?”

Bingham raised his palms. “No idea.”

Vogel eyeballed the debris spilling out the back of the ambulance and trailing off to the far side of the road. “So what'd they do, drag the guy off into the woods?”

“The monster took him.”

Vogel, Rowe and Bingham all turned their heads to the shellshocked paramedic. Vogel closed in on the young man. “What did you say, son?”

The young man kept his head down, his voice crackling out a whisper. “That thing took him. Ripped him right out of the back.”

“What thing?”

“I dunno. It was big. All teeth.” His head shook, trying to shake loose some image in his brain. “A goddamn monster.”

The Lieutenant traded looks with his detectives, all of them collectively weighing the kid's reason. The uniform offered up a condolence and said again, “The kid's in shock.”

Vogel looked at Rowe. “Did you get ahold of Latimer and LaBayer?”

“They're on their way. They crowed about having to come back in but when I— “

“Hold up.” Bingham cut him off. “Did you hear that?”

Ears cocked. A tiny pop pop in the night. Gunshots, cracking somewhere out beyond the treeline.

36

TEETH RIPPED INTO HIS LEG BEFORE he even hit the gravel. Face first into a puddle, brackish water up his nose. Gallagher felt their paws on his back, keeping him down with their muscled weight. Get up, get up, get up. He twisted round, trying to turn when more teeth clamped down on the back of his neck. The visegrip jaws broke the skin, a blast of hot dog breath on his ear. He snarled through muddy teeth as the animals pulled him apart.

No way. The only cogent thought left in his brain. He roared up and bucked the weight off his back. He swung the pistol behind his head and fired blind. His eardrum burst but the teeth lifted from his neck. He swung the weapon down at the bastard ripping his calf and shot it through the head. The animal flopped to the gravel like loose dirt and the pack withdrew. He drew a bead on the Siberian and fired and missed.

With the teeth gone, the stinging in his blown ear took hold. Like a needle straight through the drum into his brain. Instinct clamped a palm over it, a natural but useless reaction.

When Lara erupted from the dark he damn near shot her, so crazed with pain as he was. She caught the wrist of his gunhand and pushed it down until he got his bearings. She spoke to him, her lips moving but none of it came through, nothing but the white hum stinging in his ear.

He slid his leg out from under the dead dog and she helped him to his knees. Her lips kept moving, eyes darting everywhere for the pack. There was blood on her palm, and more of it smeared across her cheek. He asked if she was hurt, unsure if he was even getting the words out right. He must have. Lara nodded and mouthed words he could lip-read. I'm okay, I'm okay.

She held up a palm, signing for him to stay put. Gathering up the Mossberg shotgun, she trudged off in the direction of the dogs.

No way. He careened after her on unsteady knees, the balance of his inner ear blown off keel. She hollered at him to stay. A few words surfaced through the ringing in his head. Bad shape. Slow. Deaf.

Screw that. Deaf and injured, no matter. He wasn't letting her go after that thing alone.

Lara looked at the mess he was in. Bloody teeth marks and torn clothes. Worst of all the fear in his eyes from being unable to hear. His fear was something new and it bounced back to her. He was yelling into her face, unable to gauge his own volume. He wasn't making any sense but every second word was a curse so maybe he'd be okay. She waved her hand at him, indicating she wasn't going to fight him. They would both go. She didn't want to leave him behind. She didn't want to go on alone.

They followed the gravel track, past a small boat on a trailer. More boats beyond that, some on trailers and others propped up in drydock. They'd come out of the marsh into the back acreage of a marina. She could hear the water lapping the concrete slip up ahead. The whole lot was a maze of boats and trailers, rain-battered fencing. A hundred places to hide and nothing solid to keep your back to.

They stalked through the boats, the hulls glowing dull in the gloom like phantom ships. A dog whipped between two hulls. Gallagher aimed but the thing was long gone.

Neither of them heard Prall slink into the open behind their backs nor did they hear the length of chain spinning in his hand. All Lara saw was the chain suddenly snap over Gallagher's throat and coil fast round his neck. Yanked hard off his feet. She chucked the Mossberg up fast and let it rip but Prall was already diving for cover.

That was when the pack charged, bolting from their cover and rampaging for Gallagher. Flat on his back, easy prey. No, she thought. Not this time.

She stepped into the path of the berserker dogs and barked at them. Her voice sounded all wrong in her ears, the timbre guttural and alien. The dogs skidded short, cowed by her roar. Confused as to who was suddenly the dominant animal.

Prall cursed at them to strike. To kill. Lara spun, tilting the shotgun from her hip and fired. The broad side of the barn.

The buckshot blew Prall off his feet and onto his back. He shot back up fast but suddenly pitched forward like a drunk. Face first into the grit. He didn't move and he didn't move.

Holy shit. She hit him. She hit him.

Lara bolted at him. She had no idea if Gallagher was hurt but she was not letting Prall vanish into thin air again. Gallagher would just have to survive on his own.

Prall clawed at the earth, slithering away on his belly. Looking for a place to curl up and die. She dove both knees onto his back, heard a snap. She slammed the business end of the Mossberg into the base of his skull. Disbelief churning into exuberance. “I got you! I GOT YOU!”

Prall raked up fistfuls of dirt, pinned under her knees like a moth to a corkboard. Blood seeped through his rancid jacket where it was perforated with buckshot. Too enraged to form words, he curled his lips back and snapped his teeth.

Lara racked the slide, spinning off the spent shell. She pushed the barrel harder into his skull and curled her finger round the trigger piece.

Kingdom come.

Gallagher's hand came out of nowhere and shoved the barrel away. “Not here,” he said. “Not like this.”

THE boathouse was cavernous, all wooden beams and corrugated tin. Pleasure boats stacked in drydock. Most sheathed in tarps, the rest left to gather dust. The sound of water lapping the bay doors that opened onto the river.

A side door was pried open. They dragged Prall inside and propped him up against a post. Lara reloaded the shotgun while Gallagher found a length of nylon rope and lashed the son of a bitch to the beam. His head lolled sideways, unconscious but still breathing.

Lara's stomach roiled. The stench inside the boathouse burned her nose, the gas fumes and old paint making her sick. Her breathing was fast. She couldn't slow it down, couldn't ease her heart banging inside her ribs.

“No big bad wolf now.” Gallagher's voice was too loud, still deaf in one ear. He thumbed back Prall's eyelid. The glassy eye rolled up to meet him, awareness seeping back in as the pupil dilated. “Just another asshole about to pay for his sins.”

She said nothing. He turned to her and saw her hands shaking violently. Lara lay the shotgun down and folded her arms. “We have to do this.” He touched her arm. “We can dump him in the river. Be done with it.”

“No.”

He watched her eyes dart between Prall and the shotgun but she made no move to pick up the weapon. “Do you want me to do it?”

“No. It has to be me.”

He lifted the Mossberg by the barrel and held the stock piece out to her. Her fingers wrapped round the grip and the block slide. It felt too heavy in her hands, a dead weight threatening to pull her arm off their sockets. Gallagher stepped aside.

“Before this,” she said, “I had never fired a round on duty.” She saw him tilt his good ear to her. “How do I just shoot a man in cold blood?”

“He's not a man.”

The door rattled in its frame, clawed from the outside. The dogs scratching to get in.

Lara took two paces towards the man on the floor but the barrel remained aimed at the ground. Too heavy to raise to the target. His head swung up and looked right at her and Ivan Prall spoke her name.

Lara

Hearing her name in his voice withered her. Palsied her grip on the rifle. He turned and spat, a bloodied glob on the floor, but he never took his eyes off hers. “Put it down, Lara. You can't shoot me now.”

“Shut up!” Gallagher. His voice ringing off the tin walls. He didn't know what Prall was saying to her but it didn't matter.

“The wolf is gone, Lara.” Prall ignored the man, his eyes on Mendes and Mendes alone. “You can't kill it anymore. You know that.”

“Stop talking.” Everything was too loud in her ears. Prall's rasp, Gallagher's hollering. The dogs scratching at the door. She brought the stock up and seated it into her shoulder. Whispered to him. “Just close your eyes.”

Prall twisted and pulled against the restraint. Grunted at her. No, no, no. Blood pooled around him on the cold floor. “I've come too far. I will not be shot down by pigs.”

Gallagher hissed in her ear. “Do it. Do it now.”

Prall's head flopped round and rotated upright. Eyes finding Gallagher's for the first time. “You. You're gonna get yours, pig. That little girl of yours? I'm gonna eat her real slow.”

The S & W came up fast and Gallagher slammed it into Prall's head. Burnished metal against the cross-shaped scar. “Tell me something asshole, do I need silver bullets to kill a piece of shit like you or will any old hollow point do?”

“John,” she warned him off. “Easy.”

Spittle flew from his mouth. “Then do it! Kill this piece of shit now!”

Lara notched the barrel sight onto Prall's eyes. At this range, his head would be blown clean off. “Don't look at me,” she said.

Her finger inched back slow on the trigger piece.

The door burst open but it wasn't the dogs. Vogel and Rowe and Bingham hurtling inside. A uniformed officer bringing up the rear. Three guns went up in unison and drew a bead on the two armed people in the room. The ex-detectives, their weapons trained on the slumped figure lashed to a post.

“Drop the gun, Mendes!” Vogel's bark was sharp and unmistakable.

“Back off, Lieutenant.” Gallagher barked back.

“Do it!”

A standoff. Everyone but the bleeding lump on the floor clutching a weapon. Gallagher chanced a glance at the open door but the dogs were gone.

Rowe raised an open palm, talking everyone down. “Just put the weapons down, people. Before something stupid happens.”

What were they going to do, shoot three cops? Lara lowered her aim and Gallagher followed suit. Bingham moved in and took the Mossberg from her.

Vogel looked down at the man twisting against the rope, recognizing the face from the files. “Is that who I think it is?”

Ivan Prall grunted through clenched teeth. Vogel spun to Lara, veins bulging his temples. “What the hell were you going to do? Just shoot the man and walk away?”

“Yes.”

“Hold on, Lieutenant—“ Gallagher cut in.

“Shut up!” Vogel kept eye-balling Mendes but she didn't look away.

Rowe knelt before the restrained man. “This guy's bleeding.”

Vogel finally blinked, turned away. “Cuff these two.”

Bingham didn't move, balking at the idea of cuffing another cop. Rowe's response was identical but the Lieutenant's nostrils flared like a bull and both detectives knew they didn't have a choice. The cuffs came out.

Bingham shrugged apologetically, “I'm sorry, G. You know the routine.”

A racket from outside. Everyone turned as the dogs burst through the door. Barking and popping their jaws, the pack raced through legs and collided into knees. The pit bull snapped at Bingham's calf and he clubbed it with the shotgun. The uniformed officer kicked out at the animals and pulled his service issue. “What the hell!”

Rowe fired a warning shot into the path of a rampaging dog. The animal tacked left and came around. The sound only crazed the pack further.

Lara's face sank and one word tripped from her lips. “Prall.” The Lieutenant's bulk blocked her view and she elbowed him out of the way as the dogs kept darting and feinting, coming back for more.

The rope lay limp at the base of the wood post. A little blood but no Prall.

IT IS FINISHED.

The words buzzed through Ivan Prall's head as he scrambled away from the pigs. From the good book, the last words of a dying man. Those words gnawed and stung like a blowfly eating his brain. He knew it when the buckshot flayed his skin with leaden hail. He knew it lashed to the beam and his heart juiced faster and faster. When his tongue lolled through his teeth just to breathe. When the sight of more pigs gave him the strength to snap the rope.

He failed. A battle won but the war lost, lost, lost. He killed the lecher Kovacks, cleaved the bastard's heart in two with his teeth and ground his bones to paste with his molars. Spilling the monster's blood was supposed to cauterize the wolf from his own heart.

It didn't work. He'd miscalculated. He had been lied to. The ‘why’ of it didn't matter anymore. Kovacks was dead and now he was the only monster left. All other options ran dry after that. Heaven was closed off, redemption a cruel lie. Salvation was now a cocktease forever out of reach.

It is finished.

Fine.

The only door left opened onto a lake of fire. The only role now was that of the monster. Like a dirty Halloween costume dismissed by other children and left on the floor for him and him alone.

Fine.

He'd become the monster. Show them the gates to Hell. The woman would turn soon. She'll fight it at first but she would join them. She had nowhere else to go but the pack. The man was a different problem. Killing him wouldn't be enough. A violent pig would only welcome a violent death. But there was his kid. He got hard at the thought of eating the little girl.

So let the change come.

37

“SHOOT THESE DOGS!”

Lieutenant Vogel's last words, the dogs snapping and darting between his officers. He heard Mendes holler something, saw Gallagher go pale, and then everything else was drowned out by a sickening roar from behind the stacked boats. He'd never heard anything like it. It was obscene. Furious.

The dogs skulked out of the way, heads low and tails down.

It exploded from the dark, the lobo, as big as it was terrifying. Charging in, knocking them flat like tenpins. The Lieutenant's Glock was halfway from his holster when the wolf hit him, its leviathan maw opening. The jagged teeth bit, jaws clicked and locked and the man was jerked violently back and forth. His scream cut short by the snap of his collarbone.

Gallagher, gunless, bellowed at Bingham. “Shoot it!”

Knocked to the wet floor, Rowe watched in horror at the monster shredding his lieutenant. He felt something grip his wrist. Gallagher ripped the gun from his hand but the lobo was gone, dragging Vogel with it. The Lieutenant's fingernails left score marks on the ground.

Bingham blinked stupidly. Felt the shotgun tugged from his grip. Lara jacked the slide. She hadn't even got to her feet when she heard it coming back.

It launched in fast and low, spinning Gallagher off his feet and bowling Rowe. Trampling over Bingham, it knocked Lara flat. Its teeth clenched her neck without breaking the skin. Its yellow eye stared into hers, communicating something. Lara pushed it away, punched at it, anything to get it off of her. The wolf didn't budge, its eyes locked on hers. Waiting.

Lara Mendes felt something crack. Not bone or cartilage, some seal in her heart she'd been keeping shut for so long now. Looking into that yellow eye, the seal cracked and something bubbled to the surface.

She shut her eyes.

No.

IT WAS the uniformed officer who got the first shot. Knocked to his ass by the thing, he ignored the shock freezing his hands and took aim. Fired. It punched a small hole in the hind end. The giant wolf jerked and turned. He fired again but the shot was wild and the thing was on him. Wrenched back and forth until his neck snapped and the screaming stopped.

Gallagher fired as the thing loped through the open door. He missed and the thing was gone.

THE water lapped cold on her ankles. Lara splashed down the sloped concrete slip and pulled the body out of the water. The Lieutenant was gone from the waist down, bobbing obscenely in the water. Lara dragged an elbow up the slip and turned away from the appalling sight. The sound of the water trickling up and down the boat slip was calm and soft. Soothing almost. She'd lived in Portland for eight years and never spent anytime near the water. Why?

Gallagher's voice bounced off the tin walls until it found her. Calling her name and ruining everything.

The uniform was dead. Gallagher read the tag on his shirt. Dan Osteder. Detective Rowe was shaken but uninjured. Bingham sat on the floor with his legs tucked under his chin, lips quivering. Gallagher touched his shoulder and Bingham recoiled as if stung. He turned to Rowe and told him to find his phone. Call it in.

Lara retrieved the Mossberg from where it lay and waited for Gallagher.

Rowe clutched a throbbing elbow and barked at her. “Where the hell you think you're going? Put the shooter down and take a seat.”

“We have to go.”

“You're under arrest.”

“Sorry.” She turned to the door, Gallagher following.

“You bitch.”

Bingham, speaking through chattering teeth. “This is your fault. You get the Lieutenant killed, the kid. And you just walk away. You make me sick.” He spat on the floor to underscore his point.

It stung and Gallagher saw it in her face. He pushed her out the door and when Bingham cursed them again, he squared her shoulders to stop her from looking back.

EVERYTHING was quiet outside the boathouse. The low rumble of the river and the creaking of insects. No wolf, no dogs.

“It's gone,” she said.

He tromped forward and saw the river. Looked south to a grassy slope and then north, a stand of cottonwoods. “We'll find it.”

“It could be anywhere by now.”

“Can't be moving that fast.” He walked back to her. “Not with the buckshot you unloaded on him. The kid clipped it too.”

She dropped to her knees, let the rifle slip to the grass. “How?”

He watched her chin sink and he bristled. Hating it. Hating her for giving in.”Get up.”

Her shoulders sank further and then she didn't move at all.

He dove at her, grabbed her collar and yanked her eye-to-eye. “Didn't you hear him? He said he'd go after Amy. GET UP!”

She knocked his hands away, a sharp guttural sound erupting from inside her. That weird strength was back, that unnatural light sparking her iris. What he wanted.

“You can find him,” he said.

“Stop.”

He pushed. “You said you can smell him. Hear the dogs at a distance. You can track him down.”

She hated him, anger like tinder to the flame in her eyes. “Like what, a dog?”

“Like a hunter.”

“No.”

“You have to. You're the only one who can find him now.”

“Do you know what you're asking? The more you give into it, the deeper it takes hold of you. Don't you understand that?” He was about to speak but she cut him off. “I can't.”

“Then he wins.”

She backed away, shaking her head at what he was asking from her. He let out a long breath and spoke. “If there was another option, I'd be all over it. But this is the one we're stuck with.”

She hated him for that. Her guts already roiling and the fever coming back, it was all she could do to keep it down. To hang on. How could he ask that of her? If she gave an inch now, the thing inside would take a mile. More.

Her hand braced against a small boat, the hull stained green with river algae. She felt dizzy and sick. She looked up and saw more than just frustration in his eyes. There was contempt. Not pity, not compassion. Just bitter contempt. She wanted to slap it from his face. She wanted to hurt him.

“To hell with you then,” he said. “I'll do it myself.”

He turned his back on her and stomped for the cottonwoods. The gun white-knuckled in his fist. He bellowed out the bastard's name, screaming it into the void because he didn't know what else to do.

Prall.

Prall.

Prall.

Lara shut her eyes to keep the earth from spinning under her feet. “Shut up.” Gallagher's screams rippled around her, spiking her vertigo. “Shut up!”

She opened her eyes and saw Gallagher out in the cottonwood trees. He'd stopped screaming, stopped hollering to all points of the compass. Head down, broken. Out of options.

Then the wolf broke from the void and dragged Gallagher into the darkness.

38

THE TREES BLURRED PAST, EVERYTHING spinning. He was raked roughshod over the ground at terrible speed. Bounced hard, dragged over knotweed, shredding his shirt until his back was scraped raw. His leg clamped in the maw of a monster.

Its pelage smoothed flat in the wind, muscles pumping through the dark fur. Somewhere in the distance behind him, Gallagher could hear the pounding of more paws as the pack thundered after them.

The gun was still locked in his fist. He brought it to bear in both hands but the monster changed direction, twisting and rolling him crazily. Canarygrass cut his face. His back splitting under the drag. He swung the sight back onto the mass of rippling muscle and fired.

The jaws let go. He cartwheeled through the muck, tumbling and rolling. His fingers sunk into the dirt, anchoring to a stop. Disoriented. Lost. The pack thundered up on him and he struggled to aim through his double vision. The dogs skirted round and kept running, ghosts without barks, chasing the lead. As quick as they came, they were gone.

He got to his knees but no further. Too seasick to stand, his calf crushed from the wolf's maw. Eyes whipping round, no idea where he was. How far had the thing dragged him? How far away was Mendes?

He waited out the vertigo until he could stand without keeling over. His leg hurt like a son of a bitch but he could walk. He had to. The moon frosted the groundcover with quicksilver but gave no clue which way to go.

A noise, sharp and close. Behind him somewhere. And again, now to his left. Pads trampling twigs, no attempts to be silent. The noise arced round him from aft to stern. The damn thing was circling him out there in the dark, keeping out of the silver trace of moonlight. Round and round it stalked, a monstrous satellite in his orbit.

Fine. That meant it wasn't tracking down Amy. His daughter's name caught in his throat. He wouldn't get to say goodbye. He stood no chance against this thing, this wolf, werewolf, whatever. He reconciled that but Amy… Their last words were angry, he'd yelled at her. Christ, why had he been such a prick? He still had his phone. Did he have time to call her? Just tell her he loved her and hang up? What if that thing sprang at him before he could hang up? She would hear him die over the line.

John Gallagher mumbled something. Prayer or plea, hard to tell. He pivoted around on his good leg, tracking the noise with the barrel of the gun. With any luck, any whim of God Almighty he could put a bullet in its brain before it killed him.

Amen.

MENDES ran breakneck through the trees, bounding over mossy deadfall and ducking low under the hanging pines. No flashlight but never stumbling in the pitch, her feet hitting solid purchase every time. Something had clicked inside her, locking into place. Reason, logic, intellect; all of it pushed aside and pure instinct took over.

She couldn't see in the dark but somehow sensed what was in front of her, feeling her way through like some mad Braille. She could read Gallagher out there in the darkness, read the wolf and the dogs. Where and how far away. She followed their precise path, every turn and change in direction.

When she realized what she was doing, she fell. Reason pushed back, smothering instinct. She was tracking Gallagher by scent, faint as it was. Smell and sound were the Braille she was reading. Instincts other than her own had taken over. Her heart knocked crazily, pushing something more than adrenaline through her system. The other, the feral embryo coiled up in her heart sluiced through veins and into the marrow of her bones.

And now she couldn't move. The same deadening paralysis she suffered in the hospital struck her down faster than venom, ossifying every ligament. Her jaw locked, a rictus of horror flashfrozen to her face. Like before, her mind was trapped inside a shell of stone. Cruelly aware, alert.

A voice carried downwind and bounced off the trees until it hooked in her ears. Gallagher's voice, screaming and cursing and worst of all, calling for help. Calling her name. Calling for a partner who would never come.

His voice was chased away by the drum of paws pounding over the forest floor. Snapping twigs, snagging burs. The dogs charging in fast. She couldn't move, couldn't scream, couldn't swing the Mossberg up to blast the filthy bastards to pulp. They would be on her in a heartbeat with their teeth and jaws.

They broke the underbrush and she braced for the impact but no teeth came. The pack jostled around her, stepping on her hands and nosing her face. Snouts prodding and poking her, nostrils blowing hot in her ear but they held back their teeth. Were they toying with her? Were these killers capable of that?

Their tang was overwhelming. A stench of wet fur and musk and rancid meat breath. But all of that was surface tissue, a wrinkled skin over boiled milk. Underneath the musk, she could pick out their moods as easily as reading words. No malice or aggression, no hatred nor enmity. There was confusion at first, then curiosity. Acceptance and finally camaraderie. One of their own. A raw fledging pack member.

One, two, three heartbeats before the full horror of it bansheed over her mind. Her heart stopped and skipped like a needle on vinyl, violently changing tempos. Her core temperature spiked and wet fire roiled up her bloodstream and cooked her brains inside her skull.

The tiny fetal wolf incubating in her heart unfolded its wet limbs and stretched to its full length. Like lashes to the back, her heartbeat pounded out thirty-nine ticks and it was finished. Lara Estela Mendes ceased to exist.

THE wolf came at him full bore. Gallagher wheeled the gun up and got off one round, punching a dark hole into the blue grey fur but the monster didn't stop. It slammed into him as he squeezed another round. Hurtled backwards into the dead leaves, he kicked out in a panic, pedaling mad to keep those snapping teeth at bay. He fired into its bulk, at the heart but the wolf roared in stronger, its maw widened and bit down over his ribs. He clubbed it between the eyes with the pistol butt and the thing shook him violently, whipsawing him through the dirt.

He spun, thrown from the teeth and thudding hard into the ground. His hand was empty. He groped the dead leaves for the gun that wasn't there and still wasn't there. The great wolf stalked forward with no hurry, no rush. An easy kill.

No gun but he wasn't weaponless. He remembered the blade bundled inside his jacket. He tore it free, pulled away the rag. He wanted the silver to flash clean and bright. Wanted the wolf to see it. The wolf lumbered in slow. Limping, one shoulder dipping as it trotted.

Gallagher pleaded with God one more time. One clean shot, the eye or even the heart, the underbelly. Just one clean cut with the blade.

The wolf stopped cold, as if stonewalled by the prayer, and swung its massive head south. Ears up at what was coming. The wolf heard it long before Gallagher but their eyes caught it at the same moment. Another wolf, big as this one, loping between the oak and ash on newborn legs. Hurtling at them both, this lobo was pale, the white coat mottled black and grey over the crest. The tail held high, lips curled back at the sight of the blue-grey wolf. Its intentions were clear.

The grey wolf rose up to meet it. Two leviathans collided in a blur of teeth and chops. Eyes wide in aggression, clean with intent.

Gallagher watched, useless. A bystander of no significance, the knife a toy in his fist. The question glared white hot but the answer was simply too hard to bear. His gut knew it was her but his head refuted that truth.

The pale wolf roared up and the grey cowed, as if to submit but it was no more than a feint. It shot up fast and took the white down, jaws locked onto her throat. Pinning her down, forcing submission. The pale lobo twisted and snapped. The pack thundered in and the dogs raced round the warring monsters, yammering and howling. Insane, lost.

The one clean shot Gallagher prayed for was suddenly there and he took it. He came up underneath it, the blade in both hands and slit its belly open. The monster howled and bucked but Gallagher drove the blade harder, arms to the elbows in its guts, sawing at it. Coring it hollow. Blood spackled hot in his face and the intestines spilled out of the wolf's belly, slick ropes of gore until he was tangled in it.

The monster loped away from the pain. The pale wolf rolled to its feet and shook its head. Dark blood stained the ruff of its throat, its snout ripped and dripping. It chomped its teeth at him and Gallagher reared backwards, slipping in the coil of guts still on the ground. The ropey intestines slithered underneath him, snaking away in the dirt as the grey wolf ran.

Gallagher snatched it up, wet and slick, and wound the intestine round and round his fist. Holding it fast like an anchor. The gut cord snapped taut, dragging Gallagher through the dirt. It slipped through his fingers but he clamped down, refusing to let go.

The dogs charged the strange wolf in their territory, their fealty to the alpha intact. The lobo lunged for the Siberian, the beta, and took it down in its jaws. A bone snapped and the Siberian relented, rolling onto its back. The others slunk low, tails down. Rolling onto their backs before the pale wolf. They whined submission. The pale wolf leaped over them and bounded after the grey, following the twine of guts into the night.

The dogs twisted up and shot after it. The Siberian took two steps and fell down. Its forepaw broken, dangling useless. It whined at being left behind and got up again and then dropped. Clinging to the slick rope, Gallagher watched the animal try a third time to get away. It hobbled in a pathetic jerk after its pack.

The cloud cover melted off and the moon came out again, tinting everything blue. A metallic flash in the wet leaves, a familiar shape. The lost gun. He tightened his grip on the intestines and groped for it with his free hand, clawing the loam but it was still out of reach. He shifted his weight and reached again but the cord suddenly went slack in his fist. The tension gone.

The roar of wolves fighting in the dark. A godawful sound to bear witness to. The popping teeth and the monstrous snarling. Sharp and vicious, like nothing he'd ever heard. The baying of the pack as it circled the combatants.

He snatched up the gun and got to his feet, never letting go of the slack gutrope. Trailing it up like cowrope, following it to the sound of that terrible scrap. The intestine ran out, severed at the end. He could still hear them fighting but could see no more than six feet. Shapes darting past in the weird light, no more. Groping forward slowly, gun out before him and then the racket of snarls and pops ended. He heard the dogs stop and become still. Then all hell broke loose as every dog barked mad and snarled, their pads running. The dogs tore in to finish off the wolf that went down.

Twenty paces on and he could see them, swarming over the carcass like piranha. Their heads jerking this way and that, rending flesh from the bone. The lamed Siberian hobbled in on three legs, spent and clumsy until it dropped and simply watched the others tear the monster apart. Gallagher's bootheel cracked a twig and their heads turned to him, chops slathered with gore. He expected the pack to snarl and pop at him, like any feeding dog but they didn't. The animals slunk their heads low as if shamed and they sidled in confusion and finally trotted away from the dead thing.

There was little left that resembled a wolf or werewolf or whatever the hell the thing was. Cords of stringy meat stretched like webbing. The innards hung between the cage of ribs and dark blood drenched everything. Steam vapored up from the carcass into the chill air. There were pieces of hide scattered about but all of it slaked with so much blood the color of the fur was unreadable. Was it a grey or pale coat?

It has to be him. It can't be her. It can't.

He tripped over the thing's skull. Crushed and rent, the lower jaw shorn clean away. A swath of pelage was yet dry, a tuft free of blood. A bluish grey. Through and through it was grey.

Thank God.

Wind riffled the leaves and cut cold across his face. His head whipped round north and then south. Where was the other wolf?

Two pinpricks of amber fire flickered out in the dark and he realized they were eyes, watching him. The yellow fireflies hovered in until he could make out the form of the pale lobo. It trotted slowly to his left, keeping its distance and circled him counter-clockwise. She was limping bad, her hide dappled with blood. The snout was torn up badly. Round and round it slunk, sniffing the air of him.

He pivoted as it went round and he spoke to it. Spoke her name.

Lara.

The wolf curled its lips, creasing the gored snout into a snarl.

He spoke to it again, soft and low. Whispering her name. The lobo charged in, snapping its jaws then withdrew. It resumed its circuit, circling him just as the other wolf had done. Just before it went in for the kill.

Why did he think he could speak to it? It wasn't Mendes, it wasn't even human. The gun came up and he drew a bead straight between the lobo's eyes. For a moment, he hoped that the sight of the gun would spook the thing back but it circled in closer and closer.

“Please,” he said. “Don't.”

The wolf stopped pacing. Bared all its teeth at him. It coiled back, ready to spring.

“Lara, come back. Just come back.”

His hands were steady, the sight true. At this range he could drop a slug right between its eyes but the eyes were the worst part. They were amber and lupine but there was something of her in them. Or maybe he just wanted to see her in them.

The gun went down, resting against his lap. The beast's snout flared and then the pale lobo turned and loped away, bounding over the carcass. The pack followed it, their new alpha, but the wolf whipped back and chased them away so they wouldn't follow. It swung its head once at Gallagher and then ran into the darkness of the trees and it was gone.

The pack paced and whined, abandoned to the dark without the pack lead. The mastiff bolted south back towards the marsh and the others followed. Left behind, the Siberian tried to crawl after them, kicking at the dirt, but it gave up. Tongue dangling between teeth, it whined and turned to look at the man left behind.

Gallagher knelt in the remains of the grey wolf. He looked at his hands, the gore slathered up his arms and let the gun fall away. He wiped his palms down his shirt but it too was foul with blood. He heard the lame Husky whining after its pack. It watched him and he watched it. A sudden urge to pick up the gun and shoot the dog dead but it passed and he hid his face in his hands.

The dog watched him and ceased its cries.

THE road was blocked off by two cruisers, cherries flashing. Further up the pavement was an unmarked Cutlass and the ambulance.

Detective Bingham sat in the cab and refused to get out. He hadn't moved from the floor of the boathouse until Latimer showed up and coaxed him outside. Sitting in the back of the unmarked car, he still hadn't spoken a word.

Detective Rowe was treated for the gash on his head but shooed the paramedics away when they wanted to put him on the stretcher. His head was still a fog and he remembered very little after rushing into the boathouse with his gun drawn. And now he and Latimer trampled through the underbrush into the trees, their flashlights rippling over the scrub.

Three uniforms were already on scene, marking the boundaries of the site. Gallagher had been walked out of the woods by two EMT's but he said nothing when Latimer spoke to him. The detective didn't push it, eyeballing the state the man was in and he watched Gallagher limp away towards the road.

Rowe and Latimer looked over the mess on the ground, the blood and the offal and the torn carcass. The bones scattered about, the meat all but picked clean. Latimer hovered over the ribcage for a closer look while Rowe found the broken skull. The detective slid a pencil from his pocket and tilted the severed head to one side. The face was torn away, the eye sockets red and empty. The skull, along with the rest of the remains, were clearly human.

“Christ on a stick.” Latimer turned away from the gore. “What did that?”

Rowe shrugged. “Dogs must have got him.”

Latimer threw his light over the ground, the trees. “What dogs?”

A uniformed officer called out and the detectives came running. Lit up in the lightbeam was a dog. Its foreleg shattered but trying to crawl away to the treeline. The dog stopped as it was surrounded by men. Someone suggested they call animal control.

39

THE SUDDEN DISAPPEARANCE OF detective Lara Mendes was lost in the long shadow cast by the death of a ranking police lieutenant. Lieutenant Mike Vogel had made the ultimate sacrifice, killed on duty, and was afforded honors befitting his rank. A full dress service was held on Tuesday, with almost every officer in the city turned out along with nine hundred officers from every state in the union. Delegations of police from Mexico, Canada and even the United Kingdom flew in for the procession. The widow Janet Vogel collapsed during the eulogy and was led out of the cathedral by her son.

John Gallagher attended the funeral. In light of his recent suspension, he was requested to dress civilian and not in uniform. He turned out in his spit polish blue, drawing visible ire from the commissioner, a captain and two sergeants. His former colleagues in Homicide Detail were polite as the day demanded but Gallagher could hear loud and clear the suspicion in their tone, see the blame fired at him in the set of their eyes.

Also in attendance was detective Adam Bingham but he looked pale, a wraith in his dress uniform. On leave since the incident, Bingham left halfway through the ceremony, unable to bear the crush of mourners. He had given a brief, sealed statement about the events of the night of September 26 and then cleared his desk and left. After consulting with his union representative, Bingham went home and spoke no further on the matter of the Lieutenant's death.

The investigation of homicide suspect Ivan Prall continued with Detective James LaBayer coming onboard to replace detective Bingham. LayBayer and Latimer worked in conjunction with detectives Bauer and Varadero who were charged with separately investigating the death of Lieutenant Vogel.

Detective Rowe gave his statement to both teams. Rowe remembered very little after hitting his head on a hull and Officer Grainge recalled the chaos when the dogs charged into the boathouse but little after that.

Suspended homicide detective John Gallagher gave his statement and then was questioned twice by the LaBayer-Latimer team and three times by Bauer and Varadero. Under the rules of internal police investigations, he was required to give a written statement and no more but he agreed to the questioning. Gallagher stated that he and detective Lara Mendes knew that their suspect would attempt to kill prisoner Ronald Kovacks during the transfer to the hospital. Prall did just that, attacking the ambulance with his pack of dogs and dragging Kovacks into the woods where he turned the dogs loose on the prisoner. He and Mendes pursued the suspect into the marsh but became separated. He found the dogs on the north end of the marsh. They had turned on their master and torn him limb from limb. No, he didn't know why they did that.

LaBayer and Latimer pressed him about a “giant dog” seen by one of the eyewitnesses. Gallagher guessed this witness to be Bingham but never knew for sure. The witness claimed that this giant dog had killed the Lieutenant. In fact, the witness had even sworn that this animal was a wolf. Gallagher shrugged it off, reminding them that Ivan Prall's dogs were all big and vicious strays. One of these dogs was a bull mastiff, a breed known for its height and mass. Gallagher could only assume that the “giant dog” seen by the witness was in fact this same bull mastiff. A monster of a dog to be sure but still, a dog.

“And what about detective Mendes?” asked Rowe.

Gallagher sat in the small room used for the Prall task force. LaBayer and Latimer had given him the courtesy of interviewing him here instead of the box where they grilled the smokehounds.

“We got separated in the dark.” Gallagher tilted his head, working a kink out of his neck. “That was the last I saw of her.”

Latimer rubbed his eyes. “Okay,” he said. “That still doesn't help us. Why don't we go back to the beginning and start over.”

A cord flexed in Gallagher's neck as he bit down the urge to reach across the table and throttle the fat son of a bitch.

“No. That's enough for now.” LaBayer leaned forward and closed the open folder on the table like a referee blowing a whistle. “Thanks, John. You can go.”

Gallagher nodded to the older detective and left the room. He marched through the cubicles of the homicide unit, enduring a gauntlet of accusatory eyes on the way. He bypassed the humiliation of waiting for an elevator and banged through the exit door, taking the stairs down to street level. He knew he would never be back. The only question now was how this was going to play out. They would either ask him to resign quietly or he'd be dismissed.

If asked to resign, he could probably negotiate some portion of his pension but if they sacked him, he'd be screwed. With his pension, even a fraction of it, he could probably hang onto the house and he and Amy would be okay. Without it, they would both be screwed. He'd have to sell the house his daughter grew up in and find something cheaper. The thought of it, cobbled into some low rise piece of shit where the halls stank of fish fry and God knows what, was too much to bear. Amy would give up on him and move in with her mom for good.

Under normal circumstances that would have been the worst fate possible, being alienated from his kid. But these days, normal was hard to come by.

THE medical examiner filed her reports on the two separate remains found at the crime scene. The first set of remains were positively identified as Ronald P. Kovacks but the second remains could not be identified with any certainty. The hands were too mutilated to render fingerprints and no previous DNA samples existed for Ivan Prall to match to. The remains were marked thus; PRALL, IVAN (TENTATIVE).

With no next of kin to claim the remains, the bodies of both Kovacks and Prall were sent to the Prager Funeral Home, contracted to the Multnomah County Coroner's Office since 1982. There the remains would be cremated and the ashes shelved for one year. If unclaimed, the ashes would be dumped in a small hole along with the cremains of every other unclaimed soul collected by the county that year. A sign fixed into the ground would bear only the year of their collective deaths.

With that, the file on Ivan Prall was closed. Detectives LaBayer and Latimer typed up the last of their reports, sent copies to the appropriate offices and sealed up the evidence boxes. The task force was disbanded and the equipment removed from the small meeting room. Latimer and LaBayer rotated back into their regular shifts.

The only file remaining open was the disappearance of homicide detective Lara Mendes. Her apartment had been searched and found untouched since the night she went missing. No tossed drawers or hastily packed clothes. Her luggage remained undisturbed in a hall closet under a pile of folded sheets. The records provided by her cell service showed no calls after the night of the twenty-sixth and her bank accounts remained untouched.

She was listed in the missing persons manifesto and flyers were printed up bearing her official police photo and physical description, details about her last known whereabouts. Gallagher helped distribute the flyers, handing them out to every door in the vicinity and papering every lamp post. Amy helped out too, volunteering to distribute flyers after school.

There were no leads, no witnesses and no calls to the tip line.

“DID you call the hospitals this morning?” Gallagher looked up from his newspaper when Amy padded into the kitchen, toweling her wet hair.

“Yeah,” Amy said. Her breakfast was made and waiting for her on the counter. “No news. Except for Vincent Medical. They left me on hold. I'll call back after breakfast.”

Every morning for the past week, Gallagher and Amy had called all of the hospitals in the city asking about any Jane Does who'd been admitted. Hoping someone matched Lara's description.

“Sit down and eat.” He cleared away the paperwork, making space for her. Amy took her fruit and toast to the table, munching as she looked over her dad's mess. A fresh stack of missing persons flyers and a map marred with scribbles. She watched him making notes on the map itself. The bruises on his face were slow to fade and he was still limping. He looked tired and he looked old and it scared her a little.

“You want some OJ?” He got up and retrieved the carton and a glass, limped back to the table. “The forecast is calling for sunshine the next few days. Think I'll go see Pablo, get started on that backup plan.”

She frowned. “Dad, you need to rest. Take it easy.”

“I need to keep looking.”

She crunched her toast and he skimmed through The Oregonian. A dry crackle from down the hall, the police scanner in his office was turned up loud so he could he hear it out in the kitchen.

“Dad?”

“Mmm.”

“It's been a week.”

That brought his eyes up. “And?”

“I dunno.” Her shoulders went up in a shrug. “It's just— It's been a week. That's all. You've been going so hard on this and it's… “ She shrugged again without finishing.

“You think I should give up? Face facts.”

She let her spoon clink against the bowl. “No one's seen her. She hasn't been to her place, hasn't used her phone or touched her bank account. Do you honestly think she's, you know, still alive?”

“I wouldn't be doing this if I thought she was dead.”

“I know.” Amy chewed her lip, looking for the right words. “It's just, you're pushing yourself too hard. You need to recuperate. Look after yourself.”

“And who's looking out for her?” His tone was too sharp and he regretted it immediately. “I know what you're saying, honey.” He patted the back of her hand. “And I appreciate it, I do, but I gotta keep looking.”

“It's not your fault, you know.” As usual, she cut through the fog to stick a fork in the problem.

“Finish your breakfast,” he said.

THE Multnomah County Animal Shelter was back to its hectic pace since the break-in and Pablo was grateful for it. Reuben Bendwater's death still hung over the place but the grim atmosphere lifted bit by bit with the return of injured pets and stray animals. The staff had pooled some money together and framed a picture of Reuben for the lobby, the words In memoriam etched below.

Pablo had spent the morning euthanizing an aging Australian Sheepdog named Boots. The family was in attendance, a father with his two sons. The boys smoothed their hands down Boots' ruff as Pablo administered a sedative and then the pentobarbital. The boys cried and the dad clenched his jaw to keep his own eyes dry and then he put his arms round his sons and led them out of the room. Pablo was washing his hands when Gallagher appeared in the doorframe.

The kennel exploded in barking as they pushed through the swing doors and moved past the rows of cages. Kenneled dogs had simple reactions to strangers, they either liked them or they didn't. They definitely did not like Gallagher, Pablo concluded.

They strode down the row of big dogs and little dogs and Pablo stopped at the last cage on the end. “Is that him?”

“Yeah,” Gallagher said. “That's him.”

The Siberian didn't even lift his head until the two men stood before his cage. The left foreleg was wrapped in gauze. He raised up on his elbows and let his tongue fall out of his chops. Waiting to see what would happen.

Gallagher knelt and nickered at the dog. “Here boy,” he said.

The dog backed away as far as the cage allowed.

“Guess he don't like you,” Pablo said.

“No shit. You got a muzzle for this beast?”

Pablo rubbed his neck, unsure about the whole deal. “I don't know about this, G. I got court orders to destroy this dog come Friday.”

“Don't sweat it, Pablo.” Gallagher rose up, hands on his hips. “I'll have him back by tomorrow. I just need a muzzle on this sonovabitch so he don't bite.”

The dog let Pablo harness his snout with the leather muzzle and collar the lead. Pablo walked the dog out of the building before handing the lead to Gallagher. “Here,” he said. “Walk him a bit.”

The Siberian jerked and recoiled the minute Gallagher took the leash. Gallagher cursed and dragged the mutt along but he needed Pablo's help getting the damn dog into the back of his Cherokee. The dog turned and tried to bite Gallagher through the muzzle. Gallagher smacked it across the nose. “Behave,” he snapped. “And don't even think about pissing back here.”

He slammed the gate shut and saw Pablo laughing. Pablo handed Gallagher a plastic shopping bag. “Don't forget, if he goes, you gotta pick up his business.”

Gallagher grunted out something like a thank you and climbed under the wheel. He checked the rearview. The Siberian panted and squeezed its snout out the crack in the window.

THE dog whined and scratched at the door when they got close. He pulled off the main road onto a gravel spit and parked in the shade of a maple tree. He opened the gate slowly to keep the animal from bolting and reached in for the leash. The Siberian backed away, forcing him to crawl in after it. It fought him at first, tugging and digging in its heels. Gallagher yanked and pulled and kicked the animal along, traipsing through the uneven ground of the marshland.

The sky was clear but little sunlight penetrated the canopy of trees inside the park. The trunks of the aspens were vibrant with moss and more moss carpeted the lengths of fallen timbers that crisscrossed the forest floor. Man and dog both limped, making an odd hobbling spectacle to see but they saw no other hikers.

The Siberian kept fighting him and Gallagher sat down on a length of mossy deadfall and spoke to the animal. He blew off his frustration, speaking calm and even to the dog the way one does to a toddler. When he rose and continued on, the animal sidled in beside him and fought no more.

Twenty minutes in and Gallagher worried he had taken the wrong path before spotting the strip of yellow tape on the ground. The animal became agitated, pulling on the lead again. He reigned it tight to his knees and patted its ribs. From his pocket, he pulled out a plastic freezer bag and opened the seal. Inside it was a T-shirt he had nicked from the laundry hamper in Lara's apartment. He put it to his nose and could smell her on it then he kneeled down to the dog's level and held it up. The Siberian was uninterested so he pushed the damp shirt into its nose.

“This is her,” he spoke to the dog. “Find her for me. Show me which way she went.”

The dog put its nose to the ground and pulled him a ways and then lifted a leg and marked a tree stump. It looked up at him and then watched a bird flitting over the pine needles. He tried again, putting the garment to the animal's nose, until the dog seemed to understand. Nose to the ground it meandered through the ferns and underbrush, tracking a scent. Gallagher ran out the slack on the leash and let the dog lead him where it would.

They hobbled along, man and dog, until they crested a rise and disappeared into a thick of hemlocks.

Copyright © 2011 Tim McGregor.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

Perdido Pub

Toronto

Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Copyright 2012 Tim McGregor

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are product's of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

ONE

IN HIS DREAMS, she came back.

The nightmares too.

John Gallagher sat up and wiped a forearm across his brow. The same thing almost every night, waking up with the sweats, heart banging in his chest. This night no different from the rest but this time, she came back.

Lara Mendes had stepped warily from the trees into an open meadow. Gallagher’s former partner in the homicide detail, missing and presumed dead these last three months. In his dream, he searched the dense forest looking for her. Sometimes he found her, dead at the bottom of a ditch, her remains torn apart by wild dogs.

This time was different. She came back. On her own.

He was scrambling through the thicket, hands scratched raw from the brambles, knees dirty from crawling through the loam. He dropped to his knees in exhaustion, wanting to give up. He looked up and there she was, stumbling out of the trees. Her eyes wide with fear, her dark hair wet and plastered against her face. He ran to her. She startled at first, then hurried to meet him. There were tears in her eyes as she limped forward.

He almost had her, almost touched her when the wolf took her. It slammed into her from behind like a freight train and dragged Lara back into the dark trees. Her eyes bald with terror, fingers clawing the dirt.

And then she was gone.

Gallagher heard her screams, cutting through the air to him from the inky darkness. All he could do was listen.

And then the wolf came back. Enormous and powerful, a giant in its proportions. Its maw opened and the monster’s big, big teeth closed over his throat and there was a snap as his neck broke and then he woke.

He rubbed his eyes until the numbers on the alarm clock came into focus. Almost five. No getting back to sleep now. He swung out of bed, pulled on the clothes left draped over a chair and headed downstairs. Stepping quietly past his daughter’s bedroom door.

Gallagher sat with his feet propped on the desk in his small office next to the mud room. He clicked through all the police monitoring sites and RSS feeds for the fourth time this morning but there was nothing new. No reports of dog attacks, no wolf sightings, no unusual homicides under the parameters he had put in place. He reached for his cup but his coffee had gone cold.

A thump overhead, the creak of the floor from the upstairs bedroom. His daughter was up.

He was brewing a fresh pot when Amy came downstairs. A bleary-eyed seventeen-year old shuffling like the walking dead in ratty slippers. She flopped onto a stool at the kitchen counter and Gallagher slid a bowl of fruit and yogurt under her nose. “Morning sunshine. Sleep well?”

Amy looked down at her breakfast then up at her dad. “Can I have some coffee?”

“It’ll stunt your growth.”

“I’m tall enough.” Amy tried a smile but it came out like a disturbed leer. Mornings were not her strong suit. “Please.”

“Half a cup.” He slid the cup across the counter to her and watched her lace it with a lethal dose of sugar. “Do you need a lunch today?”

“No. I’ll pick up something.” She sipped her cup, watching him clean up. “You must be tired. I heard you get up at four.”

“I’m all right.”

“The nightmare again?”

He threaded a tie under his collar, ignoring the question. Code for ‘change the subject’. Amy didn’t pursue it, already knowing the answer. Her dad suffered nightmares, almost every night since the incident. He got by on three, maybefour hours of sleep. That it was affecting him was plain to see but he never acknowledged it, claiming he didn’t need much sleep anyway. “Don’t go with that tie,” she said.

“It’s my best one.”

She pointed at it with her spoon. “It’s still got that stain on it.”

He flipped up the end, saw the offending blemish. “Damn.” He stripped it off and tossed it onto the back of a chair. “Where’s the blue one?”

Amy munched away then nodded in the direction of his office down the hall. “Anything new on the search front?”

“Same. Big fat nada.”

She offered a conciliatory smile. Maybe tomorrow. During the incident that had left her dad in the hospital with a shredded ear and two cracked ribs, his partner, Detective Lara Mendes, had disappeared without a trace. When he recovered, he began searching for her. Obsessively. She’d helped him those first two months, calling every hospital in Portland for the missing detective or any Jane Doe matching her description. Her zeal had waned when it became clear they were not going to find her. She’d started skipping days, calling hospitals every second day, then once a week until she stopped altogether. Her dad didn’t say anything about it, he just took on the calls himself. Part of his morning routine now. She had been conflicted about it at first, not wanting to let him down but, at the same time, not wanting to prolong his delusion that Lara would be found. It seemed cruel, like giving a drunk a drink. She had hoped that he’d pick up on her cue and start to accept the reality that his partner was, tragically and hopelessly, gone.

It hadn’t.

Gallagher fished his keys from the bowl and grabbed the holstered gun from the countertop. Clipped it to his belt and leaned in to kiss her goodbye. “Will you be home for dinner?”

“No.” Amy wiped her chin. “Gabby and I going for dinner after work. Indian.”

“Again?” He frowned. “How are you supposed to save money with the way you eat out?”

“Dad? Unclench.”

“Okay.” Another peck and then he leveled his eyes at hers. “Home before dark. Right?”

Amy tried not to roll her eyes but couldn’t help it. “Sure,” she said. He left and she stifled a sigh. What part of ‘unclench’ didn’t he understand?

The river was almost frozen over, forcing the woman to walk farther each day to find a break in the ice where she could toss a few lines in. She had set out three lines past the ice and hunkered down to wait for a bite. She had been here all day without a single tug on any of the lines.

The sun was going down over the trees and unless she got lucky soon, it would be another day of going hungry.

The river at her feet was wide, with sheet ice growing from each bank. Beyond that, a wall of dark forest and solitude and no sign of any other living person. She had chosen this spot for its seclusion. A modest hike back through the trees stood a small shack that she had been living in for over a month. Before the snow fell, the fishing had been good. The trout and steelhead she had pulled from the river provided plenty of meals for one person. She didn’t have to risk traveling into town for supplies. The spot had been ideal.

Now she watched her lines trail into the dark water, still and undisturbed for hours.

When the last of the sun fled behind the pines, she packed it in. Another day of rice and beans. Even those supplies were dwindling and she’d soon be forced to walk into town. She’d have to careful, the money was dwindling too.

Threading her way back through the dense trees to her little hovel of a shelter, she tried to remember how many days it had been she’d suffered an attack from her particular affliction. Thirty days? On a wall in the shack, she had tallied the days with a nub of charcoal from the stove, like a prisoner marking time in a cell.

Today would be thirty-one days. A personal record. The longest she had ever gone without an attack. A point of pride, for sure, but it might also mean that she was long overdue.

TWO

THERE WAS BLOOD everywhere. Splattered onto the scuffed walls and pooling out onto the grimy floor where it grouted the tiles. He couldn’t get close to the body without stepping in it. It was bad luck to step in a vic’s blood. You don’t want to track that stuff home. Detective John Gallagher, Homicide Detail, Portland Police Bureau, checked his gut and got to work.

Gallagher tucked his tie into his shirt to keep it from dangling into anything nasty and knelt down at the edge of the blood pool. The vic was male, middle-aged and pale as snow from blood loss. Face down but with no visible wounds, which meant that the wounds were on his front. A neighbor had reported gunshots in the house. The patrol officers who responded found the front door wide open and a body on the kitchen floor.

“I think I see the problem here,” Gallagher said, nodding to the detective on the opposite side of the body. “This guy’s got a slow leak.”

“Damn. My money was on an aneurysm.” Detective Rueben Wade studied the body from his angle. Wade was primary here, Gallagher backing him up. Murder calls were rotated through the detail as they came in, every detective grabbing a call as the rotation dictated. Except Gallagher. They hadn’t allowed him primary on a body since the incident so here he was, backing up someone else’s file. “Maybe they can patch that up,” Wade said. “Dude can tell us who killed him.”

“I dunno.” Gallagher moved around the body for a different angle. “He doesn’t look like the chatty type to me.”

Gallagher didn’t care about being denied primary investigator. He would have once, but not any longer. He was grateful to simply have his job back, his pension in place. His daughter’s future. He’d been put on leave following the incident and, unable to satisfactorily answer questions about his lieutenant’s death, fully expected to be sacked. His pension would be snipped with a trim pair of scissors and his daughter’s future suddenly thrown into question.

To his surprise, he was reinstated three weeks later. The Homicide detail was down in numbers, specifically seasoned homicide detectives and they simply couldn’t afford to get rid of him. They brought him back in, read the riot act and gave him his job under a few ironclad conditions.

Stay in the background.

Everything by the book.

A single complaint, the tiniest deviation from procedure, and he would be turfed.

He could live with that. What else was he going to do? There were bigger things to consider, like the house. Barely keeping his head above water as it was, he’d lose it for sure if forced to start over in some other line of work. The house he shared with his daughter would be forfeit. If the house was gone, he’d be forced to find some smaller place and feared Amy would want to stay at her mother’s place for good. He couldn’t endure that. Not now.

Returning to work hadn’t been easy. He had few real friends at work before everything blew up but when he came back, he found even less. His involvement in the death of his former Lieutenant, the whispered suspicions, hung over him like a plague and people stayed away.

He could live with that too. Going back to work meant having access to all the resources of the Portland Police Bureau and more. Resources he needed if he was ever going to find his AWOL partner.

A uniformed officer entered the kitchen and handed something to Detective Wade. A wallet. Wade dug through it, pulling pieces of ID. “Raymond Arbuckle. Thirty-four.”

Gallagher squatted on his knees and studied the body on the floor. The victim’s hands were dirty and the arms snaked with tattoos. The clothes were grubby and dark with stains. Work clothes. The face was raw and weathered, like life had kicked him around the block and come back for more. He looked out of place in this quaint bungalow. “This guy lives here?”

Wade scrutinized the vic’s drivers licence. “Address here says Verlaine. That’s ten minutes from here.”

Gallagher rose and crossed to a stack of mail on the counter. “Then whose house is this?”

“It belongs to a Mrs. Ines Brakken,” said the uniform who was first on the scene. “According to the neighbors, Ines ran screaming from the house right after the shots and hightailed it down the street.”

“Jesus.” Detective Wade shook his head. “She shot the guy and bolted.”

“Is Raymond here the husband? Or the ex?” Gallagher looked back to the body on the tiled floor. “And why did she light him up?”

“Yo, detective?” The uniform pointed at the floor under Gallagher’s feet.

Gallagher looked down. He was standing in the pool of blood.

Bad luck.

Mrs. Brakken was found halfway down the block at a friend’s house. The gun lay on the coffee table with the tang of gunblack stinking up the room. She was incoherent to questions and Wade had her driven to precinct to cool off in the box. Gallagher drove to the house on Verlaine and regretfully informed Mrs. Arbuckle that her husband was dead. He advised her to call someone to come over but Mrs. Arbuckle insisted on going to the precinct to find out more and Gallagher drove her and her two boys there. The grieving woman also had a teenage daughter but she’d been staying at a friend’s house for the week. Gallagher let it go, figuring the kid was better off there then crying in the hallways of a police station.

By the time he settled the family into an office to wait, the shooter, Mrs. Brakken, had calmed down enough to answer questions. Detectives Gallagher and Wade entered the box and softballed questions to the woman to get the story out. Did she know the man she had shot? Why was he in her house?

Ines Brakken stated that she had never seen the man before in her life. The deceased, Raymond Arbuckle of 3312 Verlaine Avenue, had busted down her door with a crowbar in his hand, screaming for her husband, Mr. Troy Brakken. Ines tried to call 911 but Arbuckle had slapped the phone from her hand and slammed her into a wall. He was out of his mind with rage, screaming at her that her husband had raped his daughter and that he was here to kill him. When Ines told him her husband would never do such a thing, Arbuckle flew into a rage and told her he would take his revenge on her unless she told him where he was. He struck her, she fought back and fled to get the gun her husband kept in the cupboard near the cereal. She shot the man in the chest but Arbuckle kept coming and she fired a round into his neck. He dropped and a sickening gush of blood gurgled out of his destroyed throat. She ran.

“Holy shit,” said Wade as they exited the box. They brought Mrs. Arbuckle into interview room B and gently asked her questions. Mrs. Arbuckle said that she and her husband had found a used pregnancy test in their teenage daughter’s room and confronted her with it. The daughter, all of seventeen, denied it all but eventually broke under questioning. She confessed she was in love with a man and they were planning to run away together. The man, fifteen years her senior, was married. Her father flew into a rage and forced his daughter to give up the man’s name. Raymond Arbuckle got a crowbar from the garage and peeled off in his car. That was the last Mrs. Arbuckle had seen of her husband.

Gallagher and Wade stepped out of interview room B and took a deep breath. Wade leaned on a cubicle, crushing the plastic Christmas holly strung along the border. “So the dead guy goes off to lay a beating on the scumbag who was screwing his teenage daughter and winds up dead. Mrs. Brakken, attacked by a crazed man she had never seen before, shoots the guy in self-defense.”

“Jesus.” Gallagher eased a kink in his neck. “How the hell do you frame this mess?”

“Manslaughter?” Wade said. “Let’s talk to the lieutenant about it.”

Detective LaBayer popped up out of his cubicle with the phone cradled against his shoulder. “G? The husband just walked in. He’s in the lobby.”

“Look, Goddamnit, I need to see my wife. Now!” Troy Brakken stood about six-five and he towered over the uniformed officer he was berating. Demanding to see his wife and openly slandering the officer’s intelligence when he didn’t get his way.

Detective Wade tried to talk him down. “Sir, if you could follow me. We need to ask you some questions.”

“No! Not until I see my wife. How many times do I have to tell you people?”

Gallagher strode past his partner and shoved the man into a chair. Brakken blustered and cursed about his rights until Gallagher snarled, nose to nose. “Your wife shot the father of the girl you’re screwing, chump. Take a pill.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He snatched the man’s necktie and twisted. “You just destroyed two families, you piece of shit.”

“Leave it, Gallagher.” Wade stepped in and pulled Gallagher back. “Ain’t worth it.”

Wade was right. Gallagher had to watch his step. He turned away from the man, leaving Wade to deal with the man but then stopped cold. Lieutenant Cabrisi stood near the elevator, watching the whole thing. He did not look pleased.

The Lieutenant waved at him to follow. “My office,” he said.

“I don’t need to remind you of your probationary period, do I?” Lieutenant Cabrisi settled back into his chair with a slight wheeze. He looked every inch the cop, from the mustache to the belly tipping over his belt. Cabrisi had been brought in from Sex Assault to steer the Homicide detail. Gallagher barely knew the man but was willing to bet Cabrisi had an AA chip in his pocket and a shiny Harley in his garage that ne never rode. Some clichés you settle into, like quicksand. Others you buy into. The Lieutenant looked like the buying kind.

Gallagher didn’t take a seat, knowing when he was about to get chewed out. Take an earful, let the Lieutenant feel better for doing so and get out. “I was just making a point with the man, that’s all. Read the incident report, you’ll understand why.”

“No I won’t, detective. I don’t care if you got Satan himself in cuffs, you keep your hands to yourself. Especially in precinct.”

“My mistake,” Gallagher said, eating it. “Won’t happen again.”

Cabrisi frowned and let out a sigh, the end of which trailed into the tell-tale wheeze of a smoker. “How are your therapy sessions?”

“No complaints.”

“Obviously.” The Lieutenant pushed some papers around. “You’ve missed the last three appointments.”

“Yeah. Homicides keep getting in the way.”

“Those sessions are a conditional part of your reinstatement here. They’re mandatory, not optional.”

Gallagher fought the urge to look at his watch. Just play nice so you can get the hell out of here. “I’ll make the next one.”

“The staff therapist is in precinct today. And she’s got time this afternoon. Be there.”

“Can’t. Got plans.”

“Detective, make me happy and just frigging be there.”

“I’ll make up my sessions, don’t worry.” Gallagher gave in and checked his watch. “But I got to pick up my daughter. She’s got practice.”

The Lieutenant frowned deeper but let it go. “Basketball, right?”

“Something like that.”

THREE

AMY BROUGHT THE gun up in both hands and sighted her eye down the bead. Beyond the sight lay the target, a standard body silhouette at twenty-five yards. Amy steadied her hand, held her breath and pulled the trigger. The Glock kicked a little but nothing she wasn’t used to now.

“Again. Six rounds.”

Amy fired again, six quick rounds. Remembering what she’d been taught. Don’t overthink it, just find the target and go with your gut. The spent casings spit from the chamber and tinkled at her feet and she lowered the gun.

Gallagher hit the button on the wall and the target swung forward. He looked at Amy and gave a thumbs up. “That was better. No hesitation that time.”

Amy lifted the earmuffs. “I dunno. I’m still thinking too much.”

“Give it time, it’ll come.” He nodded to the gun in her hand. “Take it apart.”

She hit the release and slid the magazine out then racked the slide back. A glance down into the chamber to ensure it was empty. She shook her hand to dispel that weird tension she got when shooting, then she dismantled the piece.

The target dangled before them and Gallagher pulled down the paper silhouette. Four hits on the sheet, two of which were in the eighth and ninth markers. The third puncture was in the blank void in the head area, the fourth had landed outside the silhouette entirely. Gallagher clucked his teeth. “You went for a head shot?”

“My gut told me to.”

“Cute. But for the millionth time, forget the fancy headshot and go for the trunk.” He pinned a fresh silhouette on the target and punched the button, trailing the piece back to the twenty-five yard line. He thumbed the second pistol on the deck. “Pick up the fifty and load it.”

Amy wiped her slick palms down her jeans and took up the second gun. The Desert Eagle was big and heavy in her hands and Amy didn’t like the awful kick it gave. Its weight and size made it harder to aim properly and she had to grip it tight to keep the recoil from snapping back and hitting her in the head. She didn’t know why her dad insisted she learn to shoot the thing. It was too much gun, overkill unless she suddenly found herself facing down a charging rhinoceros.

They used to shoot hoops in the driveway. Now they shot guns, here on a firing range just off the Banfield Expressway. Things changed. Before the incident, her dad didn’t let her even see a gun, locking up his service issue when he came home from work. Now he was teaching her how to shoot the damn things. At his insistence, she’d enrolled in a self-defence class. She had wanted to take Tae Kwon Do but he pushed for something harder and more practical like Krav Maga, a military mixed martial art. At home, there was an intricate alarm system and three bolt locks on both the front and back doors.

The term ‘paranoid’ often sprang to mind but she had yet to utter it aloud. Give it time, she told herself. Things will settle and her dad would come back to normal. That was three months ago and he had only gotten worse.

“Whenever you’re ready.”

Amy brought the gun up, arms straight but even with her left hand supporting the weight the gun was too unwieldy. A slight tremor rippled down her biceps, throwing the bead off the target. Be still. Aim. Fire.

Boom.

The recoil jerked her back and she knew it was a bad shot the second she squeezed off the round. Amy snapped the safety on and clunked the heavy thing back to the counter.

“I can’t shoot this. It’s just too much kick.”

Gallagher picked up the Eagle, hit the safety and held it out to her. “You learn to compensate. All it takes is practice.”

“It’s not practical. I’d never get a clean shot off if I ever had to.” She made no move to take the weapon. “Why can’t I stick to the Glock? I’m so much better with it.”

“Are you quitting on me?”

That was unfair. He always knew how to goad her into something. “I’m just saying it’s impractical and too heavy gauge to be of any use. The Glock, or any nine millimetre, is enough to bring down any creep. The fifty cal is just show-off and overkill.” She took the gun and resumed the stance.

He watched her slip the muffs back over her ears and said; “There are worse things out there.”

The Siberian, like all dogs, displayed a sixth sense at its owner’s approach. It lay curled into a ball on the porch, its tail wrapped over its legs and its eyes closed. The ears twitched and angled for the street, picking up the timbre of the Cherokee’s engine among all the other vehicles stinking up the roadway. It rose and trotted down into the yard to wait.

The Cherokee rumbled into the driveway, Amy the first to disembark.

“Here boy.” Amy nickered and the dog came to her. Tail wagging and nose pressing her palms until she dug her nails into its ruff. She cooed to it and scratched behind its ears.

The moment her dad swung out of the truck, the dog left her and trotted to his feet. It sat on the cold ground and looked up at Gallagher as if awaiting instructions. Gallagher patted the dog’s head and spoke softly to it. “It’s okay. Go on.”

Amy watched the dog bound back to her with its tail wagging. The dog was a mystery the way it acted like a puppy around her but was oddly obedient to her father. The husky was another lingering effect of the incident, having belonged to a crazed suspect her dad was tracking at the time. The dog was supposed to have been destroyed but her dad pinched it from the animal shelter and brought it home. Not with the intention of adopting it however. For two months, he had taken the dog out to the area where his partner had disappeared, hoping the Siberian could track the scent and follow Lara Mendes’s trail from where she had vanished into thin air. For two months, they had come home exhausted and empty-handed.

He had told Amy not to get attached to the dog. It’s not a pet and it’s not staying. It was funny now, the way the husky leaned into her knees and licked her hands. It was like the dog had always been here.

While the dog nudged her for affection and wagged its tail, it constantly glanced back to her dad, looking for approval or waiting for his lead. When her dad went up the steps to the front door, the Siberian trotted at his heels and followed him inside. That’s how it was. The dog played with her but kept an almost spooky vigil at his side. More than once he had had to shoo it from the bathroom.

“Batman and Robin,” she said and went up the porch steps after them.

FOUR

THE WOMAN KNELT before the corroded wood stove, feeding a fresh log into the flames. Sparks roiled out of the grate door, incandescent before winking out into pale ash. She closed the iron door and pushed the vent all the way open to kindle the new wood faster. The day spent fishing had dropped her core temperature to dangerous lows. Her feet burned they were so cold, a hair away from frostbite. How soon did gangrene set in once frost killed one’s appendages?

Warming her hands before the grate, she looked over the tarpaper shack she had called home for the last month. A hunter’s shack, judging by the makeshift construction and lack of any amenities. One room containing an old woodstove, a few crates and a wobbly table. An army surplus bedroll pushed against the wall and two ancient fishing rods hanging on hooks. No running water. In the clearing out front stood a picnic table and down near the river, a tree stump stained with fish blood and scales.

As crude as it was, it suited her and she remained grateful for the shelter it provided. Deserted for the season and remote. There wasn’t even a road, just a rutted track running half a mile from the dirt road. A serious outdoorsman type of place, she was surprised the walls weren’t decorated with centerfolds. A small stack of newspapers in a bin to be used for kindling the stove. She had worried that the owner might come back for whatever was still in season this time of year until she rifled through the newspapers. Nothing newer than 2006. She’d be safe here for a while.

More importantly, no one else would be at risk if she lost control again.

When the pain in her toes receded to a tingle, she looked through the crate where her provisions were stacked. A few canned goods and a sack of dried beans. Not much left. She’d have to go into town. A two hour walk. Shorter if she hitchhiked but thumbing a ride could lead to questions. What’s her name? Where she’s from? She couldn’t afford the risk.

The crate was pushed aside to reveal a patch of bare wooden floor. She dug her fingers into a seam and a length of floorboard popped out. Reaching down into the crawlspace under the shack she withdrew a leather wallet sealed inside a clear plastic baggie. An evidence bag in fact, a small vestige of her old life before the misery. Back when she’d had a job. And a home. A life.

She opened the wallet and counted through the meagre bills. Sixty dollars, some loose change. Since vanishing from her old life, she had lived like a hobo. On the move and off the grid. She hadn’t a dime on her when she decided to run but she couldn’t access any of the money she had. Her bank accounts, her car, all of it had to be left untouched if she was going to make a clean break. If it was going to work, everyone she knew had to conclude she was missing for good and presume her dead. As horrific as that was, as cruel, it was better than them knowing the truth.

But you can’t get very far with empty pockets. She had made one stop before leaving Portland for good, an address off Sumner. Jacob Weaver was a scam artist with a major in credit card fraud and minor in dope peddling. She had busted him twice during her time with Robbery Detail but both times the shitheel got off. She paid him a surprise visit and took all the cash he had on the premises before leaving the city of roses for good. A little over four grand in fifties, a portion of which she was certain were counterfeits but Jacob’s work was top notch and she never did spot the bogus bills. That meant no one else would either.

She was smart with the money too. Making it last, squeezing every penny tighter than a Scottish millionaire. But it only went so far and for somebody on the run, it burned off too fast. She had found odd jobs here and there, day labor stuff. More than once, she had passed herself off as a migrant worker. Her Spanish was almost rusty next to the seasonal farm workers from Chihuahua and Guatemala. It was December now and that work had shut down for the year.

In Del Norte, a greasy little foreman had tried to cheat her out of her day wages, assuming her to be another illiterate Mexican. She dropped him like a sack of dirt, fished his wallet out and removed her pay.

She had fallen a long way down from the police detective she used to be. And there was still further to fall if it came to that. Her money was running down fast and she had no idea where to scrounge some more or what she was going to do when it ran out.

“Cross that bridge when you come to it,” she said and shimmied the loose floor board back into place.

Gallagher stirred the guacamole with a fork, mashing the chunks of avocado smooth, while the fish fried in the pan. Sticking a finger in the mess he tasted the guac, seemed satisfied, and set the bowl on the table next to the salsa and jalapeno slices. Fish tacos, one of Amy’s favorites. His too. He just didn’t like cleaning up all the bowls of condiments they had with it.

He turned the fish in the pan, watching it sizzle and reached for his beer but it was empty. Got another one from the fridge and lowered the heat on the pan. A dull ache had crept into his shoulders earlier in the day and now it flared up again. It stoked the weariness he’d been fighting all evening. A solid night’s sleep might fix both but he knew better than to hope for that. The nights were never good.

Flipping the fish fry onto a plate, he hollered at his daughter to come to the table.

After a brief inquiry into each other’s day, they ate in silence. Amy picked at her dinner, distracted and unenthused. He should have picked up on that. She usually attacked tacos with gusto until stuffed.

“You feeling okay?” he asked, spooning beans onto another tortilla.

Amy shrugged. “Gabby and a bunch of others are going to the movies tonight. She wanted me to come. It’s her birthday.”

He glanced over to the kitchen window. Early December and it was already dark. “Sun’s gone down.”

That meant no. Amy laid her fork onto the plate. She wasn’t giving up that easy. “It’s just the movies, Dad. Lots of people around. Crazy bright lighting.”

“Sorry.” He half-shrugged, then took a conciliatory tone. “We can watch a movie, if you want. You still haven’t seen A Fistful of Dollars.”

He watched her push her plate away. Digging in her heels. There was going to be a fight this time. There had been others.

Amy took a breath, said: “I really want to go. It will be safe. And I think I’ve earned it.”

“Honey--“

She cut him off. “I know I’ve earned it.”

The dog lay on a mat, chin on the floor. One ear twitched at the sudden cut in her tone.

Amy watched her dad lean back and take a pull off the beer bottle. No hurry. He could dig his heels in too. “You know the rules,” he said. “Home after sundown. No exceptions.”

“I can’t do this anymore, Dad. It’s too much. I’ve gone along with it to keep you happy but-- Enough already.”

“I know this is tough. And it doesn’t seem fair--“ he stopped, reconsidered. “It isn’t fair. But things are different now. It’s for your own good.”

“What are you afraid of?”

He tilted the beer. Said nothing.

Amy folded her arms. No retreat, no give. “I know what’s going on here.”

His brow arched. A reaction at least. She wasn’t sure but did a bolt of fear just flash across his eyes?

“Yeah?” he said. “And just what do you know?”

“It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? The curfew and the triple locks on all the doors. The gun practice, the paranoia.”

He held up a hand. “Stop.”

“There’s a name for what’s happening.”

“Is this about a boy? Is there a boy you want to see tonight?”

Amy’s mouth set into a grimace but remained locked. A trick learned from the old man.

“Fer Christ’s sakes, Amy. Boys can wait.”

She leaned in, elbows back on the table. Eyes on his. “P.T.S.D.” She watched him roll his eyes, went on. “Post traumatic--“

“I know what it means,” he barked. The husky lifted its head off the linoleum and looked at them. He evened his tone. “Put that thought out of your head.”

“What else is it then? These are all the symptoms, dad.” Her hand came up, counting off fingers. “The nightmares, the lack of sleep, the paranoia. The anger--“

“The anger ain’t new.”

“But it’s gotten worse. Your control issues with me, like this ridiculous curfew.” She nodded to the drink in his hand. “And your drinking. Classic signs. You can’t deny that.”

Amy paused, waiting for some response. An acknowledgment. Hell, a grunt would do. Nothing. Keep pushing. “All of this goes back to that night in September. The night Lara disappeared and you wound up in the hospital.”

He flinched. A chink in the armour. Neither spoke, some thin thread of wire pulled taut across the table. The Siberian watched them from its nest, eyes darting from the girl to the man and back again.

“What happened that night?” Amy softened her tone. She had tried before to coax it out of him. “Something bad happened and you’ve never said anything about it. Tell me.”

Gallagher rose and gathered up the dishes. “We’re done here.”

“No. We’re not. Tell me what happened.”

He ran the faucet, keeping his back to her. “Clear the table please.”

It was so easy for him, to just shut it all down and turn it off. Shut her out and become an iceberg. Amy took hold of her plate, ready to do what she was told but then she stopped and sat back down. Not tonight. She slid her plate across the table until it teetered over the edge and fell.

Crash.

He spun around. Saw the mess on the floor, the shards of china everywhere. “What the hell?”

Amy looked her father in the eye. “I’m not a kid anymore. Just trust me. It’s okay.”

His face reddened but his jaw muscles twitched as he swallowed his outburst and kept his mouth shut. With a quiet grumble, he said; “Clean that up.”

Amy got to her feet and stepped around the mess on the floor. “You’re right, this isn’t fair. I’m supposed to trust you implicitly. With everything. But you won’t trust me? We’re family for Christ’s sakes.”

She watched his hands bunch into fists. Knuckles whitening. Silently counting off the seconds to cool down. “Watch your language.”

Amy walked away but fired back over her shoulder. “Some family we are.”

Retreating into her bedroom, Amy opened every drawer in the dresser, loathing everything she owned.

No matter, she’d find something to wear.

He was draining the sink when she came back downstairs. Jeans that were too tight and hair straightened pin sharp. The makeup around her eyes wasn’t a lot, a little mascara, but it was jarring to see. Gone was his little girl. Gallagher didn’t know who this young woman was.

Amy took her coat from the rack and slipped it on. “I’m going out to see my friends. We’ll be safe. I’ll be back around eleven.”

Gallagher flung the dishtowel away. “Don’t do this.”

“You can’t stop me.”

The Siberian sat by the door, waiting to go outside. Its eyes roamed back and forth between them. He stood and wagged his tail as Amy approached. She rubbed its head and reached for the door knob.

“I’ll be safe,” she said. Then a parting shot. “Trust me.”

“Do you have your phone on you?”

“Yes.”

He didn’t try to stop her. What was he going to do, send her to her room? The dog scuttled out with her and the door slammed shut.

He finished cleaning up and then took down a rocks glass from the cupboard. Found the single malt and poured a ploughman’s share. He pulled on his boots and coat and then went out to the front porch. Settled into the old wicker chair and watched the street. A car went past and then it was quiet. The husky trotted up the steps and sat at his feet.

Gallagher set his glass on the weathered floorboards and contemplated going back inside to fetch his gun.

FIVE

“LITTLE LATE IN the season for fishing, isn’t it?”

The woman looked up from the items she had placed on the counter. “Pardon?”

The man behind the register, big-bellied with a broad smile, held up the spool of fishing line she’d chosen.

“Fishing season’s over, is what I mean.” The man behind the counter smiled, holding up the spool of fishing line she’d chosen. He rang it in. “At least for trout and whitefish. You don’t want to be caught by the game warden. It’s a hefty fine.”

“I just like to be ready for next season,” she said. The shop owner nodded, seemed satisfied with the answer. Truth was, she did plan to fish out of season. These days, the only protein she got came out of what she could pull from the river near the shack. And that wasn’t much, she had never been that much of a fisherman.

She watched the man ring up the rest of her supplies. A few cans and a sack of lentils. Dried chili peppers to give it some taste. Soap, the cheapest and smelliest the shop had to offer. She looked back over the aisles, wondering if she’d forgotten anything. The shop was a bona fide general store, selling everything from groceries to sporting goods to locally made crafts on consignment. A Podunk charm all its own.

“Eleven-twenty,” he said, totaling it up. “Say, are you staying down at the Hatfield’s place? The cabins on the lake there?”

“No.” She paid and loaded her purchases into the backpack. “Thanks.”

“My pleasure.” He seemed to take no offense at her blunt answer. He looked at his watch and said; “If you hurry over to the Salty Pine, you can still catch the happy hour. Chilli and beer for two bucks. Can’t beat it.”

She slung the backpack onto her shoulders, thanked him and went out the door.

A battered pickup truck rumbled past her on the road and disappeared behind the post office. No other traffic. The town of Weepers was small and remote, the kind of place that flourished in the summer and curled up and went to sleep in the winter. That might be a problem now. With the tourists gone and only the locals around, she might be noticed. People would want to chat, ask where she’s from or where she’s staying. Like the shop owner.

She hated the thought of packing up and moving on again but it might come to that. Where would she run to this time?

Cinching up the shoulder straps, she started walking when she heard a door open and music spill out into the street. The Salty Pine tavern was just up ahead on her left, a neon sign glowing in the window. She watched an older man hold the door open for his wife and she took his arm as they ambled to their car parked out front.

She listened to the sound of music and people talking. The door swung closed and the sound muffled to a low murmur. An ache swelled up in her chest at the sounds. Civilization. Life. Community. She’d been alone so long now, isolated and on the run. The rumble of afternoon drinkers nestled inside was a siren call hard to ignore.

“Two buck chili and beer,” she uttered, reading the sign on the door. It was a luxury but today, she’d splurge.

The chili was hearty if bland. Hunkered down at a table near the back, she kept her distance from the happy hour crowd and spiked the chili with shake after shake of tobasco. She wolfed it down and tore the biscuit in half and wiped the bowl with it. The beer, a tall glass of draft, she sipped slowly.

Three tables were occupied with afternoon drinkers, a few older guys propped up on the bar. The TV flickered with the sound muted. She didn’t speak to anyone, avoiding eye contact with even the waitress. Still, it felt good simply being around other people. The seclusion took its toll, this exile she’d forced upon herself shredding her nerves raw until she wanted to scream out for someone, anyone. Sometimes just being around other people like this, listening to them talk, took the sting out of her seclusion. The claustrophobia of being trapped inside her own head.

Sometimes it brought trouble.

Four tables over three men leaned over their beers. Ball caps and workboots, hunting knives in leather sheaths hung from their belts instead of cell phones. They argued with vigor, waving their hands about and talking over one another. Lara picked up words here and there, trying to decipher what the argument was about. Words like ‘bear’, ‘bait-traps’ and ‘hunting party’ popped up out of the racket of the bar. She leaned in to snatch more scraps of conversation.

“...two head of livestock that McFarland’s lost already...”

“...coyotes don’t go for animals that size. It’s a mountain lion, if it’s anything...”

“Care to add to the class, ma’am?”

She startled, realizing the words were addressed to her. The man with the tattooed forearm squared his eyes straight on her. Unlike his portly friends, he was trim and solid. He smiled at her, a flash of white teeth. “You’re more than welcome to join us,” he said, pulling out the vacant chair next to him. “Add to the conversation?”

“I’m fine.” She dropped her eyes to her bowl. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” He got up, took his beer with him and sauntered over.

Damn. She should have left sooner. Now this.

“Mind if I sit?” He pulled out a chair and flopped down without waiting for an answer.

“I was just leaving.”

“Can’t leave an unfinished drink on the table.” He nodded to her half-finished beer. “It’s bad luck.”

“I’ve never heard that one before.” She picked up the glass and knocked it back.

“You walk away from it unfinished, people here think you’re rich.” He smiled, gave a wink. “Then when you ain’t looking, they stick you with the tab. See?”

She looked him over quickly. He seemed harmless. Friendly even, without the boring swagger of a guy on a pick-up. A few short words would shut him down and he’d slink back to his friends, tell them she was a bitch to cover his strike-out. Then why was an alarm bell ringing somewhere in her head? He didn’t look dangerous. “Can I ask what you guys were talking about? Sounds like a hunting trip.”

“Predator,” he said. “Couple of bossies on a farm near Weller got killed. Taken down and eaten.”

“I heard someone mention a bear.”

He shrugged. “It’s possible, but unlikely. No one’s seen a bear round here in twenty years.”

“Coyotes?”

“That’s what Todd thinks. He don’t know shit.”

“What do you think it is?”

He shrugged again, as if the answer was obvious. “Wolves. Them big timber wolves, wandering down here from up north.”

The alarm rang at full volume. That one word like a fist shattering glass to yank the fire alarm. Along with the clanging bells in her ears, her heart ticked up a notch. Sweat broke down the small of her back. It felt just like--

“Hey, you all right?” The man leaned back, as if she was about to lose her lunch. “You look a little green.”

The front door was all the way across the bar. The bathroom three paces to her right. “Excuse me,” she said, bolting for the washroom.

It was empty. Thank God. She looked at her reflection in the mottled mirror. Her pupils had already dilated to pinpricks. A faint glow of yellow overlapping the brown.

Not now. Why now?

She pushed into a stall and bolted the door. From an inside pocket of her jacket, she produced the knife. Slipping it from its sheath, the blade gleamed. Silver plated. Clamping it between her teeth, she shrugged off the jacket and pushed the sleeve up past her elbow. The blade, kept sharp from constant honing with a whetstone, pressed into the flesh of her forearm and she pushed in until it bit. Blood welled up in the hairline cut and dribbled down. The effect was almost instant. Her heartrate dropped and her breathing evened out. The smells in the room, amplified from a boosting olfactory sense, dimmed from acute to dulled.

The spell passed, the change averted. She lifted the blade away and watched a single drop of blood fall and bloom on the dirty floor. Lara Mendes looked at her ravaged arm. Crisscrossed with the marks of cutting from elbow to wrist like drunken railway tracks.

SIX

“EARTH TO AMY.”

Amy turned away from the window and looked at her friend. Gabrielle waved her hand, flagging Amy back to the here and now. Amy swatted the hand away. “What?”

“Where’d you go just now?” Gabby said. “You just drifted into outer space again.”

“Sorry.”

Gabby rolled her eyes and slurped the dregs of her iced cappuccino through a straw. She was a new friend in Amy’s world. Unlike the friends she’d grown up with, Gabby was a bit out there. She dressed strange, had weird ideas and was always trying to shock people. She was obsessed with dead rock stars, tabloid magazines and smoked too much weed as far as Amy thought. She had known Gabby since ninth grade shop class but they’d never clicked until this Halloween when Gabby had wandered onto Amy’s front porch dressed as a suicide bride. White veil and fake blood dripping from fake slit wrists. High as a kite and having lost her friends, Gabby had snaked her arm round Amy like a life preserver and helped her dole out candy to the trick-or-treaters. They’d been inseparable ever since.

Gabby made a racket with the straw and then flung the plastic cup away. “So, lame-o. Did you even talk to ‘Date-Rape’?”

“Would you stop?”

“See? You’re such a chicken-shit.”

‘Date-Rape’ was the nickname Gabby had labeled Dan Raylan with when Amy confessed to liking him. A bunch of them had gone out to the movies to see a cheesy horror flick at the Laurelhurst. Dan was there too and Gabby kept pushing Amy to talk to him. For Gabby, talking to boys was no problem. Especially ones she liked, which never failed to flabbergast Amy at how easy she made it look. Gabby would cajole and tease and hurl abuse at whatever boy she was crushing on at that moment. She made it look so easy and pushed Amy to do the same. As if. Amy discovered that her brain didn’t work when faced with some boy she thought even remotely cute, floundering like a spastic in gym class.

“Time to man-up, chickie-shit.” Gabby thumbed towards the back of the too-brightly lit cafe they were in. Dan Raylan slouched on a small bench near the back with his friends. They’d all gone to the movies and wandered here for coffee afterwards. Amy had picked the table furthest from Dan and had been excoriated by Gabby for it. “Go talk to him already.”

“Give me a minute.”

“You said that ten minutes ago. Tag.” Gabby belched and blew the effuse across the table. “What the hell are you afraid of?”

“Nothing.”

“Bullshit. You’re scared of everything.”

“I’m not like you.” Amy rolled her eyes this time. Why didn’t Gabby get that?

“What’s the worst that’s gonna happen, Amy? He’s either interested or he’s not. If not, then you suffer a tiny humiliation. It’s character-building.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“The world ain’t gonna blow up if you embarrass yourself. Hell, no one is gonna notice at all. Not even ‘Date-Rape’, the lobotomy candidate.”

She had a point. Amy pushed her chair back and prepared to march over to Dan and his dumb friends. But then she hesitated, her resolve crumbling and she dipped her shoulders. Already shot down. What time was it anyway?

“Don’t check the time. God, you make me puke.”

It was way late and there was going to be hell to pay going home. She got up, taking up her bag. “I gotta go.”

Gabby sneered. “Amy, please. What’s the worst your dad’s gonna do? Stick around.”

“I can’t.”

“You can do anything you want,” Gabby said. “You don’t always have to do what’s expected of you.”

Amy said goodbye and waved to Dan as she shouldered the door open. He wasn’t even looking and she withered at her open display lost on the boy yammering to his friends.

She hadn’t done anything really wrong. So she’d gone out. Stayed out after sundown for the first time in three months. Was that really so bad? Then why was she tiptoeing up the porch steps praying her dad had gone to bed early?

She should have known something wasn’t right. The dog sat up when she approached, tail swishing across the boards, but didn’t run to greet her. She reached out and scratched the ruff on his flat head. Then she froze at the sound of his voice.

“Well, what do you know.” Her dad sat on the railing. With the porch light off, he remained hidden in the darkness. “You’re still alive.”

“I just went to the movies,” she said. “Nothing bad happened. The world didn’t end.”

“Yup. Maybe I’m just paranoid after all.” He tilted off the railing and stood. She saw the drink in his hand, heard the gravelly timber in his voice. How much has he had?

“Dad, I--“

“Get inside.”

The kitchen was cool when she entered, as if a window had been left open. Amy poured a glass of water and turned towards the stairs. “I’m going to bed.”

“Sit down.”

Here it comes. The speech, the fight. She wasn’t up to it. After the foul up with Dan and Gabby’s nagging, all Amy wanted to do was curl under the covers and forget the whole night. She set her glass on the counter but remained standing.

He stood near the table, the expanse of floor between them. “I know this has been tough on you. I appreciate that. But you gotta stick to the rules. I let you go tonight cuz I figured you needed it. But that was a ‘gimme’. We’re back to routine now. Okay?”

For a lecture, it was mercifully short and she could have left it there. She wanted to leave it, to just capitulate so she could escape to her room and marinate in privacy over this disaster of an evening. But why should she? “You can’t keep me locked up like this, dad. It’s not normal.”

“This isn’t about normal. It’s about being safe.”

“I am safe. I’m always aware of my surroundings. I know where the exits are. Everything you taught me, I do. Nothing bad is gonna happen.”

“Bad can always happen.” He set his glass on the table and reached for the bottle. Spun the top off. “Just humour me, okay?”

Amy chin-wagged the bottle. “Is that gonna help matters?”

“Don’t lecture me.”

“God!” She fought the urge to hurl her glass at him. “Don’t lecture you? Humor you? I have to bend every time but you won’t tell me anything. You won’t trust me with anything.”

“This isn’t about that,” he said, pulling out a chair and easing into it. “It’s about being safe. That’s all.”

“Safe from what? I can handle myself. I don’t get into stupid situations.”

He swirled the drink in the tumbler. Irish whiskey, his poison. He cocked his head as if to say something, then changed his mind and kept his mouth shut. “I know, sweetheart. But there are bad situations and then there’s worse. Way worse.”

Amy watched her father take a drink. His hand shook a little as it tilted the rock glass. And he looked so old now. The dark rings under his eyes, the sag in his shoulders. She used to think of him as tall but he seemed to have lost a few inches as if unable to stand straight anymore. As tight-lipped as he was, one of the few real things her dad had confided to her was the rage he harbored for his own father who had given into the drink. How he had just given up and crawled into a bottle to inure himself from the world. And here he was doing the exact same thing and Amy could barely bite down the rage burning up in her own guts. How stupid can a grown man be?

“You need help, dad.” She took a breath, wanting to get it out without losing her temper. “You’re in trouble and you need to talk to someone.”

“I’m fine.”

“Wake up!” The water glass in her hand flung across the room and broke against the wall. To his credit, he at least looked startled. “You’re paranoid! And I don’t mean in a jokey sense, I mean the clinical sense. You suffer debilitating nightmares. You don’t sleep. You drink way too much!” Amy paced this way, that way, trying to burn off the rage but it stoked hotter. “Don’t you see what’s going on? It’s post traumatic stress disorder! A blind man could diagnose this!”

His hand went up. “Enough.”

“No, it’s not enough. You’ve been spinning down since that night you ended up in the hospital. The night Lara disappeared. And you won’t confide in me about it? You won’t trust me enough to tell me the truth?” She put enough spin on the word ‘trust’ to make a wicked curveball and it hit hard. She went on. “Fine. If you won’t talk to me then talk to someone else. Get help, before this gets any worse.”

“I can’t.”

“Yes you can. All you have to do is pick up the phone.” She rubbed her eyes then leveled her gaze back to him. “And if you don’t, I will call your boss and tell him that you’re suffering from extreme post traumatic stress.”

He blew out his cheeks in a sigh and then fetched up the bottle and poured a lethal length. Said nothing.

Like a slap in the face, Amy thought. He doesn’t care. Doesn’t even hear a word she’s saying. She needed to get out of here. Get to her room, figure things out. She marched for the stairs.

“You remember the night you were chased by a pack of wild dogs?”

She stopped. Not looking at him but not walking away either.

“Those dogs belonged to a suspect Lara and I were tracking. His name was Ivan Prall.”

Amy looked at their dog curled up by the front door, watching them with baleful eyes. “He was one of them,” she said. “Wasn’t he?”

“Yep. Lara and I tracked that son of a bitch hard. Got close to collaring him a few times even. But Lara studied the guy and found out something unusual. This guy thought he was a monster. And not in the figurative sense. Ivan Prall believed he was a werewolf.” He sipped his glass. “That in itself wasn’t unusual. I see every kind of crazy. People convinced their Jesus Christ or Judy Garland. The thing is, what we learned the hard way was that Ivan Prall wasn’t crazy. He was telling the truth.”

Amy didn’t move. The clock on the wall ticked away.

“You remember Lara got attacked by the dogs? Ended up in a coma and we all stayed with her. You were there when she woke. Well, the dogs didn’t attack her. Prall did. The wolf chewed her up.”

Now more than ever Amy wanted to flee. To get out before she heard anymore but her legs didn’t work. Her muscles rebelling against her brain.

“Lara got the curse,” he said. “Or infected or whatever the hell it is. She started to change. The night we took Prall down, the night we killed the wolf, Lara was too far gone. She went all the way and changed into one of those damn things. Once Prall was dead, she... or it... ran off. And I’ve spent the last three months looking for her.”

The Husky sat up and nosed the door, whining to be let out.

“So, you’re right. I am traumatized and going round the bend. But hey…” he threw up his hands. “I got good reason to be.”

Amy forced her legs to move and walked away. Plodding up the steps with slow robotic movements. Her dad was off the deep end. Way worse than she could have imagined. Damaged, unstable and crazier than a shithouse rat.

SEVEN

THE CUTTING WAS losing its efficacy. When she had first stumbled upon this trick, it had been a merciful relief. Like a mosquito buzzing near her ear that she couldn’t swat away until that first time she had cut her flesh. The silver slicing into her skin was like squashing the mosquito, its excruciating buzz finally silenced. And then peace. The purifying silver a blinding wash of light that burned everything off.

It was almost manageable after that, this thing inside her. When her pulse spiked and her heart twanged like a piano wire being plucked, she dug out the knife and cut like a teenage girl with a razor blade. She had always assumed that the consensus about teen cutting was true; that it was a cry for help. Now she wasn’t so sure. A sharp twinge of pain brought the moment into fierce clarity and made you feel alive. Part rush, part relief.

Yet like any garden variety junkie, the more she used the less its potency. She had to cut deeper to attain the wash of relief and each cut lessened its power as a balm. When she ran out of room on her forearm, the skin crisscrossed like she’d been keeping score on it, she cut into her thigh.

She wiped the blade clean and put it away. Elbows on her knees, she stared at two little droplets of blood on the grimy floor. How much longer could she keep this up? Hiding in a bathroom stall like some two-bit user. Like the creeps and smokehounds she had busted so many times in her old life. How long until the silver edge gave no release at all?

Get up. Get out. Quit the pity-party.

She cleaned up at the sink, averting her eyes from the mirror but gave in at the last moment. She looked ghastly. Unbrushed hair pulled into a ponytail, dark hollows under her eyes. Shabby clothes that, while warm and dry, made her look like a homeless person. Thin too. Way too thin, given her unstable diet now. Her cheeks had a sallow pull to them that made her look old. Or was that just the grime?

Watching the blood run thin and circle the drain, she wondered what had triggered the change just now. There was always a trigger. Fear or danger. The chatty guy in the bar was no threat. Was he?

The bar had filled in when she came out of the bathroom. More seats occupied by men in workboots and women who’d left their name-tags on, hoping to catch the tail end of happy hour. The hunting party, along with the man who had chatted her up earlier, were mercifully gone. The waitress, bless her, had left her unfinished glass on the table, slipping the bill under it.

She put the money on the table and drained the glass. A small fortification before the long walk home.

“Not much fun, is it?”

A man stood near the table. Tall and lean with short buzzed hair. Flecks of grey whiskers in a three-day beard. He smiled. “Scraping the bottom of the barrel. Rock bottom and all that. It’s tough.”

Lara shrugged. “I wouldn’t know.”

He took a chair from a nearby table and spun it backwards. Sat down, propping his elbows on the backrest. “Sure you do. The hard part is admitting it. Pride gets in the way, trips us up.”

“Whatever you’re selling--,” she said, reaching for her gear. “I gotta go.”

“I’m not selling anything.” His hands went up, to show he wasn’t hiding anything. “I just recognized a kindred spirit. Keeping to yourself, trying to be invisible. Clinging to the edge by your fingernails. It isn’t much fun, is it?”

A patron passed between them, cutting for the bathrooms. He leaned in, stealing a confidence. “I’ve been where you are. Down. Out. Game over. It doesn’t have to be this way. I can help you.”

His eyes fixed onto her glass as she killed the beer. That’s what this was about. An AA lifer, reaching out to help what he thought was another alcoholic on the downward spiral.

“There’s no relief in that.” He nodded to the drink, confirming her suspicion. “I know, I looked.”

He was harmless, she decided. A do-gooder. But if that was so, why was the hair on her nape standing up? Something about the man wasn’t right. A smell or just a gut reaction, she couldn’t tell. Maybe it was just the ragged scar on his jaw, cutting a line through the stubble.

She rose, hauling the backpack to her shoulder. “I have to go.”

“Oh? You got somewhere to be? Somebody waiting at home?” His smile was cockeyed but genuine. He chin-wagged her chair. “Come on and sit a spell. We both know you got nothing to go home to. Talk to me.”

“You know all that, do you?”

“An educated guess.” He got up from the chair and held out a hand. “Where are my manners. I’m Edgar. Edgar Grissom.”

She turned towards the door. “See you around, Ed.”

“At least tell me your name.”

“Lois Lane,” she said, walking away.

She disappeared. He snorted and then sank back into his chair. When the waitress swung past, he touched her arm and asked for another beer.

The small hamlet of Weepers trailed off at the main road, the buildings fewer and farther between until there is just blacktop hemmed by forest on both sides. The last sign of civilization was a gas station, homey in its old roll-up doors and chipped stucco. On the far side of the pumps stood a phone booth.

She stopped as she came alongside it, staring at the scratched out plexiglass door, the graffiti scrawled over the metal frame. A temptation that snagged her nerves before but always shunned. Not this time. Not with the stranger’s words pinballing around inside her head.

We both know you got nothing to go home to.

How did he know? He didn’t. That line probably applied to every defeated drunk he had ever reached out to. It wasn’t even a guess. Then why did it claw at her nerves like a rusty fishhook? There was something off about the man and it set her inner alarm ringing. Her heart was banging up the charts and her skin had that clammy itch whenever the change was coming on. Jesus, she just cut with the silver but already the curse was coming back? What the hell.

How long before her little cutting schtick didn’t cut muster anymore?

Nothing to go home to.

She elbowed through the glass door and felt the stifling air inside the booth. The receiver was rank with an awful tang, as if fouled by all the crying or yelling that had been emptied into it. No one used payphones to chitchat. These things were only ever used for harsh and unpleasant calls. Desperation or fury, shamed apologies or righteous vitriol.

Pleas for help.

Her call would be no different. Another unpleasant ring from a refugee with no option but a public payphone. She plugged quarters into the slot and waited and, when prompted by a metallic sounding voice, slotted more silver in.

Two rings, then three. Any rehearsed dialogue she had imagined went out the window expecting to hear his voice. The low timber of it, the stunned silence at his end when he realized who was calling. What she hadn’t anticipated was hearing his daughter’s voice.

“Hello?”

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn’t she thought of that? Panic set in and she thunked the phone back onto its cradle. Out the door of the piss-rank booth, she hurried back to the road, walking as fast as she could.

There was little to be done in the Brakken file. Gallagher spent the morning talking to the few witnesses in the incident, going over their statements again to catch any missing detail and dot every ‘i’. Ines Brakken was released on bail and went home to a husband she now knew was cheating on her. Traumatized, she hadn’t slept, unable to scrub the image of shooting her assailant from her mind. Carol Arbuckle and her daughter remained at home with the drapes closed, mourning. Gallagher couldn’t be sure but the steely tension between Mrs. Arbuckle and her daughter made him wonder if the teenage girl’s pregnancy test had come back with bad news.

Christ, what a mess. Two families destroyed and for what? Because Troy Brakken couldn’t keep his hands off some girl twice his junior.

The thought of the Arbuckle girl being pregnant sent a shiver down his spine. He couldn’t help but think of his own daughter and what he would do if caught in the same scenario. His gut response was that it simply wouldn’t happen. He and Amy talked about everything, the lines of communication were always open and Amy simply didn’t date. But doubts chipped away at that resolve. How would he know? No teenagers told their parents everything. And after last night, his daughter seemed determined to keep any communication to a minimum.

She had barely spoken at breakfast, keeping her responses to yes or no before retreating back upstairs. He had wanted to ask what she thought about their discussion last night, what he had told her, but she had fled before he could broach it. How could he have been so stupid to blurt all of it out? She must be scared, thinking her old man was certifiably insane. He wouldn’t be surprised if she was gone when he got home, packing up her stuff to go back to her mom’s.

Back at precinct, Gallagher finished up the statements and added it to the open file, sending copies to Detective Wade. Putting the sordid business away, he turned to the mess of open files on his desk. A back alley shooting in No Po and a John Doe fished out of the Willamette two weeks ago. Nothing to work with in either case, stone cold whodunits that only a lucky break or an act of God could crack open now.

He pushed himself away from the desk and made for the stairs. Other cops, plainclothes detectives and uniforms chatted and joked all around him. No one said hello or even nodded. His ‘untouchable’ status remained firmly intact.

Two floors down, he made his way into a dimly lit galley of empty work stations. The bureau’s servers hummed away, stacked up on shelves near the wall. Gallagher threaded through the tangle of dead monitors and stripped motherboards to the back where the room’s sole occupant sat with his feet propped on a desk. Taylor was one of the techs who maintained the bureau’s systems, a flabby mouth-breather who spent too many hours in sunless rooms. Gallagher disliked the kid, cringing at his nasal whine, but he had put him to work on what he deemed a ‘special investigation’. If nerdo knew it was bullshit, the kid never let on.

“Detective Gallagher,” Taylor groaned. “Here I thought you’d forgotten this week.”

“No such luck, Chuck.” Gallagher rolled up a chair, the castors crinkling through a mess of empty chip bags and candy bar wrappers. “Jesus, Taylor. You gotta get off this shit before you drop dead.”

“What? I’m chained down here for the whole shift. Farthest I can get is the vending machine before something pops here.”

“Then ask your mom to pack a lunch.” He flopped into the chair and chin-wagged the screen on the desk. “What do you got for me?”

“Not much. Closest thing I got to a hit was this.” He punched the keys, bringing up a new screen. “Dog attack in Tacoma. Couple a pitbulls got loose and tore after some kids.”

Gallagher read the details on the screen and dismissed it. The dog’s owner was found two blocks away. He had kept the dogs locked up and neglected in the garage. He was arrested. Just an idiot of a dog owner, not the kind of animal attack he was looking for.

Taylor had set up a program to monitor all police and emergency bands throughout the northwest, from Washington State south to California and Nevada, east to Montana. There were even feeds from jurisdictions north of the border, police bandwidths from British Columbia and Alberta. The program filtered the data through certain criteria, pinging only incidents of animal attacks or homicides due to animals. Bears, coyotes or mountain lions, anything of that nature or suspected thereof. The primary criteria were dogs and wolves. When a hit came in, it was logged and Taylor checked it and emailed the results to Gallagher. Taylor preferred it as a way of keeping him off his back but Gallagher insisted on coming down to the dungeon once a week to rattle his cage and keep him honest.

There hadn’t been a significant hit in over three weeks, every incident knocked out of contention by the subsequent police investigation. In October there had been one big hit that rang out to his ears as exactly what he was searching for. A hiker had been reported missing in the Mount Hood area. A park ranger found the body being sniffed over by three feral dogs. The details had spliced a finger of ice down his marrow, the incident bore so many resemblances to the Prall case that had haunted him since that September night. He had gone home, packed up his gear into the Cherokee. A few hours drive from Portland to the scene. He had arranged for Amy to go to her mom’s place that afternoon and planned his route when the whole thing fizzled to nothing. The subsequent police investigation found that the dogs were neither feral nor had they devoured any part of the remains. The coroner later determined that the hiker had fallen down a slope and died from an impact to the skull. Nothing mysterious or strange, just a sad calamity of circumstance. A brief spike of hope in his search, felled by the crushing tedium of banal happenstance.

He’d almost given up after that. The manic way he had shuffled his daughter to safety and blew off work to go chase a hunch. Worse than a hunch, a wispy tendril of hope that faded to nothing in the cold light of the next morning.

Almost.

“Close but no Monte Cristo.” He swatted a palm across Taylor’s back, causing the young man to spit up a Dorito. “Keep at it.”

EIGHT

THE DOG LAY on the front porch waiting for him to come home. It stood and wagged its tail, heedless to the cold wind sweeping over the yard. Gallagher went up the steps and nuzzled the Husky and the dog leaned into his knees. Although wary of the animal when he’d plucked it from the shelter three months ago, he had come to love it now. Especially coming home. Dogs were always happy to see you, no matter how bad their day was or yours. The husky followed him inside, thumping its heavy tail along the wall.

The smell of fried onions and garlic hit him when he entered the kitchen. Amy hovered over the stove, stirring something with the battered wooden spoon. He lingered in the doorway, speechless for a moment but grateful she was here. He had expected her to be locked away in her room, unwilling to come out. “Wow, look at you,” he said. “What’s the occasion?”

“Just thought I’d get dinner started.” She didn’t seem angry or upset but she didn’t smile either.

He dropped his stuff onto a chair. “Thanks, honey. I can take over if you want.”

“This is almost ready. Grab some plates.”

He quickly set the table, gauging the temperature in the room. Civil and polite but there was still tension in the air, things left unsaid. The awkward post-fight niceties. The dog padded around the kitchen, obliviously whacking its tail against the cupboards.

He asked about her day, she said it was fine and then they ate in silence. He chewed over his thoughts too, grasping for a way to broach what he had stupidly blurted out the night before. Maybe he didn’t need to, both of them choosing to ignore it. Pretend it didn’t happen.

Amy looked up from her plate. “Have you thought about what I said? About talking to a doctor?”

“Doctor?”

“To diagnose the PTSD. I think you have to start there, then they send you to a psychologist or whatever.”

“Can’t do it. A doctor would report the PTSD to the bureau, then I’m out of a job.”

“They wouldn’t fire you over it.”

“They’d pull me out of the field, stick me in a cubicle. Same thing.”

The dog whined, standing over its bowl and waiting for someone to fill it. Amy rose and took up the bowl. Scooped it into the kibble bag and set it back on the floor. The dog looked at it with disinterest, clearly wanting the wet stuff.

Amy took up her fork. “Bottom line, you need help.”

“I know,” he conceded. “I’m on the case.” He looked over at the dog then turned back to his daughter. “You haven’t said anything about what I told you last night.”

“I don’t know what to think about it. If it was a joke, it wasn’t very funny.”

“Wasn’t a joke.”

Her eyes finally lifted from her plate and met his. “Then you’re worse off than I thought. And it scares me.”

One of the things John Gallagher admired about his daughter was her knack for speaking directly. It might sting, it might ruffle feathers, but it was real. He used to wonder where she got it from until he realized it was a result of his divorce from her mother. Things got nasty, angry words shouted back and forth. That certain kind of insane, pointless bickering that failing couples give into. Amy had learned early on to cut through the noise and just get to the point. “Fair enough,” he said.

The dog sighed again. Amy went to the fridge for the opened can of wet food and spooned some into its bowl.

“Have you spoken to your mom?” He set his fork down, appetite waning. “I need to talk to her about the holidays.”

“She wants to go to Spokane, spend Christmas with Norm’s parents.”

“You sound thrilled,” he said, grateful for the change in topic.

“You haven’t met Norm’s parents.”

“When did you speak to your mom?”

“She called earlier. Right after the crank call. I almost didn’t pick up.”

“What crank call?”

“I dunno, some creep who didn’t say anything. A long distance ring too.”

He scratched the stubble on his chin. Distracted, something buzzing through his head. “They didn’t say anything? Did you hear anything on the other end?”

“Some noise. Sounded like traffic.”

“What time was this? Precise as you can remember, what time?”

“I dunno. I had just started making dinner so...five?”

He got up, marched down the hall to his office. Amy looked up. “What is it?”

“Nothing. Finish your dinner.”

It took five minutes to cut through the redirects but he finally got through to a live human being at the phone carrier he used for the house. Another few minutes explaining to a service agent that he was with the Portland Police Bureau and needed a call traced, if possible. After being passed off to another agent and explaining it all again, he gave the details as precisely as he could. This second agent warned that the trace would take a little time to complete, if it at all. Gallagher admonished the agent to call as soon as it was done and gave his cell number if there was no answer at the house.

When he came back to the table, the dishes had been cleared and Amy was gone. He could hear her upstairs. She had left the dishes for him to do.

The husky, curled up at the front door, was already asleep.

When he arrived at Homicide Detail, Wade was already wiping the Arbuckle file off the big board. Divided into columns on a large whiteboard, every column topped with the name of active homicide detectives. Below each detective were the cases assigned, designated by a number and the victims names. Open files were marked in red, closed cases in black. Detective Wade cleaned the red marked name ‘Arbuckle’ from the big board and wrote it again in black marker. Closed.

He spotted Gallagher coming in and, pointing to the board, gave a cheerful thumbs up. No one else even acknowledged his presence. Gallagher waved back and wound around the maze to his desk. With another glance at the board, he noted that Wade had not flipped the same name in his own column. Maybe Wade figured he wanted to do it himself. Or maybe he was marking his territory, reminding everyone he was primary on the case.

What case? The whole thing was a slam dunk, the kind of file that required little real work but still padded your closure rate.

With the Arbuckle mess cleared off his desk, Gallagher reached for his murder book and flipped to the two open files fouling up his closure rate. Hopeless whodunits that hadn’t had a shred of movement in weeks. Torture.

“Santa came early for you guys.” Detective Jeff Kopzych leaned over Gallagher’s cubicle wall, thumbing at the big board. “Same day open and shut. Shit bro, I could use an easy-peasy like that.”

Gallagher grumbled. Kopzych was a big chinned guy with too much product in his blonde hair. Your basic All-American who had made homicide two months ago. The lack of bodies in the homicide detail was so acute that even screwhead golden boys with a pathological need to groom every five seconds like Krapshoot Kopzych made the cut.

And the kid didn’t know when to quit. “It’s gotta feel good though, huh? Flipping that so fast without working it,” Kopzych said. Two months on the homicide floor and the kid acted like he knew everything.

“You tear yourself away from the mirror once in a while, you might just find some real work under your nose,” Gallagher shot back. “You never know, green-as-shit rookies do get lucky sometimes.”

Kopzych bristled but put up bluff. “Luck seems to like you, Gallagher. You hiding a horseshoe in your cheeks somewhere?”

“Krapshoot, go back to the play area. Let the grown-ups get some work done.”

Charlene Farbre, another detective pinched from Assault to work homicide, laughed from one cubicle over. She despised Kopzych.

Krapshoot stomped off but fired back over his shoulder. “You tired, man. Tired.”

No fucking kidding, boyo.

Back to the murder-book, flipping to the first open file. A street kid named Anton Levalle, lit up in a back alley with two gunshots to the head. Nine millimetre slugs, ballistics still pending. Anton was a homeless twenty-something who sometimes worked as a runner for local peddlers. No known family and no friends. The body was found by the garbage crew. Canvasses turned up zilch, nobody heard or saw a thing. Hell, no one admitted to even knowing who the guy was.

He pushed the mess away, deciding he needed coffee. Maybe a donut, something with lots of sprinkles. He stood, thinking he’d ask Charlene if she wants to take a walk, but his desk phone went off. Crap.

It was a manager from his phone carrier, calling back with the results of the trace.

Gallagher scrounged his desktop for a pen, oblivious to the fully functioning workstation right in front of him. Old habits, ink beat pixels any day. “Thanks for getting back to me. What do you got?”

“Weepers, Oregon.”

Gallagher had him spell it for him. “Where the hell is that?”

“No idea,” the voice said. “But I’m guessing it’s pretty remote. Took me forever to trace it down the line.”

“And where’d the call originate from? Residence or business?”

“Payphone. Guess they still have those out in the boonies.”

“Thanks. You’ve provided an invaluable service to the Portland Police Bureau.”

“No prob. Is this for a big case or something?”

“Oh yeah.” Gallagher rolled his eyes. Civilians always got so nosy. “The biggest.” He thanked him again and hung up.

Typing the name into a map search, he leaned forward to see what would pop up. The guy wasn’t wrong in his guess at the boonies. Weepers Oregon was no more than a flyspeck on the Google map. Toggling the zoom revealed little more than a clutch of buildings flanking a road in the Ochoco mountains. A second general search spit up little more than a few hunting and fishing outfits. He couldn’t even find a population number for the tiny village.

Toggling back the zoom on the map, he took in a wider view of the area. Mountains and forest ranges, a little farmland here and there. One main road that scrawled through the forest like a child’s scribble, the closest town outside of Weepers was more than an hour’s drive north.

Isolated and remote. Closed off to the world by a mountain range and deep pines. It looked like a good place to hide.

Jim McKlusky geared down as he hit the switchback on the dirt road. A light snow mottled the air, dotting and melting against the windshield of his truck. A dancing Elvis toy jiggled from the rearview mirror, shaking its hips as the truck barrelled over the rippled dirtwash road. McKlusky had been finishing up work when his phone rang. It was Jigsaw. He and Roy were out on Bear Lake road, looking at something nasty. “Better get out here,” Jigsaw had said. “You’re gonna want to see this.”

Ten minutes outside of Weepers, the cut off for Bear Lake road was little more than a gap in the brush. Blink and you miss it. Another ten minutes down the winding road, slowing over the gravel wash and packed dirt, McKlusky wondered how far in his friends were. He glanced up at what little sky was visible through the trees. The sun was going down.

Cresting a rise, Roy’s Jeep came into view, parked tight to the side of the narrow road. Roy himself was leaning against the box, smoking a cigarette. He waved as the truck pulled in behind.

“What’s the emergency, Roy?” McKlusky said as he swung out of the truck. “I was shutting down for the night.”

“It’s grim, Jim.” Roy laughed at his little rhyme. “Nasty stuff.”

“Don’t tell me...”

“Come on. Best you come see for yourself.”

Roy led the way down a rutted track until the trees gave way to a clearing bordered by a rusty wire fence. Twenty paces beyond the fence, a man knelt over a dark lump of something prone in the weeds. “Jig!” Roy called out. “Jimbo’s here.”

The man rose to his full height and nodded. Jigsaw Briggs was a big man with long hair and a scraggly beard. He always reminded McKlusky of a mountain man, half wild and all the way crazy. Jigsaw pointed down to the mass at his feet. “We got another one.”

As he got closer, McKlusky could tell the lump was once an animal but exactly what kind he couldn’t tell. It was that bad. The thing’s entrails were spilled out and strewn over the snow. The animal’s trunk was torn completely open, the ribs stripped of meat. There were hooves but with the head missing, McKlusky honestly couldn’t tell if the carcass was horse or bovine. “Jesus. Who found it?”

“Old Archie,” Jigsaw said. “It’s one of his horses. Or what’s left of it.”

“That’s worse than the last one. Torn up like this. Jesus.”

Roy flicked his cigarette away. “Damn thing barely left anything at all this time.”

“This thing is getting nastier.” Jigsaw prodded the carcass with his boot. “Or hungrier.”

McKlusky knelt down for a closer look, holding his nose against the stench. The brutality of the attack was what struck him, the ferocity. He’d seen kills before; goats taken down by coyotes and such. They ate what they could and left the rest. But this thing, it was like it was personal, the way the horse had been ripped completely apart. He looked up, across the meadow to where a decrepit looking house stood with smoke billowing from the chimney. “Damn things getting bolder too. Not fifty yards from Carthew’s place. Shit.”

Roy shifted his weight from one foot to the other and then turned away from the damned thing. “What do we do? Call the rangers?”

“What are they gonna do?” Jigsaw spit onto the snow-dusted ground. “Issue it a fine? We need to take care of this thing ourselves. We bait it, lure it in. And then we kill it.”

Roy remained skeptical but felt the glaring pressure of his compadres. He nodded in agreement with a caveat. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

NINE

A DUFFEL BAG flopped onto the bed, clothes tossed in. Cold weather gear, extra sweaters and long johns. Gallagher zipped it up and dragged it downstairs. Rummaged through the hall closet for the green parka he never had use for. It would come in handy now. He hauled it out to the Cherokee and tossed it into the back. The husky followed at his heels and circled the truck. Ears up and tail wagging, the dog picked up on Gallagher’s frenetic packing. Something was up. It followed him back into the house.

In the garage, he pulled out a camping tent from the rickety shelf where it had lain unused for the past three years. A sleeping bag and the box of dented pots and pans. He tried to remember the last time they had gone camping. Tofino, back in 2008? Amy used to love camping and he scolded himself for skipping out on it for so long. The dog sniffed about the corners as he scrounged up any other camping gear he could find. The kerosene lantern, the Coleman stove.

He was hauling the rest of it into the truck when Amy came home. The husky ran to her, circled her and leaned into her knees to be petted.

“We going camping?” She looked into the back and saw the gear. “Bit cold for that, isn’t it?”

“I have to go out of town for a few days.” He closed the rear door.

“What for?”

Gallagher looked at the dog nuzzling his daughter’s hand. He could tell her it was work. That he had to trace some suspect who’d vamoosed. That would be easier. No questions, no fights. He looked up at his kid. “I found her.”

Amy blinked. She wanted to ask who but the question would have been rhetorical. She knew exactly who he meant. Before she could say anything, he turned and went back into the house.

The basement bulb popped on and Gallagher crossed the room to a tall metal locker. Unlocking it with a key, he swung the doors open and reached for the big handgun. The Desert Eagle remained sheathed in a holster. He placed it in a green duffel bag, along with a brick of ammunition. He slid the Mossberg off the shelf and pumped the action twice to ensure it wasn’t loaded. The black shotgun was the same one Lara had used when they went up against Ivan Prall. The finish was parkerized and the serial numbers filed off. He slid it and a box of hulls into the bag. Last to go in was the big Kabar knife.

Hauling the duffel onto the workbench, he tossed in a few last tools. Duct tape and pliers. Plastic restraint ties and a set of handcuffs. Rope and two flashlights. He zipped up the contents, ready to go.

“Damn it.” He stopped, almost forgetting it. Back to the gun locker, where he fetched up a box of rounds for the handgun. 50 calibre magnums he had had specially made. Cost a good hunk of money too. He opened the box and inspected the tips of the rounds. Solid silver.

A creak on the stairs made him turn. Amy sat down on the bottom step, watching him . “How did you find her?”

“The crank call,” he said. “I put a trace on it. The call was placed from some backcountry town two hundred miles from here.”

She draped her arms across her knees. “That could have been anyone.”

“It was her.”

“So what, you’re gonna drive five hours for a hunch? All based on a wrong number?”

“She finally broke. Called for help.” He jammed the ammo box into the bag and clocked the skepticism etched in her face. “Let me guess, you think this is more of the post-trauma? My denial?”

“She’s gone, Dad.” It just came out and Amy immediately shut her mouth. She hadn’t meant to blurt it out like that. So blunt. She saw him bristle as if struck. Too late to take it back, she pressed the matter. “Just face it. Lara’s dead.”

He slammed the locker door so hard the whole cabinet rattled. “Don’t you ever say that. Ever.” He clomped up the stairs, forcing her to scoot aside.

A few last minute items pulled from the cobwebbed shelves in the garage. A canister of kerosene and a package of road flares. Tossed into the back of the truck, the husky shadowing his every step. The dog nickered and whined, refracting his mood back to him. He scratched it behind the ears and the Siberian licked his palm. The regret over yelling at his daughter was eating his guts so he trod back into the house.

Don’t leave it like this, whatever you do.

Amy was in the kitchen, rifling through the cupboards and tossing things into a cardboard box. Her backpack sat slumped on a chair with hastily packed clothes spilling out the top.

“What are you doing?”

“Packing some food.” She pulled down a box of granola bars, waved it for him to see and dropped it into the box. “Road trip snackage.”

“Oh. Thanks.” He swung his eyes to her backpack. “Why is your bag packed?”

“I’m going with you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“You said two days, right? School is done for Christmas break. You drive, I’ll navigate.”

“Not this time.”

“I’m sorry about what I said.” Her hand instinctively went to the dog, skiffling its ruff with her nails. “That was wrong. It’ll be better with two of us looking for Lara.”

“No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have hollered at you like that. But honey, you can’t come with me.” He cut short her protest by showing her his palm, like a referee in one of her basketball games. “No discussions. That’s just the way it is.”

“So I have to go stay with mom and the wet blanket?” Her demeanor shifted, from outrage to pleading. “Don’t do that. The two of them are in full Christmas meltdown.”

“You can stay here,” he relented. “I can trust you to stay here alone, right?”

“I’m gonna have a huge party the minute you’re gone. Trash the place.”

He cracked a smile. “I’ll call you tomorrow. If I’m going to be longer than two days, you go to your mom’s, agreed?”

Amy nodded. “You know she’s gonna freak if she finds out I’m here alone.”

“I know. I’ll deal with that when it comes.” He put his arm around her, kissed her forehead. “Don’t sleep past the alarm. I won’t be here to holler at you.”

“How long is the drive?”

“Six, maybe seven hours.”

“Take this.” She handed the box of food to him. “Keep me posted, okay? I want to know what happens.”

“Okay.” He reached into a pocket and held out a small key for her. “Here. The service issue is in the cupboard. You’re not going to need it but, well, just in case.” He turned to go.

“Wait a minute,” she said. “What about the dog? I can’t take him to mom’s place. She hates dogs.”

“He’s coming with me.” Gallagher whistled and the husky rose and trotted out the door after him.

Getting out of the city was a pain, as always, but thirty minutes on the highway and traffic thinned out. The plan was to spend the night driving, taking advantage of the lesser traffic to cover most of the distance. Once he got into the mountains, he’d find a motel somewhere and catch a few hours of sleep. He wanted to enter the little town of Weepers with the sun up and without bleary eyes from driving all night.

The headlights of oncoming cars flared past, the whoosh of traffic on a wet road. The blush of excitement had burned off and the dim prospect of endless highway hypnosis settled in. Doubt crept in like a damp chill. Amy was right in her assessment; this might be a total wash. Tearing off on little more than a hunch. He’d have to gear down his expectations, gird himself for disappointment. More than anything, keep his emotions dulled to clear his head. He had to remember what he was chasing. That Lara Mendes was no longer just Lara Mendes. She was something else now. Something dangerous.

And what if it really is her? What then? He hadn’t a clue. Any scenario he imagined seemed ridiculous and false.

Three hours on and the dog was getting restless. Pacing back and forth on the back bench, wedging its nose out one window and then the other. Gallagher hated stopping. Once settled behind the wheel, he’d just keep going until his daughter groaned and cajoled him to stop somewhere, anywhere. And now the dog was doing the same thing, like a second child clamouring to get out of the stifling cab.

He pulled into a roadside diner, a gas station adjacent to it. The husky bolted from the cab and beelined for the grass, sniffing crazily and peeing over tree trunks, rocks, a fence. He whistled and the husky looked up. “Stay here,” he said and went inside.

Coming back outside with a foil-wrapped sandwich and coffee, he looked around but the dog was gone. He whistled once, sharp and loud. The brush behind the diner stirred and the Siberian came bounding out to him, tongue lolling from its jaws. Its fur was slick with wet and its paws muddy.

“What the hell have you been into?”

The dog sat, mouth agape and panting.

“Forget it. I don’t want to know.” He settled onto the picnic table in the grass and peeled the foil off his dinner. The dog followed, its eyes glued to the crinkling bundle. Annoyed, he was about to shoo the animal away but then leaned back. “Oh shit...”

He had completely forgot to bring food for the mutt. How could he have been so stupid? The dog stirred, thick strands of drool already trailing from its chops. He unwrapped the sandwich, slabs of roast beef sliding from the bread, and tore the thing in half. Put one half on the ground. “Be warned, it’s got plenty horseradish on it.”

The Siberian attacked it, head jerking back as it swallowed the damn thing whole. Gallagher took a bite of his and looked up to find the husky’s eyes looking back at him. Big, sad and pleading. “Get lost. This half is mine.”

The dog didn’t move a hair. Still as stone. If anything, its eyes got bigger.

“Oh for Chrissakes.” He held it out and the dog snapped up the sandwich and he went back inside to order another. Or three.

TEN

THE TRAPS WERE empty, the snare lines untouched in the snow. She had placed seven of the traps throughout the dense thicket where she had spotted rabbit trails and grouse tracks. All seven were undisturbed, as if the critters had sensed them. Annoyed, she went back to collecting firewood. The sun had just dipped below the treeline and all that was left of the day was a dim haze that darkened by the minute. Her boots were wet from tramping the snow all day with nothing to show for it. She ignored the hollow pit in her guts and faced the fact that she simply wouldn’t eat today. She’d come back tomorrow and reset the snares in different locations.

Stupid rabbits.

She climbed the creekbank to the trees and threaded her way through the scrub pine and cottonwoods towards home. This wouldn’t be the first night she’d gone to bed hungry and with winter settling in, it wouldn’t be her last.

It didn’t have to be like this. Sitting on the bank of the creek, she had heard plenty of game in the brush around her. Smelled it too. Hell, she could almost triangulate the position of any animal through its scent and sound. A moment’s release and she could have pounced and bagged a grouse or rabbit with ease.

She had done it once. Never again.

A late November day, spent gathering wood and drawing water back to the decrepit little shack. She had worked up a sweat despite the chill air and her hunger came on in a rush, powerful and unrelenting. Hunger the most base, most raw of urges. Sex and fear and anger ran a close second but none of them held a candle to the stripped need of an empty belly. Hunger atuned all of her senses, making each one sharper and alert for the tiniest hint of possible consumption. Her ears had prickled, picking up a jagged, uneven crackle along the pine needle forest floor. Her nose flared, roaring at the scent of a jackrabbit. Before her conscious brain had time to process anything, she was off like a shot, tearing through the brush like a bloodhound. The jackrabbit scampered, thumping through the loam for a nook to hide in. She tracked it down, her heart pumping and her muscles flensing with unknown power. She dove through a rack of fern leafs, snatching the lupus from its flight. She snapped its neck and the thing flopped to the ground like a wet sock.

It took all she had just to calm her heart and push the monster back down into its hole. She swore to never do that again, to never use the heightened senses and powers of the wolf hiding inside her heart to track and kill game. Fearing she would turn then and there she ran for the silver knife and cut.

Her pulse had slowed. The monster sealed inside her heart had, after a brief taste of freedom, been forced back into its wallow. Back to the dark corner where she kept it imprisoned. Any ground, no matter how small, given to the beast brought it that much closer to the surface. To overwhelming her.

Tracking her way back through the brush to her shack, she moved deftly through the lengthening shadows and clutching brambles. She would fix up a small mess of rice and beans. Tomorrow she would try again and if there was no--

She stopped cold. Something was wrong.

Climbing up a rock face, she crested the rise and the tarpaper shack came into view. But so had the smell. The breeze had been blowing north all day and she was upwind of the camp. Blind to whatever had trampled through her home.

The door stood wide open. The little table set up outside was knocked over. The lantern and spare fishing pole lay strewn in the cold weeds, kicked around carelessly. But the smell of it was the thing that froze the marrow in her bones and set alarm bells ringing in her head. That musky, earthen scent she had encountered only once before.

Lupus

Wolf

Werewolf

Whatever it was that had ransacked her solitary refugee camp was not human. It wasn’t a bear or a coyote or fox. It wasn’t of the natural order. Just the opposite, it was a blasphemy to the natural order.

Like herself.

Since her exile, she had wondered if there were others like her. Like Ivan Prall, the deranged drifter who had cursed her. She figured there must be more, had to be, but the others must keep themselves hidden, or stayed far away from any humans. How could such monsters exist without anyone knowing? Ivan Prall, she figured, had to have been an exception.

Today, she had her answer.

One other than herself existed and had come calling. Had tracked her down all the way out here in the middle of nowhere and tore through her home. Her nose singled out the places where it had marked territory as clearly as if she could see them. Was it challenging her for territory? Was it a message, one she couldn’t decipher?

She remained still but her ears opened, catching every sound within a fifty yard radius. Her nose filtered out every smell within the same area. Was it still here? Was it waiting for her?

Was it here to kill her?

Nothing stirred in the underbrush, no telltale sound of pads on pine needles. The trills of a few winter birds and nothing more. She moved forward, silent as she could across the frozen loam, to her tinderbox home. The inside was ransacked also. Her few possessions kicked around, her bedroll torn up and flung into a corner. She held her breath to listen but no sounds hooked her attention. She pulled free the loose board and reached down into the crawlspace under the floor. Her bundle of essentials was untouched. She felt for the oilcloth bundle and pulled it up. Unwinding the cloth to free the gun. A Sig Sauer she’d taken off a drunk in a bar in Tacoma. Full metal, reliable and sturdy in her hand. She slipped the magazine in and snapped the slide home.

Back outside, her ears peeled for sound, her nose tuned to the wind and the scents it carried. Something felt wrong but it took a moment to realize that there was no sound outside of the breeze. The birds had silenced their calling.

And then the sound of the thing itself.

A low grumble, guttural and menacing from deep inside the trees. Her ears prickled and she rotated her head to pinpoint the location but it kept changing, kept moving. Dead ahead at twelve ‘o clock. Then three. Six. Her arms raised up, levelling the gun and then she realized what it was doing. The thing was circling her.

One step backwards toward the shack but then the grunting changed direction, ringing behind her. Trying to cut off her retreat. What the hell did it want?

The grip of the Sig slacked in her damp palm and then the sensory information overloaded. Signals crossing; the sharp scent of it was coming south, from behind her but her ears clocked the growling as dead ahead. When it finally broke, the thing burst into the open from the east. She swung the gun round and fired blind at the massive bulk rushing breakneck at her. Her hand tapped off one more round before it slammed into her.

Her mind went blank, the pain white hot. Its jaws closed over her, plowing her across the snow. She fired again and again, no time to aim. Just blast it. A blur of massive teeth swung into view and then bristling pain as those teeth closed over her forearm, molars biting to the bone until the weapon dropped from her hand.

Kicking out like she was on fire, she fought it but the wolf’s bulk pressed down on her. Its musk suffocated her until she gagged. She clawed at its eyes, seeking to gouge them out. It roared, the massive head swung to and those teeth locked over her throat. Yet it held back the killing blow, its jaws and weight pinning her down.

There was nowhere to look but its eyes. An iridescent bloom of yellow punctuated by a black pupil. She steeled herself for the violence to come, the brutal jerking back and forth of the wolf’s attack that she had experienced once before. But it never came, the monster simply held her still.

There was no way out, no other option save the thing she feared the most. To change and become the wolf. It wasn’t difficult. All it required was to let go, to unclench the awful thing locked up in her heart.

So she let slip the monster. It flooded her marrow and cracked her bones. And in the last lucid moment she had, she realized with horror that this was what the lobo had wanted after all. It wasn’t here to kill her. It wanted her to change.

Roy and Jigsaw drove over to McKlusky’s to organize a hunting party. McKlusky’s place was outside of town on Clapton Road, a quarter mile from where they had found the first kill. McKlusky would have preferred they met up somewhere else. His wife didn’t much care for his friends, ‘the trolls’ as she referred to them, and absolutely hated when they came over. But he couldn’t argue with Jigsaw’s point that his place was closest to the kill sites and made for a practical base to work from .

Jenny told him that if the trolls were coming over, they would have to stick to the garage. She wouldn’t put up with them leaving mud on her floors at this late hour. That’s where he was when he heard the truck roll into the driveway. He rolled up the garage door and felt the wind bite into him.

Roy and Jigsaw climbed out and fetched the gear from the back and McKlusky waved for them to hurry. “Come on. I ain’t heating the outdoors.”

He rolled the door back down when they came inside and nodded to the table he had cleared off. “We can set up over there.”

Roy unfurled a map and smoothed it out over the workbench, using McKlusky’s tools as paperweights while Jigsaw went back to the truck and hauled in a cooler.

“So,” McKlusky said, handing out beer from the garage fridge. “What’s the plan?”

“The kill sites are here, here and here.” Leaning over the bench, Jigsaw pointed to three small circles crayoned onto the map. “All fairly close to the road. Ten bucks says this thing is coming south out of the hills to kill and then retreating back north. I say we pick two spots north of the road, somewhere in this thing’s territory. We hang bait and set traps.”

“And just hope for the best?” McKlusky looked at the other two.

“No,” said Roy. “We wanna get this thing, we ought to rig up a duck-blind and wait it out.”

“At night,” Jigsaw added. “This thing’s a night feeder. That’s when we’ll get it.”

McKlusky nodded and sipped his beer. The thought of spending the night not only outdoors but deep into the brush didn’t sit well. They still had no idea what they were hunting and in this weather, they’d freeze their nards off. “What kind of bait we using?”

Jigsaw went to the cooler and pulled up something heavy in a clear plastic bag. Blood and what-all dripped onto the floor. “Finest cuts of offal from the butcher’s. Couple days old too so it’s got that nice tang to it.”

McKlusky winced at the sickly sweet stench of rotting meat. “Put it away, man.”

Jigsaw laughed and then Roy unzipped the duffel bag he had brought in. A clink of metal rang and he hauled a bear trap onto the bench. Heavy gauge and springloaded, lethal looking teeth on the iron bands. “I got three of these. Big enough to catch a Kodiak.”

McKluksky lifted the metal trap, feeling its heft. He couldn’t help but imagine his own leg caught in the medieval-looking device. How bad would that hurt? “You think that will do it?”

“The traps are more insurance than anything. Our best chance is waiting it out, see if it goes for the bait. When it does, we put it down.”

McKlusky nodded and slugged back on his can. Jenny wasn’t going to like this and she’d be sure to let him know. Plus he’d have to get a few days off work. No way could he spend the night freezing in the trees and then put in a shift. “All right. When do you want to start?”

Jigsaw grinned and bounced on his heels. “Tomorrow night.”

ELEVEN

HE HADN’T SPOTTED a motel in over an hour.

“Hell with it,” Gallagher said to the dog.

He pulled off the highway at the next stop, rumbling around to the side of a diner with its lights long gone out. He only had a few more hours to log before hitting Weepers but he didn’t want to arrive dazed and sleepy-eyed. Two hours till sunup. Enough time to sleep and grab breakfast when the diner opened and get back on the road.

He got out and stretched and let the dog run before whistling for the husky to hop back inside. “Scooch over,” he scolded the dog as he climbed into the backseat and pushed his things onto the floor well. Pulling the parka over his shoulders, he stretched out as far as he could and closed his eyes. The dog whined and then hopped into the still warm driver’s seat and curled into a ball.

He woke to the feel of the Cherokee trembling and jerked up. The deafening rumble came from the tractor trailer groaning up beside his vehicle and hissing as it shut down. A man in an Astros ballcap clambered out of the cab and waved at him as he shuffled for the diner. Gallagher yawned and saw sunlight burning the dew off his windows. He had slept later than planned.

He let the dog run free while he went inside and cleaned up and chowed down the sunriser special. He got two tall takeaway coffees and another order of bacon and eggs to go. The Siberian slathered it up in seconds and licked the Styrofoam container clean and then they got back on the road.

The road narrowed as it wound deeper into the forest, the treeline hemmed right up to the ditch as if ready to close in and swallow the blacktop. A light snow began to fall, adding to the ground cover and dipping the pine boughs. By the time he saw the first buildings of the town, the snowfall was steady and he tuned the wipers on.

An old service station keeled up on his left and he let off the gas, coasting past. He clocked a battered looking phone booth and wondered if that was where the call to his home had originated from.

He drove on, keeping his eyes peeled for a road sign welcoming him to Weepers, Oregon. Every town had one. When the first outbuilding of the town appeared, it was apparent that there was no welcome sign here.

A grocery store, sporting goods shop and the post office. A liquor emporium on the left, kitty-corner to a bakery. All one-story bunkers of cinderblock with little adornment and no fuss, relaying the fact that this was a working town and if you’re looking for frilly tourist bullshit, then just keep driving cause we got no use for you.

“Podunk,” he grumbled, trundling past a lumber yard that couldn’t even bother to hang a sign out front. “A one-horse Podunk, don’t ya think?”

The dog didn’t respond, too busy letting its tongue flap out the open window.

He drove past it all until the buildings thinned out and then he spun around and rumbled back. Parking the truck on the street, he ordered the dog to stay and crossed into the grocery store. Brightly lit and barely stocked, a few shoppers pushing carts around. He went over to the lone cashier, a girl in her twenties wearing too much make-up. She saw that he held no groceries and gave him a quick once-over.

Gallagher tried his best smile. “Hi.”

“You forget your groceries, sir?”

“No. I’m looking for a friend of mine. I think she’s living in the area. Maybe you’ve seen her.” He fished the photo of Lara from his pocket and held it out to her. In a different pocket was the official missing persons flyer but he didn’t want to start with that. Too many alarm bells to set off. “Her name’s Lara. Have you seen her?”

The girl glanced at the photo then back at him, her eyes suddenly cooler. Alarm bells already rung. “No, sir. I haven’t seen her. She your girlfriend?”

“Take another look.” He waved the photo, the way you get a toddler’s attention. “She may look a little different now. Please. It’s important.”

A man appeared from behind a display of cereal boxes and stood watching them. A customer or another employee, Gallagher couldn’t tell. He looked back to the girl, saw her half-lidded eyes dim with boredom. “I ain’t seen her. And I know just about everybody around here. She run off on you?”

Gallagher slid the picture away and thanked the girl. Pushing through the exit, he saw the man scuttle over to the cash and titter to the girl, sharing some secret. “Nice detective work, dumbass,” he scolded himself. “Now everyone in town’s going to know.”

The dog crammed its nose through the gap in the window and whined to be let out. He opened the door and watched it scamper back and forth across the sidewalk. “Come on, dog. We got some work to do.”

He left the truck where it was and set out on foot, the town was that small. The snow on the sidewalk was a grey slush dotted with puddles. He imagined the town probably looked welcoming in the summertime but now it just seemed dead and barren. Two or three pickup trucks barreled down the main drag, the drivers turning to look at him as they passed.

At the post office, he showed the man behind the counter the photograph and asked if maybe she came in here to post mail. Or maybe she rented a P.O. box. The postmaster, if that’s what he was, didn’t recognize her nor could he think of anyone who matched the woman’s general description. It was the same story at the sporting goods store and the hardware. The dog dutifully trotting at his heels, waiting outside each door until he came back out. Each time more crestfallen than the last but he tried to hide it and then wondered who he was putting up a front for. Did he not want to disappoint the dog? Ritual behavior from being a father, keeping bad news from your kid until you can’t anymore.

Of the locals, he saw nearly none on the street. Everyone drove, even in a town this small. There was one man who stepped out of his taxidermy shop and stood with his fists on his hips. Had a portable phone in his hand and he stood watching Gallagher from across the street, as if waiting his turn for a visit. Someone had already phoned and told him about the stranger asking a lot of fool questions. Gallagher turned around and headed back to the truck, not giving the taxidermy man his due. He would get nothing out of these people. Even if they had seen Lara Mendes, no one was going to talk to strangers.

For the first time since leaving Portland, he questioned his gut. Amy had been right, tearing off like this with so little to go on. Opening the passenger door, he pulled out the map of the area and stood studying it in the street. There was the town, no more than a dot on the map, and there was nothing. Miles of dense forest and scrub all around. A river to the north.

He looked at the dog and said “You got any suggestions, I’m all ears.”

The husky looked at him and then lifted a leg to mark a post.

“That’s what I figured. Go on, get in.”

He fired it up and rolled out slowly, tapping his fingers on the dash as he trawled through the little town of Weepers. The name fit. Up over the next block, a glow of red neon shined in the window. The Podunk watering hole. He drifted over onto the gravel apron and parked out front and looked at the dog. “May as well be thorough.”

The interior was dark. They always are. The few patrons looked up at him and then down at the husky heeling behind but no one said anything. Gallagher took a stool at the bar and snapped his fingers for the dog to sit.

When the bartender wandered back from the kitchen, he ordered a pint. The barkeep wore a T-shirt one size too small, the words KISS ARMY kerned badly across his belly. He pulled the draught and set it before Gallagher and then leaned over the bar. “You can’t bring your hound in here.”

“He won’t bother nobody.”

“Still,” the man shrugged, indicating that it was out of his hands. “House policy.”

“Tell you what. If anyone complains, I’ll put him outside.”

The barkeep shrugged again, not caring either way and turned to go when Gallagher called him back. He snapped the photo onto the bartop. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Maybe she’s come in here.”

The man held the picture up to the light. “Haven’t seen her before. Sorry.”

“Are you sure? Take another look.”

He did. “Nope. Girl that pretty, I’d remember.” He passed the photo back. “What’d she do? Jump bail?”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re a cop, right? What’s she wanted for?”

Gallagher wiped the foam off his lip. He was about to ask this upstanding member of the Kiss Army how he knew he was a cop but kept his mouth shut. After a certain time, the job just seeped into your bones and oozed out your pores. “She’s in trouble and needs help.”

“People need help, they usually ask for it. If you gotta hunt ‘em down first, well maybe they don’t want any help.”

“Izzat so?”

“Truth. Gene Simmons once said ‘Life’s too short to have anything but delusional notions about yourself’.”

Gallagher drained his glass and pushed it back across the bar. “Far be it for me to argue with a guy in dragontooth boots. Fill that up.” He watched the bartender hook the glass under the tap and pull. “Where can I find a motel in town?”

“There’s one just down the road, past the church. But it’s closed.”

“Well, I need one that’s open. You got a Motel Six or something?”

“Nope, just the one. It closes right after hunting season’s over.”

Damn. He had packed the tent but hadn’t expected to actually use it. No way he was gonna camp with snow falling. And the thought of sleeping in the truck just seemed, well, goddawful. “I’m guessing nobody runs a B and B in town, huh?”

“A what?”

A loud hooting noise cut off his response. Gallagher looked over at a far table where the drinkers were causing a commotion. The dog was sniffing around under their table. He hadn’t noticed it wandering off during his chat with the Kiss Army guy.

“Mister, can you get your dog outta here?” A bearded man in a flannel jacket shot Gallagher a dirty look, lifting his knees out of the way as the husky sniffed and cavorted under their table.

He whistled at it, snapping his fingers for it to come away but the dog kept sniffing and nosing its way through the patron’s legs. It zeroed in on one patron and stuck its snout into the man’s nether regions. The man bolted up and yelled at the stranger to get his damn dog out of here.

Gallagher cursed and tossed a bill onto the bar and went over to pull the dog away. He apologized to the men at the table and gripped the husky by the ruff and marched him to the door.

Sunlight broke through the clouds and washed the street with a pale light. No heat to it but it made even this drab stretch of town seem marginally cheerier. He looked at the dog. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

The dog jerked out of his grip and scrambled away, nose to the ground like it smelled a rabbit. Gallagher watched it pace forward then scramble back like it had lost the trail.

Damn.

He flung open the truck door and whistled for the dog to get in. “Good boy. Let’s go to work.”

TWELVE

SHE LIMPED HOME shuddering against the cold, gathering up stray articles of clothes left cast off in the brush like a breadcrumb trail. Everything hurt, every muscle in her frame bruised and raw and each step stung to the bone.

Her forearm was bloodied, the skin punctured with teeth marks that only now had begun to scab over. The bruising mottled the arm all the way past the elbow and there was another ring of teeth in her left thigh like a giant set of dental records left seared into her flesh.

She wondered if she would freeze to death before reaching home, if she had wandered too far in that state. The cut of the trees and forms of rock began to look familiar and she sighed. The shack wasn’t too much farther.

What had happened? She remembered the wolf charging at her. An enormous grey lobo, bigger than a grizzly. All teeth and gaping chops. It had mauled her, of that she could see, but it hadn’t killed her. Had she killed it? Anything that happened after the change was lost, like trying to recall a dream. She never remembered her dreams, even as a kid. Why would she be able to recall this?

By the time she found her coat tangled in a cedar branch, her feet had lost all feeling and her legs tingled. Like walking on stilts and it was all she could to do to plant one foot before the other. She stumbled on and the little tinderbox hut came into a view.

On the picnic table out front, sat a man.

She stopped. Unsure that what she was seeing wasn’t a mirage.

The man watched her come up, his elbows leaning on the table and his legs stretched out before him like he was enjoying the day.

She slipped the coat over her shoulders and lumbered on with stiff joints until she was ten yards from home and then stopped. The man smiled, as if pleased to see her but didn’t move and didn’t stand. She studied his features, the close cropped hair and grey patch in his stubble. Familiar but she couldn’t place him anywhere.

She was too tired to speak and in too much pain to think so she said nothing. As if waiting for the man to explain himself.

He cocked a thumb towards the shack. “I lit the stove. Better get in there and thaw out.”

She limped past without looking at him and went inside.

The man leaned back and crossed one ankle over the other and cast his eyes up at a crooked wedge of blue sky breaking through the clouds.

The Cherokee turned into the gas station lot and stopped before the phone booth. The dog trotted away as Gallagher opened the back and he called for it to come. A clear plastic bag was pulled from the duffel, an article of clothing sealed inside. A blue T-shirt he had pinched from Lara Mendes’s apartment. He drew the shirt from the plastic and pressed it to the dog’s nose. “Time to earn your keep.”

The dog’s tailed wagged brightly and he snuffed and circled the man. He knew the routine, they’d been through it so many times before. He led the Siberian to the booth and coaxed it inside. “In here. Here.”

The husky sniffed the floor and the corners of the cracked glass, the phone. Its tail slowed, wiping back and forth with waning enthusiasm. Gallagher’s heart sank as the tail stalled and stopped altogether. Nothing.

Strikeout. His daughter was right.

The husky snorted and then the tail sprang up, whacking loud off the glass. Its nose darted about the confined space, huffing it all up. Gallagher bit his lip, afraid to hope but the dog just became more animated until it turned and jumped up on him.

“Good boy,” he cooed and scratched the Siberian’s ears. Wrassling with and praising the dog. “Come on, out here. Out here.”

He led the dog out of the booth to the road and knelt again. “Find her, boy. Find her for me.”

The husky nosed the ground, jerking its head this way and that in a zigzag pattern. Its tail slowed as it focused and then swung madly as its nose stuck as if caught in a hook. It scampered forward, nose to the ground, following some invisible line. He called after it, urging it on and the Siberian trotted out twenty paces, thirty. It ran on without a backward glance.

He ran back to the truck and pulled onto the road. Rumbling slowly, he kept back a good ways from the dog, not wanting the noise or stink of the truck to interfere with the dog’s tracking. After a while he stopped and slid the stick into park and watched the dog trot forward down the road and then he trundled forward to catch up and stop again. They continued this pace, this weird game of catch-up for two miles.

The dog stopped and hewed left then right and then left again. It turned and looked back at the truck then dropped its nose to the cracked asphalt again. Gallagher leaned over the wheel, watching the husky waver as if lost. “Come on, dog” he said. “Don’t lose the trail now.”

The husky circled back until it found the scent and trotted forward, nose skimming the snow.

Another mile. Gallagher kept an eye on the odometer as it clicked over and then the dog veered off the road into the ditch and back up the bank, disappearing into the thick tangle of scrub. He slowed where the dog had vanished and his eyes could barely make out the path leading off the paved road. Little more than a tunnel through the dipping branches. He turned the Cherokee onto the rutted path, following the paw prints in the clean snow. The outstretched branches of the trees scraped and clawed at the roof.

He crawled forward, the wheels dropping into ruts and the old truck dipping and bobbing as it negotiated the bad road. The husky little more than a glimpse ahead, tracking further into the white unknown.

Her feet stung as the warmth from the woodstove crept into them and the dead numbness in her hands receded. She pulled the coat tight over her shoulders and tried to remember. A few broken images blinked in the tape loop of memory. The wolf, its teeth. The gargantuan maw closing over her neck. Beyond that, nothing. A queasy sense of dread that something had happened and she needed to focus. Wake up.

The wolf was outside the door.

A shadow fell over the threshold. The man stepped inside, knocked the snow from his boots and closed the door. He righted one of the upended crates and sat down. Arms propped on his knees, he watched the little fire in the open grate of the stove. He seemed in no particular hurry. The two of them sitting there waiting for the bus.

“You think you know what you’re doing,” he said. “But you don’t.”

She turned her head a degree and looked at him. The firelight flashing against his dark eyes. “I know you,” she said.

“I tried to talk to you before but you scampered.”

At the bar. The man she’d mistaken for an AA do-gooder. Her shivering ceased and with it, the numbness in her head. The man’s stink was filling the little room, jagging her nerve endings. Instinct preceded thought and it took a dozen heartbeats to process what her nose was screaming at her. “You did this.” She nodded at the trashed room. “You’re the one from last night.”

“Yup.”

The fire cracked and popped in the stove.

“Why?”

“I needed to get your attention,” he said.

“By trying to kill me?”

“What’s your name?”

She turned away.

“I know the absolute worst thing about you and you want to keep your name a secret?” He shook his head and let out a chuckle. “Fine. You tell me when you’re good and ready.”

He looked over the shack, as if some clue to her name lay buried there. “So mystery lady, what do you plan to do?”

“Pack up. Move on.”

“Yeah. Where’s to? Some other remote place where the wolf can run free with a minimal chance of killing somebody?” He leaned forward. “You’re kindly running out of country for that.”

Her eyes unlocked from the fire and swung his way. “What do you want?”

“I’m here to help you. Barring that, I need to ensure you don’t make a mess out here and start a panic.”

“I don’t need your help.”

“You don’t have a clue what you need.” He picked up an empty can from the floor and looked at its crusty dregs. “Not exactly thriving, are you?”

“Where did you come from?”

“Clay County, Missouri.”

“No. How did you become a wolf?”

He shrugged. “Same as everybody. Got bit, survived, then the change come and the wolf turned me inside out.” He rose and reached into the woodbin for another log and slid it through the grate into the stove. “Everybody thinks the circumstances are important. That first time. But they aren’t. It’s like losing your cherry. The specific details may vary but the thing itself is always the same. People sure do like to attach significance to it. Don’t know why. Arrogance maybe. Everybody thinks they’re special.”

Lara couldn’t tear her eyes from him. Here was someone like her but he shrugged and scratched his chin like it was nothing important, nothing out of the ordinary. Like he was talking about their zodiac sign and not the fact that both of them could transform into monsters. She straightened her back. “What’s your name?”

“Told you.”

“Tell me again.”

“Edgar Grissom.”

“That’s your real name?”

“Don’t have much use for it these days.” He shrugged. “But yeah, that’s the one I was born with.”

She twisted round, tucking her feet under her and studied the stranger. He seemed calm but her brain felt scrambled by some other sense. A warning signal buzzing inside her ear, a threat she could taste on her tongue. “What do you want from me?”

“I want you to be careful. You’re at a critical stage now. Things can go very bad if you’re not careful.”

“They’re already bad.”

“Listen, your--” he frowned, as if failing to find the right word, “your condition is getting worse. The change is coming on stronger, triggered from nothing at all. And it’s coming more frequently.” He took a step closer and knelt down. “Not many of us survive to the point where you are now. But what happens during this next stage is critical.”

“Next stage?”

“I can help you through it.”

“What happens at this stage?”

“Sink or swim. You become the wolf or you don’t. See, most folks, and I mean the few that get this far, can’t take it anymore. They tried everything to stop it, slow it. Hell, some even look for a cure but right about now, the truth sets in and it hurts. There’s no way out. They go crazy. Or they put a bullet in their head.”

“They go crazy,” she repeated.

“They go plumb batshit crazy. And that’s when they get dangerous. Put the rest of us at risk. See, our kind we got to stay hidden. Don’t cause too much fuss. It won’t do to have the general public know we exist.”

She watched him as he spoke, studied his movements, the fall of his eyes. Batshit crazy. “How many of ‘us’ are there?”

“More than you’d think.”

“What happens to the ones that go crazy?”

“Well,” he said. “They have to be put down.”

“And that’s why you’re here. To put me down if I go insane.”

“I told you. I’m here to help you. It don’t have to go the other way.”

He had moved closer during this. He could reach out and touch her if he wanted. She studied his hands. Big and knotted with veins. Grime was worked into the knuckles, dirt encrusted under the fingernails. Or dried blood.

Yet, if he could reach her, then she could reach him. Her arms were folded round herself and her left hand closed over the weapon tucked into a pocket. She swung out, the blade zinging through the air. But her muscles were still cramped, the movement slow.

He leaned out of her arc and stepped back. She rolled to her feet and held the blade high. “You stay the hell away from me.”

His eyes caught the glint of the blade, the unmistakable sheen of silver. “Now look what you done.” He feinted left.

She swung. He became a blur. Something punched a hole in her mid-section and drove her hard into the wall. The tinderbox shed rattled on impact. A jar fell from the sill. She hit the floor in a heap, lights popping in her eyes. Where was the knife?

His boots stepped into her blurred sightline. Hands gripped her by the collar and jerked her clean into the air, her feet dangling. His face looming into view. Teeth gnashed, an unnatural light burning in his irises.

“Wake up, sister. You don’t have time for this.” He let go and she slid down the wall. “Think about what I said. I’ll give you a day, then I’ll be back for an answer. Now, if I were you--“

His head tilted and he crossed to the door, pushed it open. “Damn.”

Lara touched the throbbing pulse in the back of her head. Her fingertips came away bloodied.

“Look alive, sunshine,” he said. “You got company.”

She lifted her gaze from the blood to the open door. Edgar Grissom was gone.

Gripping the wall, she pushed herself up but everything went seasick and she hit the floor.

THIRTEEN

TENDRILS OF PINE thwapped against the windshield as if the forest itself wanted to keep him out. The road winnowed to a thin wedge, forcing Gallagher to snail along in low gear. Of the dog, he’d lost sight completely.

Rounding another crazy turn, the paw prints vanished. A snake of unspoiled snow before him. Not even bird tracks dotted in the white trail.

Gallagher stopped and killed the engine. Stepping out, he walked back the way he’d came, eyes searching the snow for the tracks. He found them fifteen paces back, scooting east off the pathway and straight into a thicket of dead brambles. Jesus. Did the scent move off the path or had the dog spotted a grouse and given chase?

He called out to it and then listened. Wind rustling the pines. Birdsong. Nothing.

“Damn it, dog. You better be right.”

He laced his boots tight and zipped up his coat and unlatched the rear door of the Cherokee. The backpack was slung on and he fastened the waistbelt. He opened the black case and took up the big nickel-plated handgun, hitting the latch to spring the magazine. This he fitted into the case and pulled up the mag with the expensive rounds and slotted it home. The weapon slid into the holster under his coat and he pulled the shotgun from under the floor panel and swung the reardoor shut.

The brush was thick and the dried stalks of branches clawed for his face. He pressed on, following the tracks of the dog through the snow and brambles. Pushing past a stand of wintering hemlock he came into a clearing and stopped to listen. The hush of his breath and nothing else. The birds had gone quiet and even the wind had stopped. He clucked his teeth, softly nickering for the dog.

A rustle and then the pounding of paws on the frozen ground. The husky burst out from the thicket on the far side of the clearing and bounded towards him. Tongue flapping from his open jaws, the dog thudded into his knees and circled him twice. Tail swiping fast.

“Good boy,” he cooed, rubbing its ribs. “Show me. Find her.”

The Siberian snorted and bounded off. East, southeast. He jogged after it, bootheels crunching and forearms shielding his face from the tangles of branches ahead. The ground was bad and he stumbled and slipped in the slick snow. He cursed the dog for a halfbreed mix of a hellhound and crashed onwards. The dog appeared around the bend of a tree stump, its back to him, nose pointing straight ahead and down.

The earth fell away down a steep grade and there, through the trunks of juniper and ponderosa pine, he spotted it. A ghost of woodsmoke twisting from the pipe chimney of some throwup shelter. No bigger than a single car garage. One small window in the north flank, glazed with weathered plastic sheeting instead of glass.

Gallagher felt his heart bang in his chest. He squatted down to one knee and studied the little shack for a long time. No movement in the plastic-sheathed window, no one came in or out. Everything around him was still and hushed. He dabbed his brow, surprised at how badly he was sweating in this chill air. He snapped his fingers and the dog came and he hissed at it to be still.

“If she’s in there, then she already knows we’re here. No way to sneak up on it.”

The husky whined, eager to run. Its tail sweeping the snow.

He rose and marched forward. The dog bolted ahead, cutting this way and that with its nose to the ground. He hissed at it, snapping his fingers for it to heel but the animal was lost in the hunt. The hut remained silent as he approached and he studied the slat door and the table out front. Footprints in the snow going in and out the stoop.

He stopped before the door and called out. Nothing. No response or stirring from within. Gripping the shotgun in his right hand, he pushed the door open and stepped inside. Called her name.

Dark but warm. A flicker of light from the open grate of the woodstove. No one inside.

A bedroll on the floor near the stove. Cans of food stacked against a wall and a mesh bag of dry goods hanging from a nail in the unfinished ceiling. The husky scampered through the hobo shack, nosing every corner.

The fire in the stove. Little puddles of water on the floor where snow knocked from boots had melted. The occupant was just here. She couldn’t have gone far. He went back outside and studied the footprints in the snow. Two sets of tracks; one heading due west towards where he thought the road should be, the second veering southeast. These tracks were staggered, as if the strider was drunk, and led straight into the trees.

He followed the second tracks, matching the steps and noting where the person had fallen and gotten up again. Dots of blood appeared in the snow, turning pink against the frozen white. He pushed on, through a stand of spruce and he could hear the sound of running water. A creek or river nearby. The ground dropped, dipping into a valley knotted with oak and scrub and further out, a dark lump collapsed against a tree trunk.

He ran, boots pounding the snow, but the dog outpaced him. It beelined to the dark mass and then skidded and sideswiped away. The figure moved, struggling to get up. The husky circled round the figure, sniffing and springing back.

The figure stood shakily, hidden beneath a tattered parka. Gallagher slowed to a stop.

“Lara?”

The dog trotted sideways and growled and he hissed at it to shut up. He looked back to the figure in the heavy coat, reeling as if drunk. “Mendes? It’s me. John.”

“Go away.” The voice a cracked whisper. “Just go away.”

“Look at me.” He stepped closer, moving around to see her face. “Don’t run.”

It was her. God, she was so thin. Lara Mendes. Her face drained of color, raccooned with dark hollows under her eyes. Droplets of blood spackled over her lips. Some pale shadow of the woman he knew.

“Easy.” His hand went up in a gesture of caution. “Are you hurt?”

She turned away, hiding her face. “Go away, John. Please.”

“You called me.”

“That was a mistake.”

“For Chrissakes, Lara. I’ve looked for you everywhere.”

Her eyes dropped to the shotgun in his hand. “Why? To put me down?”

“I didn’t know what to expect.”

The Siberian whined and sidestepped around him. He barked at it to sit. When he looked up he clocked her staring at the dog, squinting in concentration as if trying to pry loose a memory. She shook it off, refocusing on him. “Go home. There’s nothing here, so just go.”

“You’re bleeding.”

Her hand shot to her busted lip, came away red. She smeared it on the coat. “It’s nothing.”

“Enough.” He marched on her, exasperated. “Come inside, let’s clean you up.” He hooked her arm around his shoulders and all but carried her towards the shack. Good God. She weighed nothing.

“Stop.” She tried to shirk out of his hands but he tightened his grip all the more.

“Just march,” he barked. “Before I change my mind and shoot you.”

The dog snorted and fell in line behind them.

The bag of meat scraps turned slowly in the breeze, slung from a branch overhead. The iron bear trap was set below it. McKlusky had used a sledgehammer to stake the chain into the frozen earth and Jigsaw torqued the springload and covered the thing with snow and leaves.

The meatscraps from the butcher’s had been dumped into a mesh bag and Roy watched it twirl on the rope, dripping all over the ground. “Jesus, that’s ripe,” he said.

“No shit,” McKlusky said. “That thing is gonna attract all kinds of animals.”

“We’ll end up with a skunk or raccoon in this trap, you wait and see.”

Jigsaw brushed the dirt from his hands. “No. They’ll stay clear of it.”

“The hell you talking about?”

“Anything smaller than a bear knows there’s something big out here,” Jigsaw said. “They’ll stay the hell out of its way.”

McClusky picked up his rifle and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Let’s go.”

They trudged up the hill, breath steaming against the chill. The throw of the flashlights leading the way, the men blowing hard as they climbed uphill to the blind. It was no more than a few boards tacked together and dressed with branches and twigs for cover. Up on a hill that overlooked the bait and the trap in the gulley below. An opening in the boards for them to peer through without letting themselves be seen.

Jigsaw reached for the supplies he’d tucked under the slats and unfurled a tarp for them to sit on without getting their asses wet. The men hunkered down on it and laid their rifles across their laps. Jigsaw opened a small case and retrieved the binoculars. Night vision. He set the glass to his eyes and then adjusted the settings and looked downhill to the trap.

After a while he handed the glass to Roy. “Here. We’ll take turns.”

Roy peered through the eye-piece. “You sure this is gonna work? That thing, whatever it is, is gonna smell us a mile away.”

“That’s why we’re up here,” Jigsaw said, his voice low. “The wind should carry our scent off but the stink of the bait ought to just hang there in that gulley.”

McClusky took up the binoculars and looked out into the green-tinged world. “That thing’s going to hear you two jawing before it smells us.”

They shut their mouths and sat taking turns glassing the valley below. They had dressed for the weather, each man in a heavy parka and layers of clothing and good boots but it didn’t take long for the cold to set in, sitting on the frozen ground as they were.

An hour ticked by. It was Roy who broke first. “This is stupid. We ain’t gonna see nothing.”

“Shut up.”

“We’re gonna freeze to death before anything shows up.” Roy unfolded his legs, his knees popping under him. “They’ll find three dead jackasses frozen like popsicles come morning.”

McClusky lowered the binoculars and squinted at the settings. “I can’t see shit. How do you adjust this thing?”

“Hit the button then use the slide.”

McClusky tweaked the slide and raised the glasses and peered out and then lowered them again. “That made it worse.”

“Then don’t fuck with it,” Jigsaw griped. “Give it here.”

He handed them over and Jigsaw fiddled with the settings and then they heard it.

A snap, sharp and metallic.

“Holy Jesus.”

Jigsaw raised the lenses and glassed the gulley. Green trees against a black night, sweeping the ground. The trap was sprung, the iron jaws closed shut. There was nothing in it.

“Did we get it?” Roy huffed, peering through the slat.

“It’s empty,” Jigsaw said. He glassed up to where the bait was hung. The mesh bag was gone. A strand of rope swinging from the tree. “Damn thing took the bait too.”

“Let me see.”

He handed the glasses over and McClusky surveyed the territory. “Son of a bitch. How the hell did he pop the trap? How did even know it was there?”

Roy wheezed. “That’s messed up,”

McClusky scanned the night-vision over the terrain, sweeping past trees and scrub and more trees in a greenish ghost world. Something lumbered past a tree then vanished. Big. “Shit. I see it.”

“Where?”

“What the hell is it?”

“It’s gone.” McClusky lowered the glasses and peered out and then brought them back up to his eyes. Green tree trunks, darkness. “I don’t know what it was. It was big.”

“Gotta be a bear,” Jigsaw said. “What else has got the reach? He musta bumped the trap without stepping into it.”

Another noise. Low and animal. To their left and not far away. Every man froze.

McClusky swung the glasses towards the sound. Jigsaw and Roy took up their rifles.

“Do you see it?”

“No.”

“What the hell was that sound?”

It came again, sounding off from the darkness. A grumbling animal noise, but now it came from behind them.

“That sure as fuck don’t sound like any bear,” Roy said. They held their breath to listen. A rustling in the dark, twigs snapping. Coming up on their right flank.

“Holy shit. It’s circling us.”

The rifles came up, shouldered. Barrels pointing at the darkness, at nothing but night. Jigsaw hissed at McClusky. “Mac, the glasses. Do you see it?”

McClusky brought the glasses up and then lowered them and raised them to his eyes again. “I don’t see anything.”

“Come on, man.” Roy tried to keep the rifle barrel from trembling but could not. “It’s right there in front of us.”

“Screw it. Lose the glasses. Just listen for it.” Jigsaw laid his cheek to the stock and sighted down the barrel. “Next time it sounds, shoot it.”

Stillness and the dark. Then a crunch of snow.

The rifles erupted, all three men firing in unison and the collective crack of gunfire echoed off the treetrunks and went peeling off into the night. The hunters looked one to the other.

“Did we hit it?”

The roar, when it came, was a guttural volcano of rage unlike anything they had ever heard. The thing, what it was or was not, bounded up from the low darkness and bowled into them. They saw outsized teeth and an enormous frame. Too fast to be a bear, too monstrous to be anything comprehensible at all. It knocked them about and Jigsaw landed on his back and blasted his rifle blind. The thing roared and pounced and vanished.

He raised up on one elbow. “Roy? Mac, you guys okay?”

McClusky had sprawled into the brush and he scrambled the snow for his weapon and he clawed it up and vowed to never let it go. “I’m here.”

“Roy, where are you?”

Roy could be heard hollering and crashing into trees. Already halfway down the hill and falling and still running on, hauling ass in the blind night for the road.

They ran after him, calling out to him to stop. McClusky remembered the flashlight in his pocket and hit it and the two of them chased the spotlight dancing crazily over the trees and the snow. Slipping down the slope and crashing through the brush, raked and clawed by piny spines.

Jigsaw tumbled through thicket, his friend crashing into him. They staggered on and then stopped when the sound came back. That godforsaken roar. The men froze, balls shrinking at the sound.

Then the high lonesome sound of their friend, lost out there in the dark. A single rifle shot. Then the screaming, the naked terror in the man’s cries for help.

Silent again. The looked at each other, then pressed on without a word.

They found Roy not ten feet from the truck. Half of him, at least. The throw from the flashlight picked out the dark trail of blood in the snow and followed it along to where it disappeared into the trees.

McClusky felt his legs buckle under him. He felt a tugging and looked up to see Jigsaw dragging him towards the truck and screaming at him to get in, get in and get the fuck in.

FOURTEEN

“AFTER THAT FIRST time, I knew right then and there that I could never go back. Never.” Lara opened the grate on the stove and dropped in a length of wood. Sparks roiled up as it hit and she closed the metal door.

Gallagher sat on a wooden crate with the shotgun laid crosswise in his lap and watched her. Her movements were slow, her hands shaky. She was weak, that was plain enough. Malnutrition, exhaustion. He scanned over the hovel and its meagre contents. He watched her ease slowly onto the bedroll, her face wincing in pain. “Are you hurt?”

“It always hurts.” She looked around the debris on the floor. “There’s a jug of water around here somewhere.”

It had rolled into a corner. He brought it to her and went back to the crate. The vent on the stove threw firelight over her face. She had lost so much weight the veins stood out. Her eyes dulled from running on an empty tank too long. “Go on,” he said.

“I thought it was the day after. Thought I’d been gone just that night, you know. I found a newspaper, saw the date. It had been three days.” She sipped the water and it spilled down her chin. She didn’t notice or didn’t care. “I found my way back home. Saw the police tape across my own door. Do you know how weird that was? I’ve seen taped doors a million times but to see it across my door, my home? It was like seeing your own headstone. I had been missing for three days and, in all likelihood, presumed dead. Fine. I waited until dark, broke in and took what I needed.”

He took the shotgun from his lap and stood it against the wall. Then a deep breath to stifle the anger rising in his throat. “Why didn’t you call me?”

“And say what?”

The crackling of the fire filled the silence. “I could have helped.” His hand clenched into a fist. “You didn’t have to run.”

“How could you have helped?” Her gaze flit to the shotgun and then she closed her eyes and rubbed them with the heel of her hand. “What day is it?”

“Wednesday. December nineteenth.” He watched her head dip and her shoulders sink but he went on. “What happened then?”

“I made a few stops, gathered all the cash I could manage and left.”

“For where?”

“I didn’t know. Somewhere remote where there were few people around. I didn’t have a plan, other than to get out of Portland.” She straightened her back and turned to him. “I knew I was leaving you in a bind. Left to answer what happened but I couldn’t do anything about that.”

He grunted. “A bind. Yeah.”

“What happened to you?”

“They suspended me. The murder of a police lieutenant is no small thing. They didn’t like my answers to their questions so they fired me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “What did they make of the Lieutenant’s death?”

“Pretty much what I told them. That he’d been attacked by Prall’s dogs.”

“There were other officers on scene that night. Some of them must have seen how the... seen what happened to Vogel.”

“Only one. You remember Bingham? He saw it but by the time the sun came up he was drooling. He’s been hospitalized ever since.”

“What about Prall?”

“We found him. Or pieces of him anyway. But we found him, the man. Not the other thing. They cremated the son of a bitch and dumped him in a ditch.”

“I can’t believe they fired you. Were you a suspect?”

“Hell yeah. As were you but you had gone missing so...” He shrugged. “They put together a little task force to find you but nothing turned up. After a week, the assumption was you were dead and the file on Vogel’s death couldn’t be pushed any further.”

“That must have been hard. Under suspicion, getting fired. What did you do?”

“Got drunk. Stayed that way for a week. Then they gave me my job back.”

“They did?”

“Homicide detail was bleeding detectives. You remember the rash of retirements they had, just before you made the detail? Well, you were gone. Vogel was dead and Bingham had lost his wits so they quietly brought me back on. Hell, they were so desperate even Kopzych made homicide.”

She almost laughed and he tagged it. A tiny light coming into her eyes and for a brief second, Lara Mendes looked liked how he remembered her. It didn’t last long.

She scrutinized his face. “You look tired, John.”

“Me? You seen a mirror lately?” He reached down to a stray bottle lay near his boot and he picked it up and turned it in his hands. “It’s been a rough go since you vanished. Everyone gave up on you, assuming you were dead and gone. Not me. I’ve spent every day for the last three months looking for you.”

Her face, drawn and expressionless as it was, changed and he saw her wince. Like something inside her cracked. He could almost hear it in the quiet of the room. How rough had this been on her? Scared and alone and on the run.

Her hand fanned the air as if shaking loose whatever had bitten home just now. Her eyes cleared and swung back to him. “Why?”

“I had to. I knew you weren’t dead.” His eyes darted around the walls, the window. Anywhere but her eyes. “What was I supposed to do? Just leave you out there?”

The dog rolled onto its side and went to sleep.

“I’m sorry.” She stared into the fire. “I was so desperate to disappear but later on, I was kind of sad or disappointed that no one found me. That I could be forgotten about that quickly. Dismissed. Like I was never there at all. Or I had made no impact on anyone.” She shook her head. “It’s crazy I know, but. Well.”

“You weren’t forgotten.” He straightened up, turned to see her better. “But I still don’t understand why you ran like that. You should have come to me. After what we’d gone through with Prall? Hell.”

“You’re the one I had to stay clear of the most.”

“I’m the only one who knew.”

“Do you think I can control this? Turn it on and off? I was afraid I would hurt you. Or your daughter.”

He shut his mouth after that. She was right, plain and simple. His own safety he could take care of but Amy? Amy was a different story. And so Lara Mendes had fled alone into the wilderness and let the world think she was dead to protect him and his daughter. It was his turn to crack and he felt something snap inside and could not look at her.

Lara brightened. “How is Amy?”

“She’s good. Growing up too fast.”

“She’s a great person, John. I don’t just mean a good kid but a good person. You know?”

He nodded. Sometimes he forgot that. Shame on him. He straightened up, looking to change the subject. “I’m starving. You hungry?”

“Constantly.”

“I got some stuff in the truck. We can heat it up on the stove.” He got to his feet and plucked the flashlight from his pocket. “If I can find my way back to the truck.”

“Follow your footsteps,” she said and then wavered, remembering what was out there. “Take the shotgun with you.”

“What for?”

“We’re out in the boonies. There’s animals out here.”

“Animals?” He cocked an eyebrow at her, unable to tell if she was fooling with him. He snatched up the gun and pushed the door open.

The tinsel was tangled in knots, three runs of it mixed together in a butcher’s twine of silver, gold and red. It should have been wound up separately before being put away, instead of tangled together like this, and Amy had a suspicion that she herself had done this. She loved decorating the house for Christmas and putting the tree up but she absolutely hated pulling it all down and packing it away. She found it depressing and was prone to just toss everything into the boxes and be done with it. A silver ornament tumbled out and rolled under the couch.

It took ten minutes to untangle the tinsel strings without snapping them and she laid them over the back of the couch to keep them straight. They didn’t have a tree or a wreath on the door and Christmas was less than a week away. Dad had said that he wasn’t much in the spirit this year and asked if they could leave the decorations packed in the garage. Amy told him she was fine with that but in truth, she wasn’t. The neighbors had put up their lights and strung up tinsel and her own house seemed drab and depressing in comparison. She never looked forward to the season until it got close and now some of that old glee she felt as a kid crept in every time she heard an old Christmas tune or saw another porch strung with twinkly lights. Unable to take it anymore, she had fetched up the boxes from the garage and broken them open. What a mess.

She unpacked the tacky Santa that always went on the table in the front hall. Then there was the wreath she had made in the third grade. It wasn’t much to look at now, the pieces of tinsel had fallen away, but her dad insisted on hanging it up every season. Most of the stuff in the box was for the tree which they didn’t have and, without the truck, she couldn’t get.

“That blows,” she muttered. The tree was the most important part. If only for the smell of it wafting through the house. That pine scent triggered memories of every Christmas she could remember. But the truck was gone and she was stuck without a tree. Merry frigging Christmas.

She tried his cell again. Three rings before clicking over to an automated voice informing her that the customer was not available at this time. Meaning wherever he was, there was no signal or service. It was the boonies, she reminded herself. He wasn’t crashed in a ditch or anything else her mind conjured up.

Still, he was alone, he wasn’t himself. Traumatized and delusional and chasing some ghost of a chance over someone who was, in all likelihood, dead.

The banging on the door scared her witless. She marched to the hall, ready to unload on whatever unlucky Jehova’s Witness was bothering her this late.

Gabby beamed at her when the door flung open. “Looky here, it’s the shut-in.” Gabby marched past her, kicked off her shoes and dropped her coat to the floor. “Can I come in or is the pitbull gonna attack me?”

“It’s a husky, not a pit.” Amy closed the door and followed Gabby into the kitchen. “What are you doing here?”

“I was bored. Thought I’d come rescue the princess from her fortress of solitude.” Gabby opened cupboard after cupboard until she found a bag of nacho chips and popped it open. “Dad’s away, time for Amy to come out and play. Hey, you got any salsa?”

Amy watched her friend cram a handful of nachos into her mouth, crumbs spilling all over the floor. Gabby was just like that. Messy, bossy, brash. But that was part of the reason why Amy liked her. The girl was an unapologetic bull in the china shop of life and her unstated philosophy was that anything that broke under her bulldozing charm wasn’t worth it anyway.

She took the bag from Gabby’s hand and scrounged up a bowl and emptied the chips into it. “Some other time. Try eating over the bowl.”

“Fussbudget. Listen, there’s no harm in it if he doesn’t know, Amy. It’s okay to get in trouble and break rules. If you get caught just act like you’re all in turmoil and confused. Parents eat that shit eat up, you walk.”

“I can’t believe your folks fall that.” Amy opened the fridge and hunted down the open jar of salsa. “First couple times, maybe. But after all this time? How dense can your ‘rents be?”

“Dude, they’re a Xanax away from being comatose.” Gabby crunched away with her mouth open, spewing chip bits everywhere. “But I knew you’d shoot me down. So! Considerate pal that I am, I came up with the perfect solution. A no-holds win-win. Ready?”

Amy twisted the lid off the salsa jar and sniffed it. “This is like, two months old. Finish it off, would you.”

“Hello? Did you hear what I just said?”

“Yes but perfect plus plan plus you equals a triple negative.”

“Don’t math me, bitch. Okay listen... We have a party! Isn’t that brilliant?”

“It’s the worst idea ever.”

Gabby tilted her head, as if speaking to the mentally dulled. “No, it’s a practical solution to your exiled status. You stay home, thereby not breaking any of Dad’s rules. We come to you.”

“And trash the place.”

“Do I look that mean? No, we throw a small party. See? Just six of us. You, me, Maggie, Walty, Bridgette, Alex and Griffin. Plus one special guest appearance by...” Gabby mimicked a drum roll. “Date-Rape! Yay!”

Gabby finished her drum roll and waited for Amy to react.

Amy rolled her eyes. “No.”

Gabby groaned and then yanked the fridge door open. Helped herself to a beer. “Think about it. Just a small group, negating any trashing or destructive behaviour. Right? No mess either because we don’t serve any beer. Just Bloody Mary’s. They’re veggie-smoothies so you can, like, drink that shit all night and not get drunk.”

Amy could already picture the tomato-colored puddles of vomit trailing from the hall to the bathroom. “Did you honestly think I’d go for that? You’re losing your touch.”

“Withhold thy judgment. Think about it. You’ll see the brilliance in my plan.”

Amy took the beer from her hand and, gripping Gabby’s arm, pulled her friend back to the front hallway. “Put your shoes on.”

“I just got here.”

“We’re taking a walk.”

Gabby leaned back in mock surprise. “The prisoner is leaving the compound?”

“I want to get a Christmas tree.” Amy slipped on her coat and fetched her keys from the bowl. “You’re gonna help me.”

“But your dad took the truck.”

“The grocer’s down the way is selling them. We’ll carry it back.”

Gabby tilted her again. “Carry it? What, like, in our hands?”

“It’s like three blocks, you wuss.”

Amy locked the door behind. Gabby stood on the stoop and pulled her coat closed against the chill. She scowled at the wind cutting the drafts in her clothes and said, “You know, sometimes, it’s work being your friend.”

FIFTEEN

JIGSAW AND MCCLUSKY sat shivering in the back of the police unit, not saying a word. Their eyes singed by the sight of all that blood on the snow. What had once been a man named Roy Webb, now no more than tangled meat and gristle dusted with the spore-like stuffing of his coat. What is there to say after bearing witness to such a thing?

The sheriff, a lanky-boned woman named Cheevers, had told them to sit tight when she answered McClusky’s panicked call. Don’t move, don’t touch anything, she had said. Standing in the cold and looking away from the wet gore, they had done as told, forgoing even the warmth of the truck nearby. Sheriff Cheevers was no stranger to the torment the human body could endure, especially in her county. Boating accidents, hunting mishaps, extreme misadventure with a Husqvarna Special Torque chainsaw. McClusky watched in slow motion as Sheriff Cheevers marched onto the scene with her face a mask of stone only to pale and fumble at the sight of that butchery.

It was simply that bad.

She told them to warm up in her Bronco while she paced the scene and waited for the ambulance and deputy and fire crew to arrive. Jigsaw fogged the window as he watched the incoming vehicles and avoided the eyes of his friend. After a while Sheriff Cheever hauled back into the truck and put the stick in gear and pulled away from the horror, bound for the police bunker out in Willowbrook, fifteen miles down the 40. A metropolis compared to the village of Weepers.

Questioned separately, each gave a written statement about the events but neither man had any idea what it was that had attacked their friend. Sheriff Cheevers had a deputy drive the men back to town.

On his way out the door, Jigsaw stopped and turned back towards the Sheriff. “What are you gonna do about that thing,” he muttered. “Whatever it is.”

Cheevers looked up from her paperwork. “Hunt it down. We’ll get someone from Fishing and Game up here to tell us what we’re dealing with. Maybe some Park Rangers too. Then we’ll take care of it. You two, go home and stay out of the way.”

McClusky watched Jigsaw sneer at the officer’s words as he brushed past him towards the police unit waiting to take them home. He had barely spoken a word since the incident and, dumb with shock, he wanted nothing more than to get home. But the sneer on his friend’s face was a bad sign and he knew Jigsaw wasn’t about to leave the matter to the authorities.

The snow was falling again and Gallagher retraced his tracks through the dark until his footprints filled in and he lost his way. Blundering on, he kept going straight with the husky running ahead and bulldozing its nose through the white stuff. He found the logging trail but his truck was nowhere in sight and guessed that he came out somewhere north of where he’d left it. Trampling snow south, the Cherokee’s headlights twinkled as they bounced the throw of the flashlight.

Opening the back, he rifled through the food he had packed. Dry goods and canned stuff, a box of power bars and bags of trail mix. He gathered it into a bag and shifted around some of the gear to pull out the sleeping bag. Something shiny rolled out from the compartment and dropped into the snow. He retrieved it and held it up to the flashlight. A red ornament for a Christmas tree, a stray from the box of decorations in the garage for a tree he had neglected to get. A ritual he had always savored with Amy, corny as it was. A ritual that he had completely forgotten in his obsessive drive to track down Lara Mendes.

A week from Christmas and his daughter was alone in a house with absolutely no holiday cheer. How pathetic was that? The guilt of it burned off the lining of his stomach and he dug his cell from his pocket to check in with her. The phone roamed but found no signal.

“She’s fine,” he grumbled to himself. “Just make it up to her when you get home, dumbass.”

The Siberian twitched its ears at the sound of his voice and bounded over to swipe his knees. He thrummed its ribs with his hand and shooed it on. He slid the red plastic ornament into a pocket and threw the rear door home. Trudging back through the snowdrift, he tore a branch from a pine sapling and pressed on towards the tarpaper shack.

Lara Mendes sat on the floor and considered her options. The one overriding urge was to run but the pain in her ribs was too much. Every breath made her wince and she wondered if any were broken from the thrashing that Grissom had given her. Broken ribs were the worst, nothing you could do but try to be still.

The initial shock of seeing John Gallagher had started to burn off. Her guts had roiled from joy to terror and then relief when she had looked up to see his face. Too much and too fast, she couldn’t put anything in order but left alone, her gut settled and the cool temperament that had served her so well as a police detective returned. The obvious course of action was to run and to do it now while he was gone. Even more clear was the means to do that. To let go, to unclench the muscle in her heart that she kept constricted and allow the change to come. Become the wolf and run. It was so easy it was almost stupid.

Yet that held its own perils. What if the wolf doubled back and went after Gallagher? What if she opened her eyes in the morning, after reconstituting back into herself only to find the torn remains of her old partner splattered through the snow?

How far could she get on her own power, stitching up in agony under every intake of breath? Not far enough. So what now?

The door banged open and Gallagher marched in, kicking the snow from his boots on the sill. His dog ambled in and shook its coat, spraying snowdust across the room. Its nose twitched in her direction and then turned away, tail down like a scolded puppy.

He dropped a bag into the wedge of light cast from the woodstove, shrugged off his coat and hung it on a nail. His eyes studied her as he unpacked the supplies onto the uneven floor. “You okay?”

“Fine,” she said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“You keep wincing. What hurts?”

“My ribs. Just banged up, that’s all.”

“Uh-huh.” His tone was one she’d heard before, in the interrogation room when a suspect was lying his ass off, but he let it go. He slid something across the floor to her and said, “I don’t feel like cooking. You okay with cold camp food?”

She took up the power bar and tore the foil wrapper away. After living on rice and beans for so long, she devoured it in two bites. She looked up to see the dog watching her. It hovered around Gallagher and twitched its nose at her warily. She didn’t sense any aggression from it, just an alertness. It was scared of her. She studied the husky, trying to place its familiarity. “When did you get a dog?”

He twisted the cap from a bottle of water. “You don’t recognize it?”

She shook her head.

“It was one of Prall’s dogs.” He thumped the dog’s ribs then shooed it away. “He helped me find you.”

Lara bristled at the name and regarded the dog again. Ivan Prall, the suspect who had infected her, kept a number of feral dogs. A ragtag wolf pack with himself as the alpha. She remembered the Siberian now. It was Prall’s beta. Intelligent and aggressive while it was under Prall’s control, the husky seemed docile and almost domesticated with Gallagher. Still, she remembered what the dog was capable of. “So he’s a pet now?”

Gallagher shrugged. The dog nestled into a corner but kept its eyes on her.

“Can you trust it?” she asked. “It was practically feral. And it’s tasted human flesh, remember?”

His face darkened. “He’s all right. He’s a hard-headed sonovabitch but he hasn’t eaten anybody.”

Lara guffawed. A sharp sting laced her ribs at the movement. She tried to hide it.

“That looks bad. Better let me see.”

“It’s fine.” She waved off his concern but he was already kneeling before her.

“Lift your sweater, tough guy. Let me see.”

“John, It’s nothing--“

“Quiet,” he grunted. He reached under her arms and gingerly peeled up the hem of her sweater. He was gentle but even that light touch stole her breath in a sharp intake of pain.

He shifted to get the light from the stove and she watched his brow knit as he studied her ribs. She couldn’t bend to see herself. “How bad is it?” she asked.

“It’s bruised pretty bad. How the hell did you do this?”

“Just an accident,” she lied. She was still wary of her old partner and clung to some hope that he would give up and go home. Telling him the truth would just complicate matters.

“Hold still,” he said. “This might hurt.”

She felt his hand fold over her ribs. It stung at first and she felt him ease off, his hand hovering gently over her skin. The pain cooled, replaced by the warmth of his palms. More than warmth, it was confusing until Lara realized what it was; simple human contact. Skin on skin. She hadn’t touched another person in over three months. Deprived of that simplest of needs, she was overwhelmed by the feel of his hand. Like a crumb of food after starving for so long.

He looked up at her. “I think they’re just cracked.”

“How can you tell?”

“Just a guess,” he said. “You’d be in a lot more pain if they were broken.”

His palm flattened against her skin and slid round to the small of her back. She tried not to shudder. His face inches from hers and all she could smell was him. She wondered how she smelled, having not bathed in days. But then his nose wasn’t sharpened the way hers was. She touched his arm and nudged him back. “Okay,” she whispered.

He leaned back. “I could wrap it but--“

“It’s fine.” She tugged her sweater back into place.

“Sleep on it. We’ll see how you feel in the morning.” He reached for the sleeping bag he’d brought in and undid the clasps.

“You’re staying?”

“Yup.” He unfurled the sleeping bag across the floor and then straightened up and looked at her. “Let me ask you something. How many times have you changed?”

“Changed?”

“You know, gone all wolfman?”

She stalled. “Couple of times.” Another lie. “Why?”

“Assessing the risk.”

She watched him stretch out on top of the sleeping bag. “Are you worried I’m going to change in the night?”

“Yup.”

“Then you shouldn’t stay, John. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be all right. The dog will wake me up if you go all twitchy.” He sat up, reached over for the shotgun and laid it on the floor next to him. “Fair warning? If you do wolf out on me, I’ll blow your head off.”

Lara blinked. “Okay.”

Gallagher got up and crossed to his gear. “I almost forgot.” He pulled up the pine branch he’d brought in and looked around the shack for somewhere to place it. Fitting it into a slot in the top of the woodstove, he reached into his pocket and produced the red bulb. Hooking it onto the branch, the ornament swayed and shone in the firelight.

“What’s that for?” she said, watching the bulb sparkle.

“It’s almost Christmas,” he said, stretching out on the floor again. “Get some sleep.”

She eased down onto her bedroll and listened to the fire pop in the grate. She glanced over to the dog. Its chin rested on the floor but its eyes sparkled in the light, watching her.

She heard Gallagher stir, getting comfortable on the hard floor and then heard him speak. “I’m glad I found you,” he said.

She turned away from the fire and tried not to cry. There was no need to, her tear ducts no longer worked as they once did because wolves don’t cry.

SIXTEEN

MCCLUSKY SAT NEAR the window in the Sagebrush Diner, looking out over the faces at the other tables. Every booth occupied, every patron jawing and speculating over the death of Roy Webb. They had peppered him with questions but he waved them off, saying he didn’t want to talk and they let him be.

After the questioning at the Sheriff’s office, he’d gone home but was too geared up to sleep and stared at the television for an hour. He didn’t want to be at home so he drove around for awhile and landed at the diner. He didn’t want to be here either but he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

The bell over the door rang and he saw Jigsaw enter. He too was beset with questions, to which he grunted away and plunked down across the table from him. “You all right?”

“Nope,” McClusky said. “And I never will be.”

“That makes two of us.”

The waitress clinked a cup of coffee before Jigsaw. A man named Rowling leaned forward and removed his hat. “Fellas,” he muttered softly, “I’m sorry for your loss and I know you’ve been to hell and back but we gotta know what happened to Roy.”

Jigsaw didn’t even look at him. “Not now.”

Rowling straightened up. “We ain’t being nosy, Jig. If there’s something nasty out there, nasty enough to kill a big man like Roy, we need to know. We all got kids, families. What the hell are we dealing with?”

A low rumble of agreement and nodding of heads rippled through the rest of the diner. Jigsaw looked up at his friend and McClusky nodded, conceding the point. “We don’t know what it was. We didn’t see it.”

“You must have some idea,” badgered Rowling. “A mountain lion or somesuch thing?”

McClusky shook his head. “Wasn’t that and it wasn’t no bear. We heard it, circling around us in the dark and I will tell you this; I have never heard anything like the sound that thing made.”

“A bear maybe?” Rowling offered, trying to be helpful. “Kodiak?”

“It was huge, whatever the hell it was.”

“Fast too,” Jigsaw said. “Roy was out of our sight for maybe two minutes. This thing tore him apart in less than that.”

“Jesus Christ,” someone in the back said. A cough.

Rowling checked Jigsaw and turned to the people behind him. “Sheriff said she’s bringing in people from Fish and Game. Rangers too. They’ll get it, whatever it is.”

A momentary reassurance went through the diner before Jigsaw cut it short. “You kidding me? You honestly think Cheevers can find this thing? And don’t even talk me about the state people. Even if they could find it, what’re they gonna do? Tag its ear and relocate it? Jesus H.”

“Can’t trust the government to protect you,” said a voice in the back. “They don’t care.”

“That’s right,” Jigsaw bellowed. “We want to protect our own then we got to do it. The way it’s always been. This time’s no different.”

“What do you want to do?” asked Rowling. The million dollar question.

“Organize. Set up a patrol here in town, to keep everybody safe. The rest of us mobilize into hunting parties and we stalk this thing and blow it to Kingdom Come.”

“Sheriff ain’t gonna like that.”

“She’ll just have to mind her business until we’re done.” McClusky peered out over the gawking faces. “Who’s in?”

Every seat emptied as the patrons huddled around Jigsaw and McClusky’s table, waiting to hear the plan.

Gallagher stared up at the bare joists of the ceiling. His back was stiff from sleeping on the floor but he felt good. Rested. For the first time in three months, his sleep was not broken by the nightmares. He had found Lara and she was, if not exactly safe, alive at least. And he was going to bring her home.

The dog’s snout zoomed into view, giving him a full bore blast of dog breath. He pushed the Siberian away and sat up, groaning against the ache in his back and turned to Lara’s bedroll.

She was gone.

He pulled on his boots and swung up, wincing as his back flamed. He took the dog by the snout. “Where is she?” Clomping out the door, he was hit with the cold chill of morning and called out her name. Everything was still, no birds, no breeze. Fresh tracks in the snow. He followed them as they tacked south straight into the treeline.

Cresting a rise, he scanned through the dark trunks of oak and ash and saw her further down the hill. Sitting on a deadfall tree with her back to him. He called again but she didn’t stir. He marched on, the dog trotting before him.

“Lara? What’s wrong?”

No answer. He swung over the fallen tree and looked at her. Her eyes were open but lifeless, staring blankly ahead at the creek further down the slope. He gave her shoulder a gentle shake and waved his palm before her eyes. Nothing.

She was sleepwalking. Amy had gone through a spell of it when she was young but nothing like this. It was like Lara wasn’t even there.

“Lara,” he said. “Wake up. Please.”

She didn’t even blink. Her arm was wrapped around her, clutching the injured ribs and he wondered if she had made it worse walking here. He took her wrist and slowly peeled her hand away, not knowing what else to do and then stopped cold.

Her hand was covered in blood.

Panic flooded in as he looked her over, searching for the source. Had she cut herself? Was there some other wound he didn’t see last night? There was more blood on her sweater and he lifted to check her banged-up ribcage. More blood, trickling slow from angry red slices in the skin. He took her hand and inspected the fingernails. Rivulets of flesh under them. Lara had clawed her torso bloody in her sleep.

“Okay, Lara. Wake up now.” He tapped her cheek. “Come on, you’re scaring me. Wake up.”

Her head wobbled as he shook her but that glassy wash never left her eyes. How badly had she hurt herself? Enough to bloody the snow on the deadfall under her.

“Okay, we’re going to get up now.” He put an arm round her and lifted. “Come on, we’re walking back.” He got her up and walked her slowly back towards the shack. His boots slid on the incline and she fell under him but he pressed on until they reached the shelter.

He got her settled onto her bedroll and opened the grate on the woodstove. A few glowing embers from last night’s fire. He threw in a few splinters of kindling and eased a good sized log onto it and blew the embers until they rose and took the kindling.

The claw marks were bleeding fresh, torn open from the walk back. He rifled through his backpack, found a clean shirt and packed it against the raw flesh. He spotted a roll of gaffer’s tape among Lara’s supplies and tore off strips to tape the shirt down.

He’d have to clean the wound properly but the one thing he’d forgotten to pack was a first aid kit. How stupid could he be?

He tried to wake her again but her response was the same. He had to force her eyelids shut and was thankful to not have to look at that eerie stare. The town wasn’t that far away. If he hustled, he could drive back, get some antiseptic and gauze and be back within the hour.

What if she went sleepwalking again?

He stomped outside and whistled for the dog. It came bounding from behind the hut and looked up at him with its tongue swinging from its jaws. “Inside,” he barked and shooed the husky into the shack and ordered it to ‘stay’ and closed the door. Kicking the snow from a pile of wood stacked against the shelter, he rustled through it until he found a pine board that wasn’t too rotten and wedged one end under the door latch. The dog whined from within and he ordered it again to stay and then trudged off through the snow to find the truck.

Checking his watch, he wondered if there was a drive-thru in town where he could get coffee.

The town of Weepers, which had felt almost empty when he first arrived, seemed to have woken up overnight. Slowing the Cherokee to the speed limit as he rolled onto the main drag, Gallagher surveyed what appeared to be a thriving little town. People stood around talking on street corners or leaning against their cars. One man, sitting on the lowered tailgate of a pickup, held a rifle across his lap. At the gas station across the way, two pickup trucks had full gun racks in the back window. Gallagher stopped in front of the drug store, trying to think what could still be in season that had brought these hunters out. Another truck trundled past him and the three men sitting in the box turned their heads in unison to him as they rolled past. All of them were armed.

Hunting down the right aisle of the drug store, he scooped every package of gauze on the shelf into a basket, followed by four rolls of tensor bandages. Two bottles of antiseptic, a bottle of iodine and three packages of Advil. Lara would probably need antibiotics but that would have to wait until they got back to Portland. Maybe something more rustic to fight infection, like garlic? What his dad used to call Russian penicillin.

Would that even work, given her condition? Wasn’t garlic poison to someone who was...? He dismissed the crazy notion and marched for the cashier. He’d seen too many stupid horror movies for his own good.

The druggist was leaning on his cash register talking to a customer. Gallagher caught scraps of their conversation; animal attack, slaughtered livestock and a dangerous animal on the loose. The two men stopped talking as Gallagher came to the counter. He tried a little small talk, something about the weather. The two men were polite but cold, wary of strangers. He paid and left the store.

Outside, he found a hubbub on the main drag. A Bronco with the words Sheriff’s Department emblazoned on the door was parked next to the Cherokee. The sheriff, a tall woman in her fifties, was talking to two men in workboots and parkas. She stood with her hands planted on her hips, clearly displeased with the two men.

Gallagher unlocked the back, listening to the sheriff dress down the two men. “Listen to me Mr. McClusky,” she said, “you need to take your firearms home and stay there. All of you. End this nonsense before someone gets hurt.”

“Hurt? Someone’s already been killed by this thing,” said McClusky. “What do you expect us to do, wait for it to kill somebody else?”

“You let the proper authorities handle it,” said the policewoman. “Or you can be charged. Your choice.”

“That’s wonderful that is. My friend gets killed by this dangerous animal and you bust us for protecting our own.”

Gallagher’s ear snagged on their words. He stepped towards the group and nodded to the sheriff. “Excuse me, Sheriff” he said. “Can I ask what’s going on?”

Sheriff Cheevers turned a stone face to him. “Everything’s fine, sir. Please go back to your vehicle.”

Gallagher moved closer. “Did you say something about an animal attack?”

“Sir, please. Back to your vehicle.”

“Hold on, Sheriff. I’m a police officer.”

Sheriff Cheevers maintained her stony scepticism until Gallagher passed his ID across. She examined it and handed it back. “You’re a long way from home, detective.”

“Just passing through.” Gallagher folded the ID away and glanced at the two men. “What kind of animal attack was this?”

“We don’t know yet. But it was big, whatever it was.”

“And it attacked someone?”

“Killed,” said McClusky. He nodded to his companion. “Friend of ours. Fucking monster tore him to pieces.”

Something cold sliced through Gallagher’s insides. “Was it a wolf?”

“Wolf?” McClusky guffawed. “Ain’t been wolves here in a hundred years.”

“You sure?”

Jigsaw spit on the sidewalk, eyeing the stranger. “What’s it to you?”

Gallagher looked at the Sheriff but her expression remained stone. “Just offering my help, if it’s needed.”

“We’re fine, sir,” she said. Cold and abrupt. “But thank you.”

Gallagher tried for congenial. “I work homicide back home. Sometimes it’s good to have a second pair of eyes. Maybe you could show me the remains, walk me though it?”

“Remains?” sputtered McClusky. “There wasn’t anything left.”

Jigsaw spat again. “The hell you want to see it for?”

Sheriff Cheevers took Gallagher by the arm and walked him back to his vehicle. “I appreciate it, detective. I really do, but we’ll handle it just fine.”

“Course. No disrespect.”

A pickup truck trundled past on the road. Two men clutching shotguns bouncing along in the back. “None taken,” she said, nodding to the passing truck. “But as you can see, I got other fish to fry.”

“I was wondering what that was about. Thought maybe you had extended the hunting season.”

“It’s going to be open season on dumbasses if I don’t get these Rambos to put their guns away. Have a nice day.”

Gallagher climbed back under the wheel and turned the key, a cold chill roosting in his gut. What are the odds this was a coincidence? A lethal animal attack that left the victim in pieces? It sounded all too familiar.

Mendes. How far gone was she? Had she tipped over the cliff the way Ivan Prall had?

He needed coffee. Clear his head and think straight. He pulled away from the curb, unconvinced by his own expedient dismissal of the facts.

Jigsaw and McClusky leaned against the pickup, watching the Cherokee drive away. “Nosy son of a bitch,” muttered McClusky.

Jigsaw spat again. “What cop isn’t?”

“Who was that?” A voice, behind them . They turned to see Rowling crossing towards them, nodding at the Cherokee driving away.

“Cop. Not local.”

Rowling looked on. “Cop? He was here yesterday, asking a bunch of questions.”

McClusky straightened up. “What about?”

“Said he was looking for someone. Had a picture of some women, asking all over town if anyone’s seen her.”

“What woman?”

“That weirdo chick. Dark hair, pretty,” said Rowling. “Comes into town once in awhile. Doesn’t say shit to anybody.”

“What did he want her for? Bail jumping?”

“Just said she was missing is all.”

“No shit,” Jigsaw said. He pushed himself off the truck and opened the driver’s side door. “Mac, get in.”

McClusky slid into the cab, watched Jigsaw fire the ignition. “Where we going?”

“Got some questions of my own I want answered.”

SEVENTEEN

STOPPING FOR COFFEE was a mistake. He had already wasted enough time jawing with the locals while Lara was alone and injured and here he was getting coffee to go like it was Monday morning.

A group of men stood around his vehicle, waiting for him when he came out of the diner. The two hunters he had spoken to earlier and two other men. Rifles slung over their shoulders, their faces grim and unfriendly.

Gallagher zeroed in on the most belligerent-looking. “Can I help you?”

Jigsaw scratched at his gut. “What’s your name, friend?”

“What do you want?”

Jigsaw glanced at his friend and then back to the stranger. “You had a lotta questions back there. What do you know about it?”

“Wanted to know why half the town was loaded for bear. Excuse me.” He marched for the Cherokee but the men closed ranks, cut him off.

“What makes you think it was a wolf?”

He didn’t answer. Jigsaw nodded to one of the armed men. “Rowling here said you was asking all over town about some woman. Who is she?”

“A friend.” Gallagher stepped close, matching the man’s belligerent stare. “Get away from the truck. Please.”

“This girlfriend of yours, you find her?”

Gallagher marched for his truck, on a collision course with the man named McClusky and a taller man. They would crash or give way. The taller man stepped aside and Gallagher swept past him to unlock his door. He heard the one named Jigsaw barking at him. “I need an answer, friend. Now.”

“I got nothing to tell you.”

“Bullshit. You know something--“ Jigsaw grabbed Gallagher’s arm. A cup dropped from the tray and hit the ground. Hot coffee steamed up from the snow.

Gallagher lashed out fast and dropped the big man. Jigsaw belly-flopped onto the wet pavement with a thud. He moaned once before Gallagher dropped a knee onto his back and growled in his ear. “Listen to me, friendo. I’m sorry for your loss but it’s got nothing to do with me.” He stood and stomped towards the other men. “Anyone else?”

The others glanced around, waiting for someone else to do something. No one did. Jigsaw moaned and rolled over.

Gallagher climbed into his truck and drove away.

The dog barked. Lara rose up on one elbow and immediately regretted it when the pain rippled down her side. Her hand went to her ribcage, found the material packed against it. Peeling it away she saw the blood crystallized dark against the wadding. What happened?

The dog stood at the door, yammering away. Lara held her breath and swung up to her feet. A few unsteady steps towards the door and she smoothed the dog’s head to quiet it. “Okay, okay. Let me get the door.”

The door didn’t open. She pushed against it harder but all it did was rattle against the frame. Blocked from the outside.

“Gallagher!” Her voice rang loud inside the shack. The dog stuck its nose to the draft under the door. “Gallagher, open the damn door!”

Not a sound. Why had he locked them inside? Where had he gone? The dog whined, scratching at the floor as if it could dig its way out.

She turned to the window in the far end. Sealed with plastic sheeting, it would be easy enough to tear away but she didn’t relish the idea of climbing out. Her ribs hurt just standing up.

The husky suddenly yelped and sprang away from the door as if stung. It withdrew to the far corner, lips curling into a snarl.

Her ear tingled at a faint sound coming from outside the hut. Footsteps crunching snow. A shadow broke the thin band of light under the door.

“John?” The moment she called his name she knew it wasn’t him. She took a step back. The door shook, then a small scrape of something falling away. A thud. The shadow under the door receded and all was quiet again.

The husky paced faster, its throat alternating between growls and whines. Lara put her palm flat to the wooden slats and pushed the door open. A glare of white after the gloomy interior of the shack.

She stepped outside into a void of white vapor. The temperature had risen sharply and the snow was evaporating, misting up into a thick fog. Three paces out the door and she could barely make out the shape of the shack in the opaque mist. The air was still, no breeze at all.

The sound of crunching snow, somewhere out in the foggy depth.

The dog circled her, ears twitching crazily at every sound. It barked, the sound cracking sharp into the void. Then nothing, not even birds.

Not good.

The voice, when it came, riffled through the cotton opacity. Coming from everywhere and nowhere. “Time’s up.”

Lara spun around, trying to locate the source. The dog growled low, bumping into her knees. “Who’s there?” she called out. Stupid question. She knew perfectly well who it was.

His hoarse voice croaked in the mist. “I need an answer, Lara. What’s it gonna be?”

“Leave me alone, Grissom.” She turned back to the shack but it wasn’t there. Nothing but whiteness. She couldn’t have wandered that far from it.

“You’re outta time, honey” Grissom’s voice rattled. “The locals are hunting you down. Time to move.”

Ten paces, she thought. That was how far she’d stepped from the hut. But she had spun around so many times trying to pinpoint his voice, she had no idea which direction her hovel lay.

A snap. Behind her, a hazy silhouette against the fog. “You’ve been bad, Lara. You can’t go around shitting where you eat. Don’t you know that yet?” Grissom took shape against the haze as if materializing from thin air. He stood easy and relaxed, like he did this every day.

“What are you’re talking about?”

“You been keeping busy. At night. Putting down livestock. But you went too far. Killing some local fella? Bad business.”

“No…”

“Yes you did. Nasty job of it too. Not much left of him.”

“You’re lying.” The response was instinctual but didn’t feel that way. There was no way she had killed someone. She hadn’t before. Not once. If pressed, she couldn’t explain exactly how but she knew. Didn’t she? “It was you. You killed someone.”

Grissom took a step closer. “The first rule is to stay hidden. Invisible. You don’t leave a footprint and you sure as hell don’t leave a corpse behind. Not one that can be found anyway. Newbie fuck-up, Lara.”

He was lying. Had to be. And how had he learned her name?

“I’m even giving you a second chance here. Now if you honest-to-God want to be left alone, I will go. But you know what that means. You go rogue too early, you can’t adjust. You go crazy. You keep changing until, at best, you decide to kill yourself. Worse case, you go all the way and the wolf slaughters everyone around you. It don’t care. First people it kills will be the ones you care about. Like that boyfriend of yours.”

“Shut up.” Lara backed up. How did he know Gallagher was here?

Grissom scratched the stubble on his chin. “Who is that guy anyway?”

She didn’t answer.

“Prince Charming rides in to save the princess? You signed his death warrant the minute you called him. You know that, right?”

“He’s got nothing to do with this.”

“Then the poor bastard will never know what hit him. When you change and you tear his guts open, maybe then the schmuck will realize that his princess is a monster. Kinda funny when you think about it.”

The husky, silent until now, jerked forward. Snapping its teeth in a guttural rumble. Lara held it back.

“Do you really want to live like this?” he said. “We’re not solitary animals. But you can’t go back to your people. That’s over. Join the pack, be one of us. It’s so much better than you can imagine. You don’t have to be alone anymore.”

She stumbled back but her legs felt sluggish. She didn’t want to be alone anymore. It was too hard. She was doomed anyway. How bad would it be to give in and become part of his world? What exactly was she clinging to? Her old life?

Please...

Her indecision writ large in her eyes. Grissom reached out his hand. “Come.”

Lara flinched. Like sticking a wet finger into a socket. No. She pulled back.

He wouldn’t let go. “Come.” A growl to underscore the command.

She slammed her fists into him, enough force to break his ribcage. All she had to do was lock her grip round his throat and squeeze--

He knocked her back with the force of a bulldozer. She hurtled away, tumbling over the snow.

Her vision blurred. The gauzy form of the husky leapt at Grissom and was knocked back. It yelped, rolling away. When she looked up again, Grissom had vanished into the fog.

An unmistakable roar thundered overhead, heavy enough to rattle her insides. The dog withered, cowering under. Grissom had become the wolf. And it was going to kill her for refusing it.

She could change too. All she had to do was let go and release the pale wolf. At least then she’d have a fighting chance. The husky trembled under her.

No. She wasn’t going to give in. But she could let go a tiny bit, enough to open her ears and smell the air the way the wolf does. She whispered into the Siberian’s ear to shush it and held her breath to listen. Picking out the smallest scratch of sound, something big padded the snow to the west of her. How far away, she couldn’t tell.

Taking the air, she filtered through the smells for the acrid tang of woodsmoke and ash. The shack. South, maybe southeast.

She tugged the dog up and bolted for shelter. Sprinting over the snow, pulling the dog along, she hoped she’d see the shack before running smack into it.

Another roar, unnatural and deafening. The sound of it thundering over the ground, haring after her in the fog.

The shack rose up from the haze like a ghost and she sprinted for it, the monster at her heels. The husky outpaced her and vanished inside the door and she hated it for being safe. Teeth chomped behind her, snapping her hair. She leapt for the open door.

The floor was hard as she rolled and tumbled inside. The wolf crashed into the doorframe, too big to fit, and the entire structure tilted off its flimsy foundations. Beams and studs snapped around her.

The monster popped its enormous teeth, pushing through the frame. The dog gnashed its teeth and looked for an exit that wasn’t there.

She clawed out the loose floorboard and plunged a hand into the hidden recess. The wolf forced its way inside, snapping apart the door frame.

Lara swung up with the Glock in both hands and blasted a round into the thing’s face.

EIGHTEEN

THE FOG VAPORED over the road, forcing Gallagher to a crawl to find the unmarked logging trail. Mist congealed to soup as he turned onto the trail, barely able to see the pathway at all. Maddeningly slow until he found the spot where he’d left the truck the night before.

Gathering up his supplies, he left the Cherokee behind and stalked into the trees. Head down, following his footprints. The snow was melting and, had he been any later, they would have disappeared altogether, leaving him to grope blind through the fog. As it was, he lost the track a few times, stumbling around until he found it again.

He called out for the dog. What answered wasn’t the husky. An unnatural roar rippled out of the fog on all sides. An malevolent sound he had heard before and prayed he’d never hear again.

The wolf.

His knees locked, ice in his joints. He was too late. Lara had changed and was loose out here in this godforsaken fog. Dropping the bag to the snow, he unholstered the big handgun. A click and the magazine slid out of the grip and he stuffed it into a pocket. From another pocket he produced the magazine of rounds he had had specially made and slapped it home. The moisture in the air made the grip slick. Taking up the supplies again, he willed his legs to move.

Ears cocked for any sound but all he could hear was the crunch of his own boots. When the trees disappeared he knew he was in the clearing. He could just make out the picnic table out front but the shack wasn’t there. Like it had vanished.

Three paces on and he saw that it hadn’t disappeared; it was flattened. Knocked completely on its side, the roof had snapped and the walls broke apart and splayed in the snow. A wisp of smoke snaked from the upended woodstove.

No Lara. No dog. Nothing.

He hadn’t planned for this. Hell, he hadn’t planned at all, just blundering in here thinking he’d find her and walk out. How stupid could he be? Had she killed the dog, the same way she had killed the local man? The livestock?

He dropped the bag at his feet and locked the gun with both hands. If Lara was too far gone, he’d put her down with silver capped 50. calibre rounds. If he was injured in the fray, meaning bitten by the goddamn thing and thus cursed the way she was, well, he’d save one round for himself and stick the barrel in his mouth. Simple, neat.

Amy would be confused, not understanding why her father had driven two hundred miles into the Oregon forest to simply put a bullet in his brain. But she already suspected his mind was crumbling. She’d rationalize some kind of explanation. Everyone does. Didn’t matter. As long as she was safe.

He called out her name, bellowing into that white haze.

Nothing. Just the thrum of his own heartbeat in his eardrums. What if it was gone, tearing across the valley towards town? Out of earshot and him standing here like a fool, hollering to the trees.

A sound. Heavy pads drumming hard across the ground, pounding the snow towards him. He brought the gun up, his elbows locked and drew aim at the sound crashing towards him in the opaque wall. He could already see its form. Too small, too lithe--

The dog. Bounding breakneck with its tongue flapping loose, it banged into his knees and whined, its rear end wagging. Terrified. Whether she had spared it or it had simply gotten away, he didn’t know. It didn’t matter.

He dug his fingers into the nap of its fur. “Where is she? Show me.”

The abominable sound came again, a guttural roar that rumbled his breastplate. Coming hard on his leeside, its weight shuddering the ground under his feet. A dim form emerged, dark against the haze. Good God... it was enormous.

Correcting his aim, he locked his elbows and squeezed down on the trigger. Held off, something not right. This lobo was dark, with a grey razorback pelage. He had only seen Lara change once, a frantic exchange all those nights ago, but her lobo was pale. White as birch. Had she changed coats? Was that possible?

The alternate answer was almost worse. This dark monster was some other lobo.

A crack of gunfire settled the matter. The wolf recoiled from the impact and spun around and roared like the sound of hell grinding open. Gallagher lowered his weapon with the round still in the chamber. The shot came from elsewhere.

Lara.

The thing skulked back into the fog like a bad dream. Gallagher hollered at the void. “Lara! Where are you?”

Another blast from a barrel, the shot cracking through the pine branches. He ran at the sound, calling out her name.

“Gallagher!”

Her voice filtered from the void. Disembodied, drawing him in like a sonar ping. She was on her knees in the snow and swung her firearm his way when we crashed towards her. Her face was bloodless and she was heaving like an asthmatic.

He tumbled to her side. “Where the hell did that thing come from?”

“Long story.” Her breath staccato and gasping.

“Jesus. I thought it was you.”

Her hand clutched his arm to stop herself from keeling over. Her grip so strong it made him wince. “Don’t count that out just yet,” she gaped.

How far gone was she? He searched her eyes for that telltale glow he had seen before. A red flag that preceded the shitstorm of transfiguration.

“Where’s the truck?”

He looked east then west. All the same, a curtain of cotton mist. “I can’t tell which way is up in this soup.”

The thing roared, everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The husky bristled at the sound, ears rotating to all points of the compass.

He looked at her. “Can you find it?”

“What?”

“The smell of exhaust or gas or whatever.”

She scowled and he knew she hated him for asking that. What other option did they have? All the same, he saw her nose wrinkle.

“This way.” She clenched his arm, leading the way. The dog followed at their heels.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tripping after her. “I know you hate that but--“

“Shut up.”

He shut his mouth, following as Lara threaded her way through the trees. She pulled ahead and he struggled to keep up, watching her bound effortlessly over deadfall and dart through the underbrush with lupine grace.

Lara stopped and turned back. “There,” she said, pointing the way ahead. The hazed hulk of the Cherokee took shape before them. He pressed on, the dog trotting ahead and then the roar echoed around him. The wolf, coming back.

She barked at him to run and he saw the terror in her eyes. The thing was right behind him. She raised her gun at him and he ducked and she fired. He caught a glimpse of the monster crashing away into the foggy trees.

They scrambled into the truck and Gallagher fired it up, cranking the wheel hard to turn the Cherokee around on the narrow pathway. The front end mowed down saplings and the rear wheels spun in the snow. The spindly fingers of dry branches scraped down the windows, clawing at them to stay. Lara leaned over the seat and looked back.

“Move.”

He clocked it in the rearview mirror, the wolf breaking towards them. Gallagher slammed the brakes and the monstrous lobo glowed red in the taillights. Slamming into reverse, he punched the gas and barreled backwards. The wolf had no time to react and the impact was loud. The rear window cracked and metal crunched with a dead thud. Gallagher floored the accelerator, pushing the damn thing back along the road.

He geared up and gunned forward, fishtailing through the bends in the pathway. With visibility poor, the truck hammered through brush and sideswiped the trees. The mirror on the passenger side sheared off and tumbled away behind them. Lara leaned over the seat with the pistol in her hand, eyes peeled for any sign of the thing.

The thicket of trees gave way and Gallagher allowed himself to breathe as the logging trail opened up onto the main road. He spun the truck out but immediately hit the brakes to avoid careening into the object before them.

A green pickup truck blocked the entrance to the road. Headlights burning up at them, two darker figures standing sentry on either side of the vehicle. Rifles in their hands.

Gallagher’s Cherokee skidded sideways and thunked loud as the tail end took out a sapling. Gallagher swung out of the door and bellowed. “Move that damn thing! Now!”

The two men raised their rifle barrels at his face. Both looked familiar. The hunters he had scuffled with in town. The one named Jigsaw spoke. “Turn it off.”

“What the hell?” Lara climbed out, eyes wide at the raised weapons. “Put the rifles down! And move the pickup.”

McClusky arced his rifle to meet her. “Step outta the truck,” he said. “Over here.”

Gallagher marched on Jigsaw, walking straight down the barrel. A vein throbbed on his brow. “Listen dumbass, the thing that killed your friend is hauling ass right for us.”

Jigsaw’s eye was swollen but the venom folded in that purpled flesh was unmistakeable. Pure murder. “Get on your knees, asshole. Do it!”

Gallagher glanced at Lara. “It’s coming,” she said.

They all heard it. The sheer weight of the thing quaking the earth, crashing and tearing through the trees towards them. McClusky eyed his friend, wary and alert. “What the hell is that?”

As if in answer, an inhuman roar washed over them. McClusky and Jigsaw knew the sound, that same goddawful noise from the night Roy was killed.

With the paramilitaries distracted, Lara hollered at Gallagher to cut and run. He didn’t need to be told twice. Shifting into gear, he barrelled the Cherokee forward, clipping the rear end of the other truck, pushing it out of the way. Jigsaw cursed at him, swinging the rifle his way. Gallagher floored the pedal but his rear wheels spun in the snow. He backed up to take a run at it.

“Oh God...” McClusky said.

It came on straight down the trail, charging in like a toro and simply swallowed McClusky. Frozen at the sight, Jigsaw watched the monster whip its maw back and forth violently. The man shrieked as he was rent apart. The snow spackled red.

Gallagher bellowed at the other man to run and gunned the vehicle forward. The front end crumpled into the pickup, knocking it back a foot and Gallagher kept flooring it, spraying slush and gravel out the rear wheels.

Lara looked back out the cracked glass of the rear window. The lobo dropped the dead man, swung its foul snout up in their direction and leapt. Its mass filled the window, slamming the vehicle like a wrecking ball. Lara aimed her weapon and fired but the gun clicked on an emptied magazine.

“Here!” Gallagher thrust something at her. A big handled automatic. She took it and swung it up in both hands as the lobo came on again for a second assault. The gun kicked hard in her hand, the boom deafening inside the cab. The window exploded. The monster backed off as if on fire and howled in pain. Gallagher stomped the pedal. Lara watched the thing flop around and swing its massive head in agony. Maybe its death throes.

The engine groaned as Gallagher pushed it hard and didn’t let up until he had put four miles between them and that thing on the road. Maybe the other man made it out, maybe he didn’t. In the moment, he didn’t care either way.

Lara leaned back against the dashboard, eyes still scanning the road behind them for any sign of the wolf. She looked at the gun in her hand. “What is this, fifty caliber?”

“Yeah.” Cold air blew around them from the shattered window. “Capped with silver.”

NINETEEN

GALLAGHER JUST KEPT driving, rolling through town and catching a few odd looks at his dented bumper and shot-out rear window. The main drag gave way to the highway and he sped up without a glance back at the Podunk village. Goodbye Weepers. They drove for an hour without saying anything. The Siberian curled up on the backseat and went to sleep. When Gallagher spoke, it was only to ask that she fish out the map from the door pocket and check their route.

Night fell and they drove on before he pulled off the road at a dingy roadhouse whose neon had all burnt out. He asked her to order for both of them while he fed and watered the dog. The food was tasteless but it filled the gap and they both ordered more coffee when the plates were cleared away.

Lara spooned sugar into her cup. A luxury after all this time on the run. “Do you want me to drive for a while?”

“No.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“No. I just can’t sit in the passenger bucket of my own truck.”

They watched the other patrons eat and then Gallagher set his cup on the formica top and looked at her. “Where did that thing come from?”

Lara warmed her hands around the steaming mug. “He said his name was Grissom. He showed up day before you did.”

“And he’s a... you-know-what?”

“Yes.”

“What did he want?”

She kept it brief, about how Grissom told her she was doomed unless she joined him. How rogue wolves don’t survive. How the change, according to Grissom, was a gradual descent into full wolf. Into madness.

He pushed his cup away. “Do you believe that?”

“Sounds plausible but, considering the source, who knows?”

“What did he want with you?”

“He wanted me to go with him. Join his pack.”

“There’s more of them?”

“He claims there is.” She rubbed her eyes, looking exhausted. “Where did you get silver rounds for that cannon?”

“Had them specially made. The gunsmith thought I was crazy.”

“What did you say they were for?”

“Hunting werewolves.”

A tiny smile broke over his face and rebounded in her eyes. It faded quickly. “Do you think it’s dead?”

She shrugged. “Let’s hope so. You ready to go?”

They settled up and went outside to rout the dog back into the vehicle.

Amy knew this was a bad idea. Every scheme Gabby dreamed up always turned out to be a clusterfutz waiting to happen. Sneaking out of the house after dark, jimmying the lock on Gabby’s parent’s booze cabinet, skipping last period to smoke cigarettes with boys. All of it went spectacularly south and dropped them both into a world of trouble. Gabby never learned, plunging ahead with yet another mental-case plan, oblivious to common sense and past results.

Apparently, Amy concluded, she herself was no better. Gabby assured that a small, impromptu party would be a snap without the risk of crashers getting wind and blowing down the door. A small affair, no more than a handful of people to celebrate the holidays. Born with the bloodhunting instincts of a salesperson, Gabby appealed to Amy’s need to get into the Christmas spirit and decorate the house even further. “We’ve already put up the tree,” she derided, “and there’s no one here to appreciate. We can make appetizers and sweets, all Christmas stuff. Like a grown up party.”

It cut straight to Amy’s beating heart but when she demurred further, Gabby closed the deal by stating that they would just have people over to watch a movie and hang. She’d even let Amy pick the movie.

It all sounded so innocent and tinsel-draped, how could she resist? There were six guests in all. Maggie, Bridgette and Walty from their mutual clutch of friends. Their oddball pal Griffin Dunne and Alex, a senior with a pallor like death and attitude to match. The last guest was Gabby’s coup de grace; Date-Rape Dan Raylan. That bit was a surprise. “Oops,” Gabby feigned, “didn’t I tell you he was coming?”

Sneaky bitch. It was hard to think straight with everyone here and Dan draped over the easy chair. The more the merrier, right?

The movie Amy had chosen was her second-most, all-time holiday fave; A Christmas Story. Who doesn’t love that flick? If that went over well (how could it not?), Amy had a second one queued up if everyone was up for another movie. She knew they would groan when she brought out It’s A Wonderful Life (so what if it’s black-and-white?) but she knew that if she got them to endure the first half-hour, they’d be hooked and all would be sobbing when George Bailey’s friends come to his rescue at the end.

So much for that idea. Everyone showed up but no one was watching the movie, not even when little Ralphie dropped the F-bomb on his dad. The mocha truffles and shrimp dip that she had laid out was devoured in minutes and everyone decamped to the kitchen for more. Alex, a reprobate at 17, was the first to plunder the fridge for her dad’s beer. Within seconds they had all helped themselves and Bridgette was making smores in the toaster oven while Griffin sniffed out the liquor cabinet and announced that he was making margaritas. The blender whirled and green slush drizzled down the cupboards.

Now Amy was stuck in a no-win situation. If she let it ride, as Gabby kept hissing at her ear to do (be cool!), the party would spin out and the mess would be gigantic. If she blew the whistle and kicked everybody out, she’d be ostracized as a puckered-up killjoy. The only solution was to convince everyone to go somewhere else, somewhere more fun but the few suggestions she hinted at were declared lame and unimaginative.

Gabby smelled Amy’s shit-fit coming on and headed it off at the pass. Uncapping the last two bottles of Sam Adams, she thrust them into the hands of her best friend and Dan Raylan.

“Gracias,” Dan said and chugged a third of it back.

Gabby turned to Amy. “You know, Date-Rape was just telling me he was thinking about police work. Maybe a possible career choice, right Dan?”

“Yeah!” Dan smiled at them, a lethal grin that was known to evaporate any panties in his path. “That shit they do on CSI? How awesome would that be? Solving crimes and toolng around in a Hummer.”

Gabby laserbeamed Amy. “You know Amy’s dad is a cop, right? Homicide detective. Dead bodies and killers and shit. Amy, why don’t you show Danno your dad’s office? His medals and shit.”

“It’s just an office,” Amy sputtered apologetically. “No big deal.”

“Sure it is.” Gabby cocked an eye at her with all the subtlety of a mime.

“Cool. Where is it?” Dan wandered out of the kitchen and Gabby shoved Amy after him.

She hit the light switch in the small office and Dan looked the room over. An old computer on an ugly desk, two filing cabinets and a wall of framed commendations. Dan bobbed his head in approval, as if he’d seen dozens of homicide detective’s home offices before. “Cool. So your old man solves murders and stuff?”

“Yeah. But it’s not like stuff on TV. Dad says ninety percent of it tedious work.” Amy tried hard not to stare at him. The last thing she wanted to talk about right now was her dad but her brain seemed to scramble, unable to come up with any other topic to discuss. Think! “So. What’s the interest in police work?”

“Just seems cool, ya know.” His mouth hung open, even when he wasn’t talking. Amy hated mouth-breathers but chose to ignore it. He poked through the debris on the desk. “You get to carry a gun and shit. Whoa… what’s this?”

Dan’s eyes snagged on a police truncheon hanging from a peg. He snatched it up and swung it around. “Now this is the shit. Imagine busting somebody’s head with this.”

“Do you know what cops call that?”

“It’s a truncheon.”

“A fuckstick.”

His eyes lit up, clearly impressed. He swung it again, busting imaginary skulls.

“So.” Amy picked at the wet label on her beer bottle. “You need some college for police academy. To start, anyway. You picked one yet.”

“Still looking.”

This was hopeless. Dan seemed more interested in snooping and had barley even looked at her. Okay, better shut this down before she embarrasses herself. She glanced back towards the kitchen. “Maybe we should check on the others.”

“What’s the rush?” Dan leaned back in the office chair. He lifted his shirt and started undoing his belt. “Let’s get busy.”

“Whoa... What are you doing?”

“Gabby said you were dying to give me a blowjob.” The belt flopped free and he started popping the button fly. “Close the door.”

Amy gaped, speechless. Her turn to be a mouth-breather. “So you just drop your pants? How congenitally brain-dead are you?”

“Wha…?”

“Do your pants back up. You think I’m gonna just drop to my knees for you? Seriously?”

“Gabby said--“

“Gabby is extremely disturbed. And a chronic shit-disturber.” How bad could this have gone? “God!”

“Okay, okay.” He struggled with the belt loop. “Touchy.”

Amy felt her cheeks flush, anger bubbling up so fast she considered hitting the doofus. Her rage was cut short by the sharp crack of a gunshot.

She sprinted for the kitchen. Griffin stood rigid with the Glock in his hand and a stupid expression on his face. The acrid smell of it hung in the air and Amy scanned a panicked headcount. Everyone accounted for. Nobody lying on the floor. A small hole in the backsplash, two tiles broken.

Alex hoisted her margarita glass. “Wicked.”

Dan sulked. “Why does he get to shoot the gun?”

Amy yanked the gun from Griffin’s hand. His eyes remained popped, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened. “It just went off,” he said.

“It didn’t just go off, you released the safety!”

“I just wanted to see it.”

“You coulda killed someone.”

“Chill, Amy. Nobody dropped.”

She slid the clip out and racked the slide forward to eject the round in the chamber. It rolled across the floor and Dan picked it up, entranced as he watched Amy disassemble the gun in seconds.

“You’re such a dink, Griffin,” Gabby screed. “But hey, nobody got shot--“

“Stop.” Amy cut her off with a look. “Everybody out. Now.”

“It was an accident,” Griffin stuttered. “Don’t be so lame.”

Amy clawed back the urge to throttle the useless bastard. She spoke slow and clear to the assembled partygoers, warning them to leave immediately before she shot one of them.

“I’d almost forgotten how pretty it is at night.”

Lara gazed out the window as the Cherokee glided back through the streets of Portland. The holiday decorations strung along Powell made her wistful, drab and plain as they were. She hadn’t seen the city in so long. It felt different. It felt the same.

Gallagher took the phone from his ear and glowered at the screen. “It’s not like her to ignore the call.”

“Maybe she’s out.”

“Not this late. What day is it?”

Lara wrinkled her brow. “You’re asking me? I barely know what month it is.”

“It’s late. She should be home.” He dropped the phone into the cup holder, resisting the urge to dial again.

“Maybe she’s out with a boy,” Lara said, watching him bristle at the notion.

“Amy’s not like that.” He turned north onto 39th and swung west onto Franklin. “She knows better.”

“She’s seventeen, John. Don’t be naive.”

“I’ll have to get her out of the house before you come in. You can wait at the coffeeshop on the corner or hide in the garage while I drive Amy to her mom’s.”

“Garage,” she said. “I doubt I’d run into anybody I know but why chance it.”

The dog woke up the moment Gallagher turned onto his street, tail thumping against the window. Lara felt the dog snuff her ear but when she reached back to pet it, the Siberian shied away. Still wary of her.

Gallagher gunned the homestretch and swung into his narrow driveway only to find it blocked by a strange car. “Who the hell is this?”

Lara looked up at the house. “She must be home. Every light is on.”

The front door shot open and he watched a gaggle of good-for-nothing teenagers file out of his house. “What the hell…?”

Lara ducked for cover as Gallagher swung out of the cab and marched on the kids. “Who the hell are you people?”

They rabbited, all save Gabby. Frozen to the spot, she paled. “Hi Mr. Gallagher!” Piping up loud enough to warn Amy inside. “We’re just leaving.”

“Gabby?” A volcanic rage rumbled inside and he fought to stifle it down. “Tell me you two didn’t have a party…”

“A small one.” Gabby mustered her sweetest smile. “It was all my idea.” Least she could do was shoulder the blame in an attempt to mitigate Amy’s punishment. “I talked Amy into it. It was small. We watched Christmas movies.”

“Go home,” he growled and stomped inside.

The dog slid past her knees as it trailed behind him. Gabby bit her lip, wondering if she should go back in to help explain. Amy’s dad was a little scary. And a cop. She’d make it up to Amy some other way, she decided, and booked.

It went about as bad as she imagined. Dad was apoplectic that she had thrown a party in the first place but to let those shitheaded little peons (his words) run riot through their home was beyond belief.

Amy listened to his rant without uttering a word. Anything she said right now would just infuriate him further so she sat attentive and waited for him to blow off. But then, just as he was winding down, he clocked the broken tile in the backsplash and he started back up again. For her own self preservation, Amy lied about what had happened. Telling him that her dumbass friend not only found the Glock but let a round off in the house, well, her dad would probably drive her to juvie that instant.

Gallagher turned his back to her and caught his breath. “Go upstairs and pack your bag.”

“What?” Amy startled. Was he was taking her to juvie hall after all. “Why?”

“You’re going to your mother’s.”

“But--“

“Go.”

He listened to his daughter stomp every step on the stairs and waited for the slam of the bedroom door. Boom. He hustled through the door in the hall and crossed into the garage. Lifting the rollup door, he found Lara leaning against the truck.

“I could hear you hollering from out here,” she said, ducking under the door. “How bad is it?”

“Bad,” he conceded. “But it saves me from coming up with some lame excuse to drop her at Cheryl’s.” He lowered the rollup and crossed the floor to go back into the house. “Soon as we leave, go on inside.”

Gallagher disappeared back into the house and the garage went dark. Lara leaned against the workbench and listened to her former homicide partner escort his teenage daughter out to the truck, scolding her the whole way.

TWENTY

THE SMELL INSIDE the house was so overwhelming that Lara retreated into the dank garage to catch her breath before venturing back inside. Tiptoeing through the house, she smelled Gallagher everywhere. And then Amy. Both scents so strong they were steeped into the walls and floors. She nosed up a week’s worth of dinners cooked in the kitchen.

The dog was strong too. She could close her eyes and still pinpoint the corner where the husky bedded down each night.

Smell triggered memory. A fact she was vaguely aware of before her affliction. Now, with her heightened senses, it was a blaring siren. These comingled smells of people and food and shelter and pets gushed forth her own memory banks. If there was an underlying motif, it was simply home. This foursquare craftsman house was home to a family. Shelter, safety, belonging.

It was impossible not to contrast this with her current rootless exile. Her gut had ached for this for so long and here it was but she was simply a guest here. Enjoy your daypass.

She was drawn to the kitchen, the center of any home, but was distracted by the twinkling lights from the living room. A Christmas tree stood against the bay window, its evergreen perfume drifting dully through the house. The strung lights reflected off the ornaments and tinsel and there even a few wrapped presents sitting under it.

She couldn’t resist and knelt to check the tags on each gift. Judging by the names, Amy had finished most of her Christmas list. The biggest gift was marked Gabby, the smallest was tagged simply Dad. Two other presents were labelled Mom.

Lara stepped back and sank onto the sofa but the cushions felt too soft. She slid off and sat on the floor and gazed up at the Christmas tree. Such a simple thing, the pine smell and the lights and tinsel, but it punched a bruise into her heart.

Exhausted from running for so long, from hiding, Lara Mendes melted in the warm glow and promise of good cheer. Hokey as it was.

The kitchen was back to normal when Gallagher returned home. He told Lara to leave the rest, he’d get it in the morning. She could take Amy’s room, he’d said, he just needed to change the sheets. She told him not to bother, she’d change them in the morning. Lara said goodnight and was halfway up the stairs when she turned back.“How are you fixed for hot water?”

“We’re good,” he shrugged. “Unless those kids ruined that too. Why?”

“I’ve been bathing in cold riverwater for three months. Tomorrow, I want to stand under a scalding shower for as long as the hot water holds out. Fair warning.”

Gallagher smiled. “Knock yourself out.”

He rose early the next morning, his back still stiff but otherwise rested. A second night without the nightmares. Looking out the kitchen window as he made coffee, he watched a light snow fall, shrouding the hedges in the yard.

It was going to a beautiful day.

Cleaning up the mess soured his mood, only because it meant he’d have to have a ‘little talk’ with his daughter. He always felt like a fraud when he sat Amy down to discuss something stupid she’d done. It didn’t happen very often and when it did, it was nothing too terrible. Still, he never felt comfortable as the booming voice of good judgment. His own record was far from unblemished and he had a sneaking suspicion Amy knew it too.

Aside from a lecture, he would have to lie to her about finding Lara. Could he tell Amy the truth or was it too risky? He was flipping the idea back and forth when he heard the the shower come on and run for almost an hour.

When she came downstairs, Lara was wearing his old robe, the one that hung unused behind the bathroom door. She seemed lost in it, draped over her small shoulders with the sleeves turned up. Her wet hair hung loose but it was combed straight and as she settled into a chair at the kitchen table, Lara Mendes almost looked like her old self.

He placed a cup of black coffee before her. “Feel better?”

“Like a new person. But don’t use the shower until I’ve scrubbed the tub. It wasn’t pretty what I scoured off.”

He watched her wrap both hands around the mug and heard a sigh as she sipped. It was strange, seeing her like this. She had been a ghost for so long and here she was, sipping coffee at his table like it was an everyday occurrence. Draped in that thin material he could see just how much weight she had lost over the last few months. Still. He had almost forgotten how pretty she was and when the fall of the robe plunged too deep a neckline, he had to force his eyes to look away.

Lara didn’t seem to notice, lost in the simple luxury of warmth and hot java. “Can I use your laundry? My clothes are pretty grubby.”

“Sure.” He went back to the counter and cracked two eggs into the frypan. “You can borrow some of Amy’s clothes too. She won’t mind.”

“Will you tell her? About me coming back from the dead?”

“I don’t know yet. I hate lying to her.” He flipped the eggs onto a plate with some toast and brought it to the table. “She’d want to know but... Here, eat. The bacon’s almost ready.”

“This is more than enough. Please.”

“You’re skin and bones, detective. Need to get some weight on you.”

She pulled the robe tighter, suddenly conscious to her state, and tucked in. “Have you thought about what’s next?”

He stopped pushing the bacon round the pan and looked at her. “Lie low for the time being. Take it slow.” He scooped the bacon onto a paper-toweled plate and joined her at the table. His face clouded. “Lara, when it happens, the change, do you know it’s coming or...?”

“I can feel it coming on. It’s not like a sudden seizure or anything.” She put her fork down. “Are you worried?”

“I’d be stupid not to.” He dumped too much bacon on her plate. “How do you know it’s coming? Is there a trigger, like the full moon pops out of the clouds and bingo?”

“It has nothing to do with the moon. You know that.”

“Too bad. Least it would be scheduled. Once a month, we could work around it.”

She mopped up the eggs with the last bit of toast. “You’re confusing it with a whole other monthly curse.”

“Sorry. So is there a trigger?”

“Adrenalin. Fear or anger. Danger. I’ll feel my pulse spike, heart speeding up. If I’m not careful, it will kick over and trip the change.”

“What do you do? Just calm your breathing or something?”

“If I catch it in time. If not, well, silver works.”

“Silver?”

She pushed away from the table and crossed to the hall where her parka hung on a peg. Patted down the pockets and came back, placing something on the table before him. A pearl-handled knife, sheathed in a scabbard of leather with white stitching.

Gallagher unsheathed the gleaming blade and scraped his thumb across the edge. “Solid or plate?”

“Solid.”

“Where’d you get it?”

“A silversmith in Del Norte. Old Tiburcio claimed he forged it using the finest silver from Tasco.”

“Hell of a craftsman. He made this for you?”

“No, it was sitting there in his display case. He said a man paid him to forge it years ago but he never came back to collect it.”

He slid the blade back into its sheath. “Somebody else had wolf problems?”

“That’s what I wondered. Maybe the problem got to him before he could pick it up.”

“What exactly do you do with this?”

“I cut.” She frowned, as if unsure of what to do, then she pushed up the sleeve on her left arm. The skin crisscrossed with thin white scars. “The silver has to draw blood, otherwise it doesn’t work. But once it does, it’s like being doused with cold water. Puts out the fire.”

“Every time?”

“No.” Her shoulders sank. “Only if you to catch it in time.”

“So how many times have you, you know, changed?”

She fussed with her napkin, stalling. “Four times. Not including the night I disappeared. So that’s five.”

“First round doesn’t count,” he said. His fingers drummed the table top. “Four, huh? I don’t know if that’s good or bad.”

“Four times in ninety days?” Her voice sharp, defensive. “Basic math says that’s barely an occurrence.”

“When was the last time you changed?”

“Three nights ago. The night Grissom showed up. He changed, attacked me as a wolf. No stopping the adrenalin in that situation. I lost.”

“Same night that local guy in Weepers got torn apart,” he said.

Lara watched him straighten his back, assuming a posture reserved for questioning suspects. Cold and impassive. “Not to be cruel, Lara, but... who did the deed? Was it him or was it you?”

She pulled the robe tighter and crossed her arms. “Don’t question me like a suspect, John.”

“Okay. Sorry. But I gotta know.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“How do you know? Are you aware when you’re the... in that state?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know it wasn’t you?”

“I can’t explain it. Just a gut feeling. But killing someone in that state? It crosses some line in the sand. I’d know.”

“That’s still just a gut feeling. Nothing solid.”

“You’re the one who claims detective work is ninety percent gut.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose, trying to put in words what she’d never said aloud. “Think about this way. If you kill someone while in that state, it’s like killing the human inside yourself. Giving in to that part. There’s no coming back from that. If I had done it, you and I would not be sitting at this table right now.”

His coffee had gone cold. “Seems kinda crazy but… okay. Let’s work with that for now.”

Stillness settled across the table, neither said a word. The dog rose from its bedding and clicked nails across the floor. Its eyes fixed Lara for a few moments before it dipped its snout to its bowl.

“I’m going to get dressed.” Lara rose and went up the stairs. When she glanced over her shoulder, she saw Gallagher unsheathe the knife again and test the blade against the pad of his thumb. As if pondering its effectiveness.

TWENTY ONE

TINSEL WAS STRUNG along the cubicles of Homicide Detail and a wreath shed needles onto the industrial pile. Kopzych wore a Santa hat, cocked at a jaunty angle and some fool was piping Christmas tunes through his computer. Gallagher nodded hello to Detective Farbre as he returned to precinct. Everyone else ignored him.

Good.

After informing the Lieutenant that he was back, he checked with Wade about their case load. Nothing to report, nothing to move the needle on any of the open files stinking up their desks. “Everybody’s too busy doing their last minute shopping to lift a finger,” Wade said, leaning back in his chair.

“Don’t worry. Christmas Eve will roll in, and just when you think you might cut out for home to be with the family, the phone will start ringing.” Gallagher patted Wade on the shoulder. “Murder loves Christmas.”

“It is a time for family.”

“That’s the spirit.” Gallagher was pleased to see some healthy gallows humor creeping into detective Wade’s unassailable good nature. Maybe the guy would thrive in Homicide after all.

A handful of memos were waiting for him on his desk, policy changes and internal alerts, which he swept into the recycling bin. His inbox was choked with bullshit but there was an email from Taylor, alerting him to a hit on his search parameters. Headlined ‘Bingo’, the message read; Sounds like what you’re looking for. A news report from something called The Beacon Express, a small news affiliate in southeastern Oregon. A police report was attached. Both items reported the death of Roy Webb in Weepers. The incident that had sent the locals patrolling the town with guns. After printing off the police report, he started searching the news feeds for reports about the two men who had stopped them at the road. Nothing pinged.

He called down to Taylor, thanked him for the report and then asked him to look again for any news from that same area. Taylor emailed back two minutes later with a missing persons report. Sheriff Cheevers was searching for two men; Jim McClusky and Robert Jigs. Their truck had fallen through the ice on Snake River, four miles outside of town. Cheevers suspected the two men had also ended up in the river but no bodies had been recovered. A small hunting shack nearby had been destroyed and, according to Cheevers, there was a possibility the two men had been drunk at the time. After destroying the shack, the Sheriff surmised that the men had driven their truck onto the ice when it went through.

He emailed Taylor back, asking him to monitor the item and forward any updates to him. Gallagher read the report again and found it even more disturbing the second time around. He picked up the phone to call home only to realize that Lara wouldn’t pick up. He’d have to wait until he got home to discuss it with her.

“Hey partner, slow day?” Wade sauntered up, cradling a thick file under his arm. “We need to give these tips another call, see if anyone’s remembered anything.”

Gallagher sneered. “What file is that?”

“The Lelander case. ‘Member that one?”

Gillian Lelander was a 16-year old girl found dead on the bank of the Willamette which Wade had been primary on. The file went nowhere and remained open. It happened to all of them, a case that a detective couldn’t leave alone, couldn’t stop obsessing over. Lelander had been Wade’s personal haunt for six months now, the detective opening the murder book on it and reading through the file for the umpteenth time. Sometimes he’d enlist Gallagher in his latest tilt at the windmill.

“Do yourself a favor and send it down to cold cases,” Gallagher said. “Don’t be an Ahab.”

Wade scowled. “Says the guy who’s spent three months looking for his missing partner.”

Gotcha. Gallagher grunted and watched Wade split the paperwork in half. It took a Herculean effort to not blurt out that he had in fact successfully closed his open file and found his missing partner, thank you very much.

“Get through that pile,” Wade said, bopping Gallagher on the shoulder, “and I’ll spring for donuts. The kind with sprinkles too.”

Bastard.

Lara sat on the living room floor looking out the window. A sprinkle of snow fell over 22nd Avenue, melting as it hit the ground. The husky came up and joined her at the window.

“Bored?” She dug her fingers into its fur. “Me too.”

She had kept herself busy for most of the day. She stripped the sheets from Amy’s bed and bundled them into the washing machine along with her grimy clothes. Borrowing a T-shirt and jeans from Amy’s drawer, she was distressed to find the waistband fell loose. Her now bony hips jutted out sharp but not sharp enough to hold up the pants. The junkie look, not attractive.

She made more coffee (with lots of sugar) and helped herself to a container of leftover tandoori chicken. Watched the news. She felt bloated and sick afterwards, her stomach not used to the onslaught of spice and calories. The chatter of the news anchor on the TV was noxious, the news of the day holding no interest for her. Her eyes kept straying to the window until she clicked off the boob tube and took to staring out at the street. She considered taking the dog out for a walk but decided against it, fearing she’d be seen or recognized.

Back to the window and the falling snow, she realized she was trapped here. She couldn’t leave the house, despite the fact that every stitch of her muscles ached to go outside. This house, that had seemed such a safe refuge just last night, now felt small.

She laid down on the floor and curled into a ball, her guts rumbling and roiling. Her eyes closed and oblivion came fast.

When her eyes opened, everything was blurry and her teeth were chattering. A hand on her shoulder, shaking her awake.

“Lara?”

Gallagher was leaning over her. Behind him, the street and the snow drifting down. It was dark.

“Are you okay?” He waved a hand before her eyes like she was blind.

“What?”

“Why are you on the stoop? It’s freezing out here.”

She was sitting on the cold porch stoop, shivering in the thin clothes pilfered from his daughter’s drawer.

Her knees ached and her legs were stiff as she rose and they went inside. Gallagher cast his eyes up and down the street, wondering if any of his neighbors had seen her. “How long have you been out here?”

“I’m not sure.”

“You get spooky when you’re like that.”

“Like what?”

“That trance you’re in. It’s like you’re not there.” He followed her into the kitchen. “Is that part of it? Like a symptom?”

“I don’t know.”

She retrieved a blanket from the living room and wrapped it around her shoulders. Gallagher made tea to warm her up but the shivering in her hands didn’t subside for the better part of an hour.

He had splurged and bought rib eye steaks, grilling them over the barbecue despite the weather. They talked about their day over dinner like any couple. She asked about the precinct, who was working the bullpen in the homicide detail. He told her about Wade’s obsession with the Lelander case. How he felt sorry for the guy, knowing the unanswered questions in that file would haunt him for a long time. He ladled seconds onto her plate, urging her to eat some more. Lara pushed her plate away, feeling a bit woozy from a full belly.

He asked her to fix them a drink while he went to fetch something from his office. Said he had something he wanted to show her. She looked through the liquor cupboard, partially decimated by Amy’s friends and found a bottle of red. It had been forever since she’d had wine. She uncorked it, found glasses and brought it to the living room. The sofa felt odd under her so she slid to the floor and crossed her legs.

Gallagher came back, a few sheets of print-out in his hand, and stopped. “Something wrong with the couch?”

“Too soft.” She pushed a glass of wine towards him. “Guess I’ve just gotten used to not having furniture.”

“Okay.” He joined her on the floor, grimacing as he folded his legs the way she did. “What do you know about this guy who attacked you?”

“Not a whole lot. No idea where he came from or even if he told me his real name.” She reached for the printout on the coffee table. “What’s this?”

“Police report about the incident on the road. When we escaped. You shot that thing with the fifty-cal, didn’t you?”

“It wasn’t a clean shot.” Her eyes scanned the document. “But there’s no mention of a wolf attack here. Or bodies. How did the truck end up in the river?”

“Grissom must have survived.”

She looked up, piecing it together. “He pushed the truck into the river. Made it look like an accident.”

“Dropped the bodies in the ice after it. They won’t be found till spring.”

“Covering his tracks,” she said.

Neither spoke. They could hear the dog in the kitchen, crunching kibble from its bowl. Gallagher puffed out his cheeks. “If he survived, could he track you back here?”

“I don’t know. Portland’s a long way.”

“But he found you the first time. From wherever he was, he tracked you down then.”

Lara’s eyes drifted to the floor. “Or I tracked him down.”

“That doesn’t make sense. How do you find someone you’ve never met before?”

“When I fled, I just needed to get away from here. Away from the city, away from people. I didn’t have a destination in mind, I just pushed on. But...”

Her voice trailed off. He waited a hearbeat, then two. “Go on.”

“There were choices. This road, not that one. I needed some safe place to hunker down for the winter. I stopped in a dozen places that would have suited me, a few better than where I ended up. But I kept going, something nagging me to keep pushing further.” She shrugged. “Without realizing it, I may have tracked him down. Drawn to his territory.”

None of that made sense to him. “Why would you do that?”

“Wolves are pack animals. Maybe lycanthropes are no different. Ivan Prall certainly thought that way.”

Gallagher bristled at the name, the memory of it. “I don’t want to go through that again. If this guy shows up, would you know? I mean, pick up his scent or smell him coming?”

“If he got close.” She nodded at the kitchen. “The dog too. But I don’t think he’d risk coming here.”

“Why’s that?”

“Too populated. He said the only way to survive as a wolf is to stay hidden. Avoid busy places where things could get messy.”

“Easier to clean up said mess.” Gallagher looked at the police report again. “Like staging an accident.”

The dog padded in from the kitchen, looked at them both and whined. Gallagher rose, creakily, and crossed to the door to let the dog out. When he came back, he saw her face darkened with worry. “What’s on your mind?”

“I don’t know if I should be here.” She looked the room over. “Cooped up like this. Afraid to go out, afraid of being seen. I’ll go stir crazy.”

He tapped a finger against his lips, pondering that. “What if you came back? Publicly, I mean.”

“And say what? I went on vacation and forgot to leave a note?”

“What if it was memory loss? You suffered a head injury that night, wiped your brain clean and you’ve spent the last three months living in a homeless shelter? Speaking nothing but Spanish.”

“Who’s going to believe that? Think about the grilling I would get. From people we know, other detectives.” Lara shook her head. “It’ll never work.”

“I’m grasping at straws here. You got any better ideas?”

“Nope.”

“What about a small town? Somewhere outside the city where you wouldn’t have to worry about running into someone you knew.”

She shook her head. “Just another type of exile. What would I do?”

“Start a new life. Make new friends. I’ll come visit you.”

“Wow. The highlight of my month would be a visit from grumpy Gallagher.”

“Easy.” He made a face at her. “Grumpy Gallagher saved your butt, Mendes.”

“Right. Thank you Prince Charming.” She batted her eyes mockingly and trilled her best Valley-Girlese. “I was, like, sooo in need of saving.”

“Ingrate.” He elbowed her ribs. She shoved back. Sly smiles on both ends. “Seriously,” he went on, “haven’t you ever daydreamed about starting over. Chucking everything and reinventing yourself?”

“Not like this.”

“Then stay here, with me. You can reinvent yourself here.” Gallagher leaned in to her, formulating his cock-eyed plan. “You look different now. We’ll tell people we met when I was, I dunno, up north on vacation. Up in B.C., fishing or something. You can say you’re Canadian, which means you’re from anywhere. We met and yadda-yadda-yadda and you came to live with me. Me and Amy,” he corrected.

“And tell Amy what?”

That stymied him. “The truth. She’s smart. She can handle it.”

“No one would believe that. It’s too crazy.”

“Then some other story.” He shrugged, looked at the floor. “You can’t just leave. I won’t lose you again.”

She looked up. His eyes locked onto hers and wouldn’t let go. Her first instinct was to pull away but she didn’t. Staring back bold as brass. A giddiness, like vertigo looking down off a rooftop.

“For a long time, I told myself it was my duty to find you. My responsibility,” he said. “But it’s more than that. Always has been.”

Something singed her hand like a hot coal. She broke the spell and looked down, saw his hand close over hers. Alarm bells clanged in her head, warning her to break off but some other part refused and her fingers clamped around his.

“John...” she said. There was more to it but the words evaporated like smoke. It was important but at this very moment, she couldn’t remember why.

She felt a squeeze. Her hand folded in his. How small her hand looked. How thin her arm next to his. How could he look at her like this, so scrawny. She tried to shake the notions from her head but they wouldn’t leave and when she looked up again, he kissed her.

Everything fell away. The world, the worries, the wolf. Lost in the dark, the only thought was her lips touching his. Her hand found his arm and held on tight, the way a drowning woman clutches a buoy. Something stirring up deep inside, something she hadn’t felt in a long time. And by the way he clutched her, he hadn’t felt it in a while too. Those old reactions. Gasping for air between kisses, her heart banging away. An ache so acute it stung. Wanting more, wanting it all. To envelop him and devour him, clutch and swallow him whole if she could...

A roar inside her ears. Far away at first, and then blasting as if someone jacked the volume all the way up. She tore her mouth from his. “Stop. John...”

He pulled her back in. His hands on her. His lips on her neck. But the roar returned too, louder than bombs. Something unfolded its wet limbs in that hidden corner of her heart.

She pushed him back. He blinked, eyes sobering up fast. “What is it?”

“I can’t.”

“It’s okay.”

“No. It isn’t.”

“Easy.” He pulled her back in. “Lara, ease up.”

Her hand still gripped round his neck. He winced and she pulled her hand away. There was blood on her nails.

Her fingernails had elongated, turned coarse. Her heart banging faster and faster. The change had been triggered.

“Lara, what’s wrong?”

“John…get out.”

TWENTY-TWO

GABBY WAS a holy terror on the road. Having nearly rear-ended two other cars and sideswiped the mirror on a parked car, Gabby drove on obliviously, fiddling with the radio and chatting away. Amy sat in the passenger seat, wondering who in their right mind gave her friend a passing grade on the driving test.

“If you want, I can come inside with you,” Gabby said. “Your dad probably won’t yell too much if I’m there too.”

“That’s okay. I’m just gonna grab a few things and blow.” Amy suddenly bolted back in the seat. “Gabby, STOP!”

“What?”

“The stop sign!”

Gabby focused her attention on the road just as the red sign blurred past. She hit the brakes and the nose dipped and bounced, coming to a stop in the middle of the intersection. Gabby checked for other cars then hit the gas. “All clear. So you didn’t get grounded or anything? How is that possible?”

“Don’t know,” Amy shrugged. “He seemed distracted or something. Whatever. But he ran me outta there so fast I forgot half my clothes. Slow down.”

“You’re lucky.” Gabby turned into the Gallagher’s driveway, almost colliding into the parked Cherokee. Gabby squinted at the truck’s mangled bumper, the rear window covered over with plastic sheeting. “What happened to your old man’s ride?”

“Said he had an accident.” Amy opened the door, tripping the dome light. “Hang tight. I’ll be two seconds.”

Gabby watched her friend run up the porch steps and disappear inside the house.

The dog was barking and Lara was shaking bad. Not a shiver but a quake so deep her hands were vibrating. Gallagher wrapped his arms around her, trying to hold her still. “Breathe through it,” he urged. “Ride it out.”

Her eyes flicked up. A warm amber glowing around the iris. Not good. He gripped her tighter, like that would do anything. “Lara, what do I do?”

She was losing color fast, her face and hands a cold shade of pale. What if he knocked her out? Just cold-cocked her into next week? It was harder than it looked, punching someone into unconsciousness. And what if it made the wolf come on faster?

“The knife.” Her voice had altered. “Get the knife.”

He bolted for the foyer, where her parka hung from a hook. Slapping the pockets until he felt its shape. He dug it out and unsheathed the gleaming blade.

“Dad?”

Amy stood in the open door.

Gallagher froze. Knife in hand, gaping stupidly at his daughter. “Amy...what are you doing here?”

Her face set hard, expecting a fight. “I came to get some stuff. What are you doing with a knife?”

“Honey, you can’t be here.”

“I know. Gabby’s outside, waiting to drive me home.”

Her dad came at her, pushing her back out the door. He was out of breath and sweat beaded his face. “Not now. Go back home. Now!”

A loud racket was banging around from deep inside the house. The dog barking its head off. Amy planted her feet, refusing to go. “What is going on? Why is the dog going crazy?”

Another sound. At first Amy wasn’t even sure it was a voice but it called out again. A woman’s voice, calling out her dad’s name.

He sprinted for the living room. Who the hell was this woman in her house? And why was she screaming? Amy marched through the kitchen and turned the corner into the family room. She stopped dead, not comprehending what she was looking at.

There was a woman thrashing around on the floor. She was thin and she was shaking like a junkie. She was wearing Amy’s clothes. Her father was on his knees, holding the woman down. Pinning her flat with one arm, clutching the knife in the other hand. Like he was going to stab her.

Oh God, he was going to kill her.

The dog barked and barked.

“Dad, stop!” Amy grabbed his wrist.

He turned and snapped at her to let go. The look on his face. Amy had never seen her dad so scared. She let go. He turned back to the quaking woman. “Where do I cut? Lara, look at me! Where do I cut?”

Amy felt her jaw fall open. This wasn’t real. It didn’t make any sense but the more she stared at the strange woman, the more it gelled into reality. Lara Mendes. Back from the dead. Even though Amy still couldn’t get a good look at her face through the tangled hair, she knew it was Lara.

How?

Lara lifted her shirt. Amy’s shirt. Exposing her stomach. “Here.” Her voice sounded so strange. “Cut it deep.”

Gallagher pressed the blade onto the pale flesh of belly and sliced across. Blood welled up under the knife’s edge.

“Dad, stop!” Amy felt her own hands shaking, needing to do something but not having a clue as to what was going on. The whole world had gone crazy. “You’ll kill her!”

The quaking didn’t stop. He snapped at Amy to back off and cut again, drawing more blood. Another shudder and the woman stilled. Gallagher brushed the damp hair from her eyes and Amy studied the woman’s face. It was Lara Mendes, but it wasn’t either. Her face so unnaturally white the skin was veined with blue. The eyes were yellow and iridescent as bulbs. And her teeth were all wrong. She had fangs. Jesuschrist, she had long sharp fangs.

Amy dropped to her knees. That crazy story her dad had told her. It was true. But that was crazy. This, right here on her living room floor, this was crazy. She couldn’t stop staring at Lara’s face and those weird yellow eyes rose.

Gabby.

Gabby was waiting outside. Amy staggered up and ran back through the house, almost tripping down the porch steps.

Gabby lowered her window. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah. I’m gonna stay. Bye.”

“What’s wrong? You’re white as a ghost. Is it that bad?”

“It’s fine. Go home. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Hold on... Amy!” Gabby hollered but Amy ran back into the house. “Crazy frakking family,” she said and backed out of the driveway.

Rushing back into the room, all Amy saw was the blood. On the floor and on her dad’s hands. Lara thrashed and jerked, covered in it. She had never seen so much blood before, not in one place. The room swayed and Amy felt her knees jelly again. Don’t pass out, she told herself. Not now.

“Amy!” Her dad’s voice snapped her alert. He jostled against the spasms. “Amy. Hold her legs!”

Amy couldn’t move, too busy trying to keep the floor from flip-flopping.

“Amy! Help me hold her down!”

Like always, his bark snapped her out of it. She rushed in and sat on Lara’s legs, pinning them flat. Her dad leaned down hard onto Lara’s chest. She was crazed, gnashing and popping her teeth like a rabid animal. He lowered the blade into the open wound.

“Dad, don’t. You’re going to kill her.”

“It’s okay. Cross your fingers and pray this works.”

Amy fought the urge to pull his hand away. “Why are you doing that?”

Lara’s thrashing subsided a little as the blade bit into her flesh. Almost incrementally, the more the blade cut, the more her frenzy burned off.

Her dad looked up at her. “Got to my office, get the handcuffs from my desk. Second drawer down. Then run upstairs. There’s a gun on my nightstand. The eagle. Get that too.”

“The big gun? Why?” Amy balked at the thought. “You can’t shoot her.”

“Just go!”

She ran, colliding into walls as she sprinted through the mud room to his office. The dog chased her. Rifling the drawer, she pulled up the cuffs and ran for the stairs. The big handgun on the nightstand, heavy and lethal in her hand. Hammering down the steps, back to the living room. “Here.”

Her dad caught the bracelets and spun one cuff around Lara’s wrist. Yanking her arm flat across the floor, he snapped the second cuff around the leg of the old radiator. The second he let up off of her, Lara roared and clawed at him but was jerked back, wrist taught against the chain.

Amy passed the gun to him. He double-checked the safety and kept the barrel trained on the floor and then backed away.

Lara thrashed and chomped and pulled against the restraint with rabid ferocity. A wolf in a leg-trap. “Is that…” Amy stammered. “Is it really her?”

“Fraid so.” He was still catching his breath.

Lara jerked and flailed against the bracelets.

“I can’t look,” Amy said. “It’s freaking me out.”

“Go in the other room.”

Good advice but Amy couldn’t tear her eyes away. The thing chained to the radiator was in no way Lara Mendes. It coiled and jerked. Popping sounds emanated from it. Amy watched the woman’s hands morph, the knuckles buckle and pop under the skin.

She looked at her dad. “Can’t you do something? She’s in pain.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

Fresh blood spattered onto the carpet. The open wound on Lara’s belly ran and spilled. Amy ran to get a handful of towels and then approached the thrashing figure on the floor.

“No. Stay away from her.”

“She’s going to bleed to death!”

Amy felt herself shoved aside. Gallagher bore down fast and cracked the butt of the gun across Lara’s temple.

A fresh dribble of blood. Lara Mendes’s eyes rolled over white and her body went limp.

Amy jolted forward, pulling back the woman’s eyelids with her thumb. Oh shit. Did he just kill her? The woman’s head flopped loose in Amy’s hands, lifeless as a sock-puppet.

Amy sat at the kitchen table, eyes blasted from what she had seen. Trying to make sense of it. The husky brushed her knee and she startled. She looked into its blue eyes and hesitated before scratching its ears. It was just a dog, not the thing she had seen in the other room. Still, something seismic had shifted in the world and nothing felt solid anymore.

Gallagher came back from the living room, pitched the bloodied towels into the sink and washed his hands.

It was a moment before Amy found her voice. “Is she all right?”

“She’s out cold.”

“Yeah but is she...” Amy groped for a word, “...normal?”

“Yes.” He dried his hands on a towel and looked at his daughter. “You okay?”

Her eyes looked raw, her expression blank. He knew that look, having seen it in the mirror months ago. A stupid, gap-mouthed expression of trying to make sense of the impossible.

When Amy spoke, her voice was hushed. Sharing a secret. “I didn’t believe you. When you told me about Lara. I’m sorry.”

“Who would?”

“I can’t believe she’s still alive. How did you find her?”

He outlined the events as briefly as possible. About how Lara had been on the run all this time, hiding, moving on. He left out any mention of the man Lara had called Grissom. Or the other wolf, the incident at the roadside. When he finished, Amy stared down at the table and didn’t speak.

He got up and turned the kettle on. “Do you want some tea?”

“This is crazy,” Amy said slowly. She had yet to shake the thousand-yard stare. “I mean, werewolves? How can they exist and no one knows?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart. I guess they know how to hide.”

Amy turned her head towards the living room. “And Lara. On the run all this time. Alone. She must have been so scared.”

“She’s tough.”

The clocked ticked on. Amy looked up at her father. “What do we do now?”

Gallagher came to the table. Folded his hand over hers. “We help her. Hide her. Protect her from herself if we have to. Beyond that, I don’t know yet.”

Amy’s eyes darted around the room, slowly turning things over in her head. “What if she changes? I mean, all the way, totally wolfs out?”

“If it comes to that, if she, or it, turns on us? We protect ourselves.” He crossed to the counter and laid the big handgun on the table. He thumbed the latch and slid the magazine out. “These rounds have silver loads. They’ll do the job.”

She took up the magazine and inspected the first cartridge. “You can’t…”

“Don’t rule out anything.”

“I still don’t like this gun.”

“But you know how to handle it.”

She clunked it down onto the table and looked at him. “Is this why you taught me how to shoot?”

“I used to think I knew what was out there. On the street, the bad people. I was wrong.” His eyes drifted down to the weapon between them. “I needed you to be prepared.”

TWENTY-THREE

AMY ROLLED OVER and bumped her nose on something hard. The laptop lay where her pillow should be. The light was on and she was still in her clothes. The laptop was open but the screen was dark. Next to it was a notebook and a pen, pages of scribbled notes.

After saying goodnight to her dad and ensuring that Lara was comfortable on the sofa, Amy had gone to bed too wound up to sleep. So she did the one thing that always made her sleepy: homework. Firing up the laptop, she had spent the night researching monsters. Werewolves, lycanthropes, wolfsbane, silver weapons, full moons and ancient curses. Dutifully taking notes, she had hoped to find some consistency within the tangled web of folklore and pop culture, something she could use. There was little consistency among the sources, no consensus on what constituted a werewolf or how to cure someone afflicted with it. Was it supernatural or biological? Curse or disease?

She must have fallen asleep taking notes. She closed the laptop and lowered it to the floor. Rooting through a drawer for some clean pajamas, she heard the dog whining downstairs.

Creeping downstairs, she sidled to the living room to check on Lara. The sofa was empty, the blanket in a heap on the floor. The dog whined, nosing the bottom of the front door. Lara’s heavy parka was gone from the hook in the hallway. Her boots too.

No.

She hurried to the front door and flung it open to a cold blast of air. The dog ran out.

Lara Mendes sat on the front stoop, pulling her boots on. She turned and looked up at Amy and then bent back to tighten the boots.

The porch was frigid against Amy’s bare feet. “Lara? Are you all right?”

“I have to go.”

“Go where?” Amy folded her arms against the cold. “Please, don’t. What’s Dad gonna say?”

Lara stood, looked at Amy and then looked away. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

“It doesn’t matter. Come back inside.”

The muscles under Lara’s cheek clenched and her eyes hardened, clamping down what was roiling up under the surface. “I could have hurt you tonight. Your dad. I couldn’t live with that.” She turned and staggered down to the walk.

Amy snatched the woman’s arm. “No. Not after all this. I thought you were dead, you can’t just disappear now.”

“I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“No. Do you know how long he searched for you? Don’t do this to him, Lara. Not after all this.” She shuddered, buffeted by the cold wind. “It would kill him.”

Lara wavered, her resolve vaporizing as fast as her breath on the air.

Amy linked her arm around Lara’s and coaxed the woman back up the porch. “Come on. Before I freeze out here.”

Back inside, Amy helped her ease out of her parka. “Does it hurt?” she asked, making a slicing motion across her stomach. “The cut?”

“It’s okay. But my head is killing me. What did your dad hit me with?”

“Gun butt.” Amy rooted through the cupboard over the sink for a bottle of aspirin. Shook a couple out and poured a glass of water. “Here.”

Lara accepted the pills. “Go back to bed, Amy. Get some sleep.”

Amy cocked an eyebrow, wary of being hoodwinked. “Promise me you won’t run?”

Lara crossed her heart. “Scouts honor. To be honest, I don’t think I could make it past the driveway right now.”

“Okay.” Amy bit her lip, stalling. Something on her mind. “Lara, I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“I gave up on you. I thought you were gone. Like for good.”

“You were meant to.” She averted the girl’s eyes. “I’m the one who should be sorry. For putting you through that.”

“It was awful. The weeks went by without a sign or clue or anything. I gave up.” She shivered, looking down at her feet. “But Dad never gave up. He kept looking and looking. I told him to stop. To accept that you were gone and to move on. I’m sorry.”

Lara looked at this young girl trying so hard to be strong. She had never considered the havoc she wreaked with her vanishing act. Ripples on a pond or dominoes falling in order, there were consequences. How to reconcile that?

She scrambled her brain for some way to explain but got cut short by the girl’s embrace. “I’m glad you’re back,” the girl said.

Lara squeezed the girl and then shooed her off to bed, promising twice to not flee before morning. She watched Amy go up the stairs and then went back to the sofa. Admonished herself to get some sleep.

For once, she was grateful that her tear ducts didn’t work anymore.

“Werewolves are universal. From the ancient Greeks to Native North Americans, Asia, Europe, every culture seems to have some form of lycanthropy. But the similarity ends there. In some cultures, it’s a curse given by a witch, or it’s a gift from a shaman. Some people believed the werewolf was actually your soul, let loose to destroy your own kind.” Amy paged through her notes. “Weird, huh?”

Across the table, Lara and her father stared at her like she’d grown two heads. He frowned. “Where did you get that?”

“The internet,” Amy shrugged, like there could be some other answer. “I’ve been researching it.”

“Wonderful.”

The three of them sitting round the kitchen table. Cartons of Indian take-out spread out on the table top. Amy’s favourite. She had called her dad at work and cajoled him into picking it up on his way home. A special occasion, she said. When he groused, she reminded him that it was Christmas and not to be a Grinch.

Despite the events of last night, the three of them had carried on like it was any other day. Gallagher, hurrying to get out of the house. Hollering at his daughter to get up and get her butt in gear. Amy grumpy and slow like every morning. Her dad reminding her that she had work today, nagging her not to be late. Lara, although still a little shaky, made breakfast. Amy marvelled at the normalness of it all, the three of them bustling through an everyday routine. She said nothing to her dad about Lara’s attempt to run away the night before. Neither did Lara, but she winked at Amy over her coffee. A silent nod of thanks for keeping a secret.

Amy had her dad drop her off at work and Lara stayed home with the dog. Coming home that afternoon, she found Lara flipping through the news, bored. They caught up, Lara eager to know what Amy had been up to these last three months. When dad came home, they unpacked the take-out cartons and tucked in.

Flipping through her notebook, Amy went on. “It’s weird. Every culture has some version of a shapeshifter but there’s no consistency to any of it. But maybe that’s how it works, you know? It affects everyone differently.”

Lara shifted in her chair, uncomfortable with discussing it openly like this. Like chatting about some flaw, like a stutter or a wart, as dinner conversation. “We don’t have to talk about this,” she said.

“Of course we do.” Amy jerked her head up in surprise. “Not to be rude, Lara, but you’re a lycanthrope. How often does that happen?”

Gallagher sipped his beer. “It’s not a freak show, Amy.”

“I know. I’m just trying to find some answers to something that’s kinda unprecedented. I mean, what is it? Is it biological, like a disease, or is it supernatural? What triggers it? Does the moon have anything to do with it?”

“It has nothing to do with the moon,” Lara said.

Amy looked at her dad. “See, there’s something. You have to understand something first before you can deal with it.”

“Isn’t it past your bedtime?” Gallagher groused.

She ignored him. “So how does it work? Can you switch anytime at will?”

“It’s always there, just under the surface. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s like keeping a muscle clenched. All I’d have to do is let go.”

“But there is a trigger?” Amy perked up.

“It runs off your emotions. Raw, primitive ones. Like fear.” Here she shot a look towards Gallagher and looked away. “Some other emotion.”

Gallagher coughed, watched his daughter take notes. Notes, for god’s sakes.

“So what’s the deal with the silver? When Dad cut you with it last night, you stopped convulsing.”

“Silver can shut it down. If I do it before I’m too far gone.” Lara pushed her plate back. “Why that works, I don’t know.”

Amy, tapping her pen against her lips. “Maybe it’s a cure.”

“There is no cure.”

Gallagher squared Lara with a look. “We don’t know that.”

“Well there’s death,” she said. “That cure is garaunteed.”

“Ivan Prall thought he had a cure.”

“He was wrong.”

Amy watched them, eyes moving from one to the other like a tennis match. Hearing the tension under their voices. There was more to the story. “Forget about a cure for now. We just need to manage the symptoms.”

“What do you mean?”

“How does the silver knife work?”

“By drawing blood. Cutting the silver into the bloodflow shuts down the transformation.” Lara held out her forearm, the scars crisscrossed over the skin. “If I catch it in time.”

“Why silver?” Gallagher said. “Of all the weird things in the folklore, why does that one work?”

“It’s pure,” Amy suggested. “The ancients believed it could purify illness. Silver can prevent sepsis too.”

“It’s a moot point,” Lara said. Impatient, having already run through the same arguments in her head for months. “Maybe it’s a chemical reaction or maybe its a placebo. I believe it will work, so it does. There’s no way to know for sure.”

Gallagher sneered. “So what, we just give up?”

“No, we just face some simple truths. There are no real answers.” She nodded at Amy’s notebook. “It’s fairy tales and conjecture. Nada mas.”

He let it go. Lara reverted to Spanish when riled.

“It works in piercings,” Amy offered, oblivious.

“Piercings?”

Amy clutched her earlobe although there was no earring to be seen. “It’s the one metal that won’t cause infection. Ask any tattoo artist.”

“Again, fascinating but not that useful.” Lara held a palm to the sky. “You see the dilemma.”

“But in your case the silver only works if you cut before you’re too far gone?” Amy chewed her pen then bolted up and tossed her notes onto the table. “I got an idea. Be right back.”

She ran for the stairs. Lara frowned and rose to clear the table. Gallagher tucked the leftovers in the fridge and then leaned against the counter. “Why are you so quick to dismiss any idea that might help?”

“This part of it is new to you, John. You said yourself you hadn’t thought about what to do once you found me.” She ran the faucet, plugged the sink and looked back at him. “I’ve done nothing but think about all this for months. My expectations for a happy ending are a little soggy by now.”

“And that’s the problem. You’ve already given up.” He brushed her shoulder, sliding more plates into the water. “Because you’ve been working the problem alone, with no one to bounce ideas off of. That’s why the lieutenant insists we work in pairs. The open murder book will swallow a detective working solo. Simple as that.”

“Facing reality is not the same as giving up.”

She felt his hand on her back. “Hey,” he said. “You’re not alone. Not anymore. So give your old partner a chance to suss out the landscape, huh?” His hand slid down to her waist. “Listen, last night was weird. My bad. I wasn’t thinking.”

She turned the water off. “There was two of us there. Half of that bad was mine.”

A tiny respite from the tough exterior and wary-looking glances. He scrambled for the right words to say but then Amy came crashing back down the stairs.

“Ta-da!” Amy bounded up, breathless. She held up a small metal bolt.

Gallagher squinted. “What is it?”

“It’s a piercing stud. Silver.”

“You want to give Lara a piercing?”

Amy scowled at her dad, turning to Lara. “Instead of cutting when the change comes on, this will keep the silver in your skin all the time. Or at least until it heals. Then we’ll have to stud in a new spot.”

“Let me see that.” Lara held the stud up to the light. Over an inch long, thick.

Gallagher looked skeptical. “It’s a bit big for an earring, isn’t it?”

“Not her ear, dad.” Amy beamed and patted Lara’s stomach. “Your navel.”

Even the dog hung its face in doubt.

Lara handed the stud back. “Your circus, kid. Let’s give it a shot.”

“Are you sure that’s sterilized enough?”

“It’s fine. Don’t block the light.”

“So what do you do, just stab it through?”

“Dad, please...”

Lara Mendes lay on the living room floor, an old beach towel spread underneath her. She hoisted up her shirt and exposed her belly. The muscles taut, ribs poking up in ripples through the skin.

Amy sat on Lara’s legs, holding a thick piercing needle still wet with rubbing alcohol. The silver bolt, likewise sterilized, was pinched in her latex-gloved fingers.

Gallagher kneeled over them, training a flashlight onto Lara’s navel. “Where did you get that thing?”

“It’s Gabby’s.”

“I shoulda known. And what exactly were two planning on doing with this stuff? Giving each other studs?”

Lara shot him a look. “John. Not now.”

“Okay, hold still.” Amy bent to her work, pinching up a wedge of flesh and threading the needle against the skin. The instrument shook, as did her whole hand.

“Ouch.”

“Hold still.”

“I am.”

It was harder than it looked. Blood dribbled out and welled up in the navel and Amy couldn’t see the point of contact. She pushed and Lara flinched but Amy couldn’t push the needle any further.

“Is it done?”

“I can’t get it to go through.”

“Just push it,” Gallagher said.

“I am!” Amy snapped. “Do you want to try it?”

“Nope. This is your idea.” He grabbed a towel and smeared away the blood. “Lara, look at the ceiling and hold your breath.”

Lara looked away, saw the dog watching them.

“Get a good grip,” Gallagher whispered to his daughter. “Then give it all you got.”

Amy held her breath too and stabbed. Lara gasped and her stomach caved in but the needle went through. “Okay,” Amy panted. “Gimme the stud.”

“That stings.”

“Almost there,” he said.

Amy lined up the stud, pulled the needle through and threaded the stud in. Gallagher dabbed the blood away and Amy capped the silver stud. She leaned back, holding her bloodied hands up. “There. How does that feel?”

Lara sighed, looked at them both. “Good. It feels good.” In truth, she felt nothing but a sharp sting. No discernible change inside, no exorcism of the monster coiled in her heart. But Amy seemed pleased so she kept that information to herself.

TWENTY-FOUR

GALLAGHER CAME TO work with a tray of tall coffee cups in hand, the fancy stuff that Detective Wade always went for. He was feeling magnanimous and generous, perhaps a little guilty too. Wade was a decent guy who had tolerated his black moods and frequent disappearances with nary a complaint nor snide remark. Buying a round of coffee, even the froo-froo stuff Wade indulged in, wouldn’t make up for all of it but it was a start.

Gallagher strode with an uncharacteristic light step. Despite the fact that he had left his teenage daughter alone with his former homicide partner, who had been presumed dead but was contrarily alive and cursed with lycanthropy, the day seemed especially fine. He ambled off to work with a lightness in his heart so rare he barely recognized what it was. It was Christmas too.

“What’s all this?” Detective Wade looked at the tray in Gallagher’s hand. Wary, he said “You need a favor, G?”

“My turn to buy the joe.” Gallagher slid the tall cup onto Wade’s desk and held the empty tray for a moment before flinging it like a Frisbee across the bullpen to Detective Kopzych’s desk.

“Your turn was in November.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Wade plucked the lid off the cup and looked inside, idly wondering if it had been poisoned. “You feeling okay, buddy?”

Gallagher shrugged. “It’s just coffee, homes. Don’t go all weepy.”

“Somebody got lucky last night.” Wade wagged his finger, grinning wide. “Come on, muchacho. What’s the poor woman’s name?”

“Your sister.” He looked over the mess of his inbox. “What fraction of the daily manure pile are we tackling today?”

“Rowe and Dorsey caught a floater on the riverbank over in Lakewood. They might need some help combing the weeds.”

“Better than sitting here.” He pushed the paperwork away. The desk phone buzzed and he banged up the receiver. “Gallagher.”

“G, you got another hit.” Taylor down in IT. “Pretty good match too.”

“Dude, it’s your lucky day. You can shut down the bloodhounds. I won’t be needing it anymore.”

“Now you tell me? Shit, man.” Taylor wheezed into the phone. “You wanna hear this last hit or was this a monumental waste of my time and talent too?”

“Naw, let’s hear it.”

“Some lady reported that her dog was killed by something. A bear or a giant dog, she didn’t know what. But it ripped her pooch to hamburger.”

“Where was this?”

“Northeast Stafford. No Po.”

North Portland. Close indeed.

Lara was going stir crazy, that was plain enough. She couldn’t sit still and Amy watched her cross repeatedly to the bay window to stare outside. The spruce lined street and the telephone lines drooping from pole to pole in a cat’s cradle of humming wire. Like a date abandoned on prom night, Lara would turn away and busy herself with some task only to return to the double-glazed glass again.

“Are you expecting someone?” Amy asked, looking up from her creaky old laptop propped open on the kitchen table.

“What?” Lara turned, her eyes a thousand yards away.

“You keep looking out the window.”

“It’s nothing.” Lara strode to the kitchen and folded her arms. She put away the two dishes in the dryrack and wiped the counter with the cloth and folded her arms again. “Just cabin fever, I guess. No big deal.”

Amy studied her for a moment and a curious study she was. Different from how she used to know her but it wasn’t just the reedy thinness of her or the sombre hollows of her eyes. A twitchy edge underwrit Lara Mendes’s every movement. Her eyes darted at any stirring and her head constantly cocked at an angle, as if her ear snagged on some sound only she heard. Or the dog. More than once she had caught Lara and the husky turn their heads to the door at precisely the same instant and pause. It was freaky. “What was it like? Being on your own out there.”

“Harsh. Scary sometimes. Lonely.”

“Of course,” Amy nodded. “Still, it must have been kinda cool being totally free. No one to answer to. No commitments, no responsibilities.”

Lara shook her head. “There was nothing free about it. I was living hand-to-mouth, scrabbling for any scrap. It’s unbelievably hard, being that alone. There were more than a few nights I went hungry or slept out in the open.” She swept her hand before her, as if dealing an invisible hand. “Freedom like that is a burden.”

Amy mulled it over but with had little notion of what it meant, neither precedent nor antecedent. She changed the subject. “Let’s get out of here for awhile.”

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Psshaw. We’ll hit Mississippi Ave and go walking, get something to eat. I still got Christmas shopping to do.”

Lara’s eyes drifted to the window again, the yearning writ plain across her face but she sobered. “No. I can’t risk being seen.”

“What are the chances? Hang on.” Amy ran to the hall closet, dug through it and came back with a fur trimmed bomber’s hat. Dark sunglasses. “Wear this.”

Lara took the glasses and headgear, turning them over in her hands. Before she could protest, Amy clapped her hands together like a little kid. “Try it on.”

Humoring the girl, Lara went to the mirror in the hallway and pulled the hat on, pushed the glasses on her nose. Plain and anonymous. Any passerby on a cold street.

“See?” Amy plunged back into the closet and thrust a long coat into Lara’s hands. “Your army parka looks a little conspicuous. Wear this.”

Lara reminded herself that she was the adult here and the plan was foolishly risky but the enthusiasm of a young girl can be rolling tidal wave. Hard to push back.

A short trip, she comprised. Just enough to get some air and stretch her legs. No harm, no foul.

“Roosevelt was a good boy. He never did nobody no wrong. It’s just awful.” The woman’s name was Maggie and she lived in a small but tidy bungalow on Stafford Street. She’d let Gallagher in and the two of them stood in her foyer, Maggie folding her arms against the draft whistling under the door. “Just goddawful it was.”

“What time was this?” Gallagher had his notebook out but had yet to record any detail. “Roughly?”

“Past midnight. Closer to one, probably.”

“And what did you see?”

“Roosevelt started barking something awful. He’s a good boy, only barks when there’s trouble. He was a good boy, I should say.” The woman plucked a tissue from her sleeve, dabbed her nose and tucked the tissue back where it came. “I came down to bring him inside, hush him up. There was this goddawful roar, like nothing I ain’t never heard and Roosevelt got real quiet. Then...”

Gallagher waited for her composure to return, watching her retrieve the crumpled tissue from her sleeve again. He patted his pockets for a tissue pack but had none.

“This thing swooped out of nowhere and just took him off. Roosevelt was there one minute and then this blur of something and then whoosh, my dog was gone. I went outside later, to call him. He was crumpled up against the back fence like a broken-up old toy.” She started to cry again. “I didn’t even recognize him at first he was so torn up.”

“And the animal that took Roosevelt, you said it was a big dog.”

“I don’t know what else it could have been. I thought maybe a bear, but that’s silly.”

“Can you describe it?”

“It was big. Fast. That’s all I saw.”

“What colour was it?”

“What?”

“Anything. Light, dark?”

“I don’t know. It was a blur and it was loud. Goddawful sound I never want to hear.”

Gallagher peered out the window, looking over the yard. “Do you mind if I take a look at the spot where you found him?”

“Go ahead. You’re welcome to see Roosevelt too, if you want?”

“He’s still here?”

“Nobody’s come to pick him up yet.” She nodded towards the hallway. “He’s in the garage.”

Maggie led the way into the garage and popped the overhead light on. A Chrysler Reliant took up most of the space, asleep under a layer of dust. Maggie cinched her cardigan tighter against the drop in temperature and shuffled past the car to the stack of garbage cans. “Been two days since I called and it’s damn outrageous it’s taken you people this long, I don’t mind telling you. Leaving me to sit with the poor dog and him two days dead.”

“Animal services should have picked him up by now.”

Maggie turned, looked at him. “Ain’t you animal services?”

“No ma’am. I’m a police officer.”

Her brow arced in a veneer of disapproval. “You forget your uniform this morning, young man?”

“No. I’m a detective. We get to dress a little better than the beat cops.”

“Detective? Now that’s more like it.”

Settled next to the recycling bin was a plastic storage tub with a fitted lid. Gallagher pointed at it. “Is this it?”

“Yes.” Maggie turned away, waving her hand as if to call it all off. “You help yourself, if you don’t mind. I don’t need to see that again.”

She crossed to the single window in the garage and burnished a clear spot from the grime on it. Gallagher snapped off the container lid. A garbage bag folded inside. He folded back the plastic and turned his head from the rank smell that wafted up. Poor Roosevelt was a tangled mass of fur and pokey ribslats. What fur was left was dark with blood. It was hard to even recognize the carcass as canine.

Snapping on the latex gloves, he turned to the dog owner at the window. “It’s awfully cold out here, Maggie. Why don’t you go back inside. I’ll put everything back as I found it. I’ll call animal services and get them to come for Roosevelt right away.”

“Thank you.” She shuffled back to the door and stopped before going inside. “Terrible way to go,” she said, nodding to the bin at his feet. “Man or animal, no one deserves to die like that.”

He agreed and waited until she went back into the house. Turning back to the makeshift tomb, he spread out some old newspaper across the floor and lifted out pieces of the carcass. He laid them over the paper, the severed legs and crushed torso of exposed ribs, the head flopping loose like a rag. Laid out on the floor, he examined the wounds in the hide and the scoring on the snapped bones. A chill rippled down his backbone.

He’d seen marks like this before.

Winter in Portland. What little snow there was slurred into a grey slush along the curb. The cold was damp and bone-seeping, not crisp like the open country but Lara Mendes breathed it all in. She passed faces along the sidewalk, looked up at the festive lights strung from lampposts and the tinsel garlands in the shop windows and realized again how much she missed her old home. A sharp tug at her heart over these simple things that she had exiled herself from. A girl half her age at her side, linked at her arm as she pointed out at this particularly window display or that cyclist outfitted in a full Santa costume, the red felt material mottled dark from the slushy streetspray. Portland with its fabled citizenry of artists, shamans, fools and iconoclasts, each denizen determined to outwit the last in eccentricity and all of it washing the streets in a miasma of gleeful oddity. Lara relished every step, awestruck at how homesick she was for a city she had so often complained about.

“Oh, I love this store.” Amy pulled her into another oddly painted shop with a bizarre window display. Inside, the aisles were narrowed by racks of vintage clothes and the air cloyed with burnt patchouli. Amy flipped through the hangers and plucked out a shirt, holding it up for inspection. “This is cool. It would look great on you. Where’s the change room?”

Lara removed her shades and looked the item over. Honestly touched at Amy’s suggestions at first but now, the fifteenth or thirtieth time, she could muster no more sincerity. “I can’t look at anymore, Amy. Why don’t you finish your Christmas list. I’ll wait outside.”

The girl’s face fell and she re-examined the item. “You don’t like it? It’s your color.”

Lara unzipped her coat, stifled in the humid confines of the store. She peeled off her hat and shook out her hair. “I’ve hit my limit.”

Amy wondered if she’d done something wrong. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I just need some air. You go on.” She shooed the girl along and wound through the tight aisles for the door.

Lara stood under the canvas eaves of the shop and drew breath through her nose. The wind smelled clean after the suffocating reek of hippie perfume, steam-drying and mothballs. She watched the cars trundle past, tires splaying a brownish sludge onto the sidewalk. A car horn blared up North Mississippi, followed by the bellowing of some irate driver and Lara peered down the causeway to see a cab driver arguing with a bike courier. Some things never change.

Pedestrians moved around her, shoulders up against the cold and sidestepping the puddles of slush. Shoppers rushing home with their treasures.

“Lara?”

Lara froze, too afraid to turn and face the voice but it was too late not to. She had forgotten to put the hat and sunglasses back on before hitting the street.

“Lara Mendes?”

Lara turned. Charlene Farbre stood before her with a look of disbelief dropping her face. Detective Charlene Farbre, her old friend and colleague from Assault Detail. Lara scrambled for some ruse or lie but her mind tangled in too many threads until it was overruled by one simple urge. Run.

Charlene took a step closer but remained wary, as if some elaborate prank was playing around her. “Lara, it’s me, Charlene. My God, I can’t believe it’s you…”

Lara watched the woman’s eyes search her own for some tick of recognition and Lara remembered that she looked different now. Some gaunt phantom of herself and this was what Detective Charlene Farbre was trying to parse.

“Perdón?” Lara blurted up without thinking. Then, rolling with the ruse, she said “No hablo Ingles.”

Charlene leaned back as if she’d touched something hot. She reached out for Lara’s arm. “Lara, stop. It’s me. Where have you been? Everyone searched--“

“No me toques.” Lara snatched her arm back but her heart stung at the hurt look on her old friend’s face. She turned and marched away, bootheels clicking dully on the wet pavement. She didn’t look back as Charlene called after her. Amy, still in the shop, would wonder where she’d gone. She’d explain later. Lara turned down the first corner and broke into a run.

Charlene Farbre stood on the slushy sidewalk calling out to an empty street. It didn’t make any sense. The woman had looked so much like her missing friend and yet, not quite. Altered somehow. The Spanish had thrown her and all she could surmise was that this woman bore an eerie resemblance to Lara Mendes. But Lara was Hispanic…

Charlene trudged back to her car, wondering why on earth her old friend would pretend not to know her. Turning the ignition, she saw a young woman rush out of a store and look frantically up and down the street as if she’d lost something. Charlene hit the wipers to get a better look at the girl before she ran off in the same direction as the mystery woman. She knew this girl. Had in fact met her this summer. Her name was Amy. The teenaged daughter of Lara’s former partner in Homicide Detail.

TWENTY-FIVE

LARA RAN FOR cover, shelter, anything. She didn’t know what she was running to until she saw it. A small clapboard church on Skidmore, the door illuminated by a single naked bulb.

The door groaned as she pushed against it. The nave was dark, the only light glowing from a dozen candles at the feet of the virgin. The smell of polished wood and candlewax was strong and it tripped childhood memories. For a tiny moment, Lara idly wondered if she would burst into flames stepping foot inside a church. She closed the heavy door behind her, took another step towards the pews and nothing happened. God was too busy to incinerate a tiny monster such as herself.

The pew was solid but comfortable. She studied the enormous cross suspended over the altar, the wooden figure twisted and bleeding on the crosstree. Coming back to Portland had been a mistake. What did she think was going to happen? A happily ever after with Gallagher? An insane notion. There was no place for her here. She should have ran the moment she spotted Gallagher. Further into the wilderness, deep and remote to someplace where there were no roads, no people, no life save that of rocks and trees.

She would go. There was just no other choice. The last two days had been so good. Some small scrap of normalcy. Not being alone. Being able to talk to someone without guarding her words. Sitting over a cup of coffee listening to John and Amy nanner across the breakfast table. The thought of leaving it behind again broke something inside her.

A noise rang out, echoing over the vaulted ceiling. She wasn’t alone.

Four pews up the aisle before her, a figure rose and sat up. Some intransigent sleeping off a drunk on the church pew. The man leaned back and stretched his elbows on the backrest of the pew. His boots came up and propped upon the pew before him, crossed casually at the ankles.

“You see what I mean now,” the man spoke. “Suicide becomes the viable option.”

Lara slid down the pew as if pricked with a needle, deflating from a slow leak. She knew who it was before he even spoke. Who else could it be?

Grissom didn’t look back at her. His head tilted up as he studied the cross in the sacristy. “Sorry it didn’t work out for you. You almost smell happy to me.”

Lara patted her pockets for a weapon but there was no weapon. Grissom didn’t move, his feet up like he was at a baseball game. She watched his back. A clear, easy headshot. If only she had something to shoot him with.

“That was a hell of a shot you took at me.” Grissom tilted his head slightly. “Silver-tipped bullets? Goddamn girl, where’d you get those? You got any idea how hard it is to dig those slugs out of your leg? I’m still limping.”

She cast her eyes back to the door. If Grissom had a game leg, she could probably outrun him.

“I’m guessing your boyfriend there had the silver loads. He knows what you are, doesn’t he?”

“Why did you follow me?” Lara kept her timbre steady. Don’t show fear. “My answer hasn’t changed.”

“You know you can’t stay here. I’m giving you one last chance to set things right.”

She looked at the door again but said nothing.

“You got three options, honey. I’m offering you one. The second is to do yourself in, which I guess those silver-tips might come in handy. But if you stay here, I guarantee you you will lose control and the wolf will kill everyone you know.”

“That’s supposed to scare me?”

“Who do you think the wolf will go for first? Those closest to you. The scents she knows. You want that?” His boots thudded to the floor and he tilted off the pew and stood. He pivoted and finally looked at her. “There’s a rest stop out on highway five, just outside of north Van. You meet me there tonight and we’ll leave without rustling a leaf and your people will be safe. If you don’t show, I can’t guarantee their safety. Simple as that.”

Lara felt every muscle constrict, like a spring coiling. Fight or run.

“It’s unusual to hold out this long,” he said. “To walk that thin line between wolf and human. But you got to go all the way, Lara. Become a true wolf. The pack needs you.” Grissom made a slight bow and sauntered to the rectory door. He disappeared behind a curtain and then she heard a door click shut. He had limped the whole way, favoring his left leg.

Gallagher clocked out, wondering how long it would take Lieutenant Cabrisi to read him riot for his lax hours. He’d deal with it when it came. For now, he was fixated on the wreckage of the dog carcass and the fact that three calls home had gone unanswered. Lara wouldn’t pick up but Amy was supposed to be home.

Cutting through the parking garage to his space, he heard the heavy door slam open behind him. Heels ringing smartly off the concrete.

“Gallagher?”

Turning, he saw Detective Farbre marching up. “Hey Charlene. What’s up?”

“I think I just saw Lara Mendes,” she said.

He froze, feigned surprise. “What are you talking about?”

“North Mississippi, just standing on the street. I swear to God it was her. Has she contacted you?”

“No.” Keel this easy, he thought. “Are sure it was her?”

“I don’t know. It looked like her, but different. Like she was ill.”

“When was this? What did she say?”

“She spoke nothing but Spanish to me. But I swear to God she knew it was me. I think she’s been here in town all this time, hiding.”

“Why would she do that?”

“She was involved in Lieutenant Vogel’s death. Maybe she’s hiding something.”

“You knew Lara as well as I did. Better even. Does that sound like her?”

“I don’t know, John. The woman vanished into thin air three months ago and her skinny doppelganger shows up wandering the streets. I don’t know what to make of it but we need to find this woman.”

He started for his truck, keys jingling his hand. “Okay, we will. But right now I gotta run home. Keep me posted, okay?”

“Gallagher, what the hell?” Charlene’s eyes bugged from their sockets. “Your missing partner is out there somewhere and you don’t care?”

He climbed behind the wheel. “Course I do. But I got something right now.”

She stopped the door from closing. “John, has she contacted you?”

“No.”

She zeroed in on his eyes and he knew he had to pull this off but Charlene Farbre was a detective. She was lied to on a daily basis and her internal bullshit-detector was damn near faultless. The jig was already up. Charlene’s face had gone from suspicion to hurt. “You know. How could you keep this secret? After all this.”

Gallagher took a breath and squared her with a look of his own. “Charlene, please. I can’t explain. Just stay out of it for now.”

The look on her face was terrible. Shock, hurt, betrayal. He slammed the door shut, fired the ignition and pulled out of the parking space. He’d have to deal with it later. Could Charlene be trusted if he told her the truth? Could she help? Or would she, like any sane person, go running in the opposite direction?

Wheeling onto Multnomah, his phone went off. He fished it up, hoping it wasn’t Farbre.

“Dad?”

“Amy, I’ve been calling the house all afternoon. Where are you?”

Silence on the other end. Ambient street noise in the background.

“Amy? What’s wrong?”

“Lara’s gone. Dad, I’m sorry. I’ve lost her.”

“Okay, slow down. What happened?”

Twinkling lights whooshed over the windshield as he listened to Amy’s rushed, fumbling train of events. He told her to calm down then asked where she was.

“I’m still here on Mississip, looking for her. Do you think she’s at home?”

“Stay where you are. I’ll stop at the house. If she’s not there, I’ll come find you. Go inside somewhere, stay warm. I’ll call back in five minutes.”

He hung up, pushed the accelerator and gunned for home.

Amy pulled the hood of her coat up as the snow fell around her. Trudging two blocks west and still searching for Lara, she stood under a streetlamp trying to decide whether to keep going or to double back, vainly hoping the missing woman would return.

“You’ll catch your death out here in this damp.”

Amy turned. A tall man in a dark coat stepped into the streetlamp’s pool of light. He turned his collar up against the chill and smiled at her. “I hate winter in this city. Too wet, too damp.” He nodded at the grey slush around Amy’s feet. “Too goddamn mucky.”

Amy didn’t react. Chatty strangers were nothing unusual, especially on this street. The man didn’t seem like trouble, didn’t have the twitchy look of the crazy nor the unsteady stagger of the dead drunk. There was something about his face however, that kept pulling her gaze like a magnet. Not necessarily good-looking but something that drew her in.

The man tilted his face to the falling snow. “How many days until Christmas?”

“You don’t have a calendar?” Amy said.

“I kindly gave up on ‘em.”

“Uh-huh. So how do you know what day it is?”

“Who cares what day of the week it is? Or the artificial number the calendar dictates. You need to know the season is all.”

Amy scanned the street for movement but nothing moved. Even the traffic seemed to have given up and gone home. “Season, huh? Must be hell keeping a dental appointment.”

He watched her eyeballing the deserted street. “Looking for somebody?”

Amy gave him a once-over. She had pretty good instincts for creeps and weirdos but the man didn’t trip any of her Spidey-senses. Still. “My dad’s picking me up. He’s a cop.”

“You’re old man’s a Johnny Law?” The stranger’s brow arced in genuine surprise. “Well ain’t that the drizzling shits.”

Amy took a step back, a tiny Spidey-sense tingling like a finger plucking a piano wire. Maybe the guy knew her dad. Was in fact some perp that her father had busted. She peeled her eyes to the street, willing the old Cherokee to appear.

“What’s your name?”

She didn’t respond, other than to take a step away, her feet freezing in her boots.

“Will you give your old man a message for me?”

She stamped her feet. This was getting weird. Where was Dad?

The man just kept grinning at her. “You tell him you can’t keep a wild animal. It don’t work.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Means you can’t take something wild and make it a pet. You keep it inside and it will sicken and die. Worse, it will turn on you.”

“Uh huh,” Amy said. “So that’s like a metaphor for something? Clever.”

“No metaphor, just a fact.” The man stirred and looked behind him, as if sensing someone was there but the street remained empty. “You tell him.”

Lara burst out of the church and stood under a streetlight. Her heart was beating faster and that eerie tingle had started buzzing through her spine. The first telltale signs of the change, tripped by Grissom’s sudden appearance. She patted her pockets only to remember that she was wearing Amy’s coat. No silver blade, no kill-switch.

Not now. She couldn’t afford the risk of changing in the city. Too many people, too many dangers. She fought to breathe through it, knowing full well that panic only fueled the transformation.

It took a moment before noticing that the ache in her backbone had receded. Her heart slowed. The change dying off before it bloomed. The stud. Her hand went to her belly and she felt the silver piercing through her clothes. It was working. Amy was right.

Amy.

She ran back to the avenue, where the falling snow refracted the holiday lights. The traffic had reduced to a few vehicles slushing their tires in the muck and barely a pedestrian anywhere. Save one, a slight figure the next block over. It was Amy.

Lara quickened her pace, keeping the girl in her sights when a second figure emerged from the shadows. Tall, male, talking to Amy. A friend or some stewbum begging for change?

The man straightened up and turned in her direction, letting his face fall under the haze of the streetlamps. Lara’s stomach dropped.

Grissom, bold as day, talking to Amy on the street. She started to run. Grissom nodded in her direction before exchanging a few words with the girl and then he limped away and disappeared into the night.

Amy looked up, spotted her friend and came running. “Lara, where did you go? You gave me a heart attack!”

“I’m sorry. I had to leave.”

“Don’t do that to me.” Amy clutched Lara’s hand, as if to keep her from disappearing again. “I don’t need that kind of panic. Why did you book on me?”

Lara cut her off. “Why were you talking to that man? What did he want?”

“Him?” Amy leaned back in surprise. “Just some chatty weirdo. He doesn’t like calendars.”

“Did he threaten you?”

“No. He’s just another bizarro. This street’s crawling with them.”

A horn blared, cutting short Lara’s next question. The Cherokee rolled up out of the swirling snow and hewed to the curb. The door swung open.

“Get in,” Gallagher barked.

TWENTY-SIX

THE DOG PRANCED around everyone’s knees as the trio tangled inside and kicked off their boots but received little more than a pat on the head. The mood was foul. Gallagher clunked the bottle of Jamesons onto the table while Lara filled a water glass. Amy scrounged a soda from the fridge and braced herself for the coming lecture from dad.

The husky’s tail ceased wagging as he withdrew to his corner near the door.

Gallagher crashed into a chair. “Honey, can you give us a minute?”

Amy looked at her dad then to Lara. She had apologized for taking such a dumb risk, owning all responsibility and expecting to be shouted deaf for it. All he had said was ‘it’s okay’ and then nothing. Not a good sign. Lara had said even less.

And now this. A stony silence before being asked to leave the room so the grown-ups could talk. So much like the last year her parents were together it was spooky. Well, she wasn’t twelve anymore. “What’s going on? You two are weird. More than usual, I mean.”

“We just need to talk.” He tilted his head towards the staircase. “Go on.”

This wasn’t fair and Amy refused to budge. “Do we really need secrets?” she said, looking to one and then the other. “After all this?”

“Yes. Now vamonos.”

Amy folded her arms and looked over at the dog.

“John,” Lara said. “Let her stay.”

He grimaced but the somber look in Lara’s eyes squelched his protest. “Okay. Let’s pow wow.”

They joined him at the table. He pushed the second tumbler towards Lara and said, “You ran into Charlene Farbre.”

“How did you know?”

“She confronted me about it. I lied but she saw right through it.”

“Who’s Charlene?” Amy asked.

“Friend of Lara’s,” he said. “A detective. You met her last summer when Lara was in the hospital.”

“Oh yeah,” Amy nodded. “She was nice.”

“That’s why I ran.” Lara swirled the liquid in her glass. “I tried to blow her off but...”

“She’s tough,” Gallagher shrugged. “Hard to bullshit past her.”

Amy sat up. “Can’t we tell her the truth? Maybe she can help?”

“It’s too risky.” Lara shook her head. “I’ve been missing for three months after an incident involving the death of a police lieutenant. Charlene’s a good cop but she couldn’t lay all that aside.”

“Even if she knew the truth?” Amy objected.

“We can’t take the chance,” Gallagher said.

“It gets worse.” Lara looked at the two of them and took a breath. “Grissom survived. He’s here in Portland.”

He nearly dropped his glass. “How do you know?”

“Who’s Grissom?” Amy said.

“He cornered me after I ran into Charlene.”

“But you shot him.”

“I winged him. He’s got a limp.” Lara sipped her drink. “He must have tracked me all the way back here.”

“Shit…”

“Who’s Grissom?” Amy repeated, louder this time.

“The man you were talking to.”

This time Gallagher’s tumbler fell. Whisky puddled and dripped off the table. His eyes turned murderous, then they latched onto his daughter. “He spoke to you? Did he do anything? Threaten you?”

“No. I thought he was just another weirdo,” Amy huffed, still in the dark. “What’s the big deal?”

“Grissom’s like me.” Lara’s voice was hushed. Ashamed. “He wants me to go with him.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. Somewhere far away where there are others like him.” Lara knocked back the glass, added “Like us.”

Gallagher’s jaw stiffened. “What did he say?”

“He expects me to meet him. Tonight.”

“He thinks you’re just gonna show up?”

Lara put her drink down. “He knows about both of you. Said there’s a price to pay if I don’t show.”

The chair squeaked as Gallagher shot up and turned to the sink. His knuckles white. “Goddamnit, Lara...”

“It’s not her fault, dad.” Amy shot back.

“No? Then whose, yours? For taking a stroll down North Miss?”

“Enough John,” Lara interrupted. “This isn’t helping.”

The dog raised its head, ears tuned to the hoarse voices. It rose to all fours and padded to Gallagher but he ignored it. Amy clucked and the dog came and she plunged her fingers into the nap of its hide. She looked at Lara. “What are we going to do?”

Neither of the adults said a word. The husky nosed Amy’s hands, licking the palm.

Gallagher took up his emptied glass and refilled it and left the room.

Lara sat at the table alone, mulling over the havoc she had wreaked. Amy had gone to her room and Gallagher remained in his office. A nettle of guilt stinging its way through her guts. She looked at the clock above the stove. Ten twenty-two. Less than two hours before midnight.

Her parka hung on a hook in the hallway. The clothes on her back, no other belongings to pack. Everything else had been abandoned in the little shack back in Weepers. Doesn’t matter now. She would ensure that the silver knife was there in the pocket and slip out the front door. Get away from this family as fast as she could and thumb or steal a ride and meet Grissom out at some deserted rest stop. When the opportunity arose, she would plunge the silver blade into his breast and drive it home into his stony heart.

Game over. That same blade would cut through her wrists and bleed out to its sordid conclusion. End of the line for the goddamn werewolves.

“Going somewhere?” Gallagher strode in clutching a canvass duffel bag.

Lara folded the parka over her arm. “This has gone too far. I’ve led him straight to you and to Amy.”

He laid the duffel across a chair and unzipped it. “First thing we have to do is protect Amy. I guess sending her off to her mom’s isn’t an option, right?”

Lara shook her head. “He’s already tagged her scent. He’ll just track her there.”

“Maybe he’ll eat my ex-wife instead.”

“That’s not even funny,” she said. “What about the precinct? Surrounded by police, even he wouldn’t try that.”

“That’s a good idea. Tricky to do without raising a lot of questions.”

“Maybe Charlene could help after all? Is there anyone else in the detail you haven’t pissed off?”

“Not many. If I have to, I’ll just sneak her in and plant her at my desk. Once she’s safe, you and I need to hold up somewhere secure and we let Grissom come to us.” Reaching into the bag, he unloaded gear onto the kitchen table. His service issue Glock and the big Desert Eagle. Spare magazines for both. The shotgun with a dark parkerized finish. Last of all, he placed three metal tubes onto the table.

One rolled away and Lara caught it, turning it over in her hand. “Flashbangs?”

“You remember Mockler from the tactical unit? I got him to swipe me a few.”

Lara thumbed the release pin. “I don’t know how effective these will be.”

“Better than nothing,” he shrugged. “If I coulda gotten my hands on real grenades, I would have. We’ll have to settle for these.” Gallagher reached for the Eagle, spun it round and pushed it forward butt first. “The silver tips only fit that piece. It’s fifty cal, so I figure a headshot should be enough to put that thing down.”

Lara took up the piece and tested the balance in her hand. Heavy, even with her left hand gripped underneath for support. She racked the slide and popped the round from the chamber. “How many of these silver rounds do you have?”

“What’s in the magazine. Maybe a dozen more.”

She held the cartridge up to the light and scraped her thumb over the shiny point end. Her thumb tingled against the metal. The bullet was enormous and the impact from it would be devastating, silver tip or no. “This ought to do a lot of damage.” She snapped the slide back and slid the magazine out. The single round fitted back into the magazine and she snapped it home.

“It’s not much of a plan,” he said, loading the weapons back into the duffel. “But it’s all I got.”

“It’ll do until we think of something else.” Lara looked at the clock again. “We should go.”

“So I just twiddle my thumbs at the police station while you two geniuses go off hunting monsters?”

Amy didn’t think much of the plan either and said so. Repeatedly. She tugged her boots on, dragging her heels the whole way.

“In a nutshell, yeah.” Gallagher hefted the bag onto his shoulder. “C’mon, let’s go.”

Lara opened the door to the garage. “It’s just for tonight, Amy. Just so you’re safe.”

“And what happens tomorrow?”

Lara shot Gallagher a look but he didn’t know either. He shooed his daughter into the garage. “Let’s go.”

“See?” Amy blew the hair up out of her eyes. “You haven’t thought it through.”

In the garage, Gallagher passed the duffel onto Lara. “Hold this. I want to grab a few more things. Amy, open the roll-up.”

The husky followed Amy as she tugged on the garage door. It rolled up with a squeal and stopped at her eye-level and wouldn’t raise anymore. “Is the dog staying here?”

“What?” Gallagher said, rifling tools off the shelf.

“He comes with us.” Lara ducked under roll-up door and opened the back hatch of the truck.

Amy scratched the dog’s ear. “Wouldn’t he be safer with me?”

“Not in the precinct.” Lara looked over the street. The snow had stopped falling. “They wouldn’t let him past the door.”

“We need him with us.” Gallagher followed them outside and tossed a box into the back of the Cherokee. “He’s our early warning system.”

“You mean he’s cannon-fodder.”

The dog, as if understanding the girl’s words, raised its head to her and trotted away. Its nose jerked westward, as if yanked hard, and pointed at the darkened street. It bolted away, disappearing through a hedge.

“Now you done it,” Gallagher gruffed. He whistled for the dog. “Here boy!”

Lara stopped cold, looking on in the direction the dog ran. “John, be quiet.”

“What is it?”

Lara stepped to the edge of the driveway, eyes cast down the row of houses. There were neither cars nor pedestrians anywhere.

“Lara?”

A small sound reached their ears, like a soft popping noise. Amy squinted west, trying to see what it was. Something about the far end of her street seemed wrong.

It was the streetlights, winking out one by one like snuffed candles. Their street vanished into darkness at each popping sound. A tidal wave of nightfall rolling down the avenue towards them.

Lara took a step backwards. “Oh Jesus.”

“Get in the truck.”

From the darkness, the sound of the dog barking.

“The dog,” Amy said. “We can’t just leave him!”

“Get in the goddamn truck.”

Amy felt herself tugged back just as the streetlamp overhead popped and the night swallowed them whole. She felt herself pushed into the vehicle but then the noise rang out and he stopped cold.

A roar. Guttural and unearthly and unlike anything Amy had ever heard in her life. It sounded furious, hatred dripping in every note.

Lara shook her head, breaking whatever spell that had frozen her limbs. Amy saw her rush for the back of the truck, where the weapons were stowed. Then all hell broke loose. Something enormous sprang out of the night, slammed Amy against the Cherokee as it flew past and took Lara down.

Amy hit the ground, heard her dad curse. Then more of the growling. Vicious and terrifying as whatever it was snarled and snapped. Too dark to see clearly, all Amy could make out was an enormous dark shape with Lara in its jaws. Jerking and snapping back and forth like a shark attack.

She watched her dad lunge at the thing, hitting and kicking and screaming at it to let go. Lara was hitting it too with one free hand, clawing at the monster’s eye as if trying to rip it out.

Every limb, every joint in Amy’s body trembled and when she felt something warm at her crotch, she realized she had wet herself. Her brain was screaming to do something but her legs wouldn’t respond, her arms locked and immobile.

Then she heard Lara scream in pain. Amy scrambled for the duffel bag and tore out the big handgun, the one too big for her hands and she swung it up and fired. The shot went wild, cracking into the garage but the thing dropped Lara and sprang away into the darkness.

Lara lay sprawled on the snowy asphalt as if dead and her dad was already dragging her into the garage. Amy followed him inside and hauled down the garage door. Shot the bolt through the lock.

Lara was leaning up against the bench, one hand clutched to her shoulder. The front of her coat stained dark with blood. Amy peeled the coat back. “Easy, Lara. Let me see.”

“Don’t touch it,” Lara wheezed, pushing the girl’s hands away.

“You’re bleeding.”

Lara gnashed her teeth, lashed out. “Get away from me!”

“Dad. Help her!”

Gallagher shouldered in, looking over Lara’s bloodied coat, the material ripped to shreds and tiny down feathers sticking to the blood. He spoke softly to her, telling Lara to stay calm.

Lara’s quaking became violent, shaking her whole frame. Amy held her down. “She’s going into shock. Do something!”

Lara growled, teeth clamped in fever. “Get away from me.”

Amy watched the blood drain from her father’s face. “That isn’t shock,” he said.

Bang.

The garage door rattled, slammed from the outside. Another hit and the metal crumpled inwards. The wolf at the door.

Amy felt herself shoved away from the door. Away from Lara. “Give me that,” her dad snapped. She looked down, surprised to see the gun still in her hand. He took it from her.

Lara thrashed violently on the floor.

The door banged again. Hinges popped from their moorings as the metal creased.

“Oh Christ,” he hissed.

She clocked the fear in his eyes. Something she had never seen before. He pulled her close, almost suffocating her.

When Amy looked back to Lara, Lara wasn’t there. Her clothes hung shredded and webbed over something and it rose up on four limbs. Pale and prehistoric-looking. Outsized teeth in an enormous maw. Its coat pale and ghostly in the available light and when the wolf swung its massive head in their direction, Amy couldn’t scream or whimper or even breath as if the thing had stolen the wind from her lungs.

The great lobo took a step towards them and Gallagher swung the gun up with its silver rounds of calamity and he drew aim straight between the wolf’s yellow eyes.

Amy pushed his hand away. “Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t shoot her.”

“Stop it.”

“It’s still her!”

The pale wolf came no further, its nostrils flaring at them. Gallagher aimed again but held off, counting off seconds as they stared down the massive thing before them.

The roll-up door exploded in a spew of metal and glass. The grey wolf vomited up out of the breach nose first and, with jaws wide, it lunged for the other lobo. The pale wolf swung about, locking its teeth onto the grey one’s neck. The two monsters thrashed and jerked, crashing into the workbench.

Screws and pennynails rained down and Gallagher shoved his daughter out of the way. He aimed the gun again but the wolves were a blur of hide and teeth, now pale, now grey and he could find no clear shot without firing on the pale one. The noise of splintering wood and crashing crates echoed through the cinderblock garage and above it all the growls and snapping jaws and popping teeth. Amy covered her ears with her palms and screamed for everything to stop.

The pale lobo jerked free and dove through the wreckage of the door and bounded away. The grey wolf thundered after it.

Gallagher lurched to the crumpled door and looked out into the darkness, the gun useless in his sweaty grip.

There was only the empty avenue and the sound of the wolves trailing off into the dark streets of Portland.

TWENTY-SEVEN

THE DOG CAME back, limping gamely through the hedgerow to heel at Gallagher’s feet. He patted the Siberian down. It winced and lifted its hind leg. A splotch of blood but he couldn’t see the damage in the dark. He told it to stay and ducked back into the garage.

Amy remained curled into a ball against the cinderblock, her face a chalked-out blank with saucer-sized eyes. He had to coax her up to her feet, rubbing her back and repeating softly that it was all over. When her eyes finally wheeled up to meet his, she stammered. “Dad? Lara, she... she...”

“It’s okay. Just breathe, honey.”

“But that thing went after her.”

“Can you walk?”

He led her outside. The dog limped to Amy’s knee and licked her hand. Voices bellowed in the darkened street. The neighbors stepping onto their porches and grousing about the racket and the power outage. For the moment, Gallagher was grateful for the extinguished streetlights.

“That other one, the wolf,” Amy chattered through her teeth. “It went after Lara. We got to help her.”

“I need to get you somewhere safe first,” he said. He recognized their neighbor’s voice across the street. Julie, a single mom who used to babysit Amy way back when. “You can stay with Julie, okay? I’ll go after Lara.”

“No.” She wouldn’t budge.

“This isn’t the time, honey. I gotta go after her.”

“We have to.” Amy opened the passenger door on the Cherokee. “Let’s go.”

“Amy...”

“We don’t have time, dad. Trust me.”

No time to contest the point. Gallagher opened the back door and snapped his fingers. The husky hopped in and laid down on the backseat. He fished something out of the back, jumped under the wheel and tore out of the driveway in the direction the wolves had fled.

“Which way did they go?” she asked.

“There.” He pointed west and then reached over and dropped something in her lap. “Take this. Keep it down but be ready.”

Amy looked down at the thing in her lap. The nine millimeter. She ran her thumb over the safety catch to ensure it was on and laid it across her lap.

“Roll your window down,” he said. “Keep your ears open for their sound.”

North on 22nd with the cold air blowing through the open windows, Gallagher gunned up block after block without seeing any sign. Amy leaning one elbow out the window, ears cocked for any sound.

“Do you hear anything?”

She shook her head then leaned further out. Then her hand went up. “Stop the truck.”

He pulled to the curb and killed the engine. Looked at her.

“Can you hear that?” she said, all but falling out the window. “I can’t tell where it’s coming from.”

“Roll down the back window and watch the dog. He’ll show you which direction.” He rolled forward while Amy watched the dog crane its neck out the port side window. The husky snuffed and then darted for the starboard side.

“East,” she said.

He took the next left, swinging onto Killingsworth. The dog slung its head out the window, nose twitching. Twenty yards on they could see the path of the wolves before them. Two cars lay crumpled like squashed soda cans, the wheels of the Cherokee crunching over the spray of glass on the pavement. The front windows of three, now four shops blown inwards as if hit by a truck. A man darted into the street, screaming holy terror and then vanishing between the parked cars.

They followed the path of destruction, weaving around an overturned dumpster knocked flat in the middle of the street. Amy raised her hand again and he stopped and they all listened. The noise was close, the sound of crunching metal and glass and above it all the awful noise of the things themselves.

“Scooch over. Get behind the wheel.” He shifted into park and swung out of the cab. Throwing open the tailgate, he fished something from the duffel and stuffed into his pocket and came back. Amy slid behind the steering wheel. “Turn this around,” he said, “and go back to the next block and wait. If those things come back, you get out of here and drive straight to the precinct. You understand?”

“What about you?”

“I’ll be fine. This whole area will be overrun with uniforms in about two minutes. Go on.” He stepped back and watched his daughter wheel the Cherokee around and trundle away. Then he turned and ran towards the sound of mayhem.

Two people were screaming inside the doors of a Min-Mart. The windows on the one side lay gaped in shards. A silver Audi lay dead in its tracks with its roof squashed in. A man in a Seahawks jacket lay face down on the street. Gallagher collided into a parked van, eyes on the downed man. Nothing lies as still as the dead and he knew within moments that there was nothing he could do for the prone Seattle fan. A car alarm was blaring and Gallagher strained his ears to hear anything beyond its insistent racket.

He ran, the gun locked in both hands. Two cars zoomed up behind him, the driver of one gawking at the destruction in the street but driving on nonetheless. Gallagher hollered at it to stop but his voice barely rose above the pulsing car alarm.

Coming on his left, a blur of red lurched into the street. A man in a filthy Santa Claus suit tottered and reeled, singing loud and out of tune. Auld Lang’s Syne. Idly, Gallagher wondered if this Father Christmas had missed the date for the Santa Rampage or if he’d been rampaging the streets ever since. The thought was cut short when the first werewolf bounded into the intersection.

The pale lobo sprang out of nowhere, its ivory hide spackled with blood. The thing hammered directly into the path of oncoming vehicles. Horns blaring and brakes slamming, the cars swerved and fishtailed and crashed into other vehicles parked at the curb. The dull thud of metal on metal.

The second wolf, the grey, lunged after the first, deftly leaping over the crashing cars. It too was covered in blood and gore, its maw opening as it collided into the pale wolf. The monsters twisted and snapped, curling around and tumbling into cars. Each one chomping at the other’s throat. The guttural roar of them was awful to hear, an abhorrence to nature and reason alike.

Gallagher swung the gun up, elbows locked as he drew a bead on the grey wolf but no clear shot materialized in that storm of clashing lobos. And then Santa man lurched forward directly into his line of sight. The man held onto his belt with one hand to keep the oversize red pants from falling down and blinked stupidly at the beasts before him.

A distraction. The wolves broke off and separated and Gallagher would have had his shot if it weren’t for the man in the red suit. Saint Nick raised the glass in his hand as if in salute. The grey wolf swung round its head and lunged. A blur of red, the cheap red felt and the blood, as the grey lobo chomped down on the reveler and shook him violently to pieces. A flailing crimson doll in the jaws of the monster, the great wolf’s head jerked and ticked as if trying to swallow Father Christmas whole.

Gallagher yanked the pin from the stun grenade and tossed it clattering over the pavement at the lobo. The pop of the flashbang only enraged the monster. It snarled and shook the man harder. There was a loud snap as his neck broke. Saint Nick’s head was cleaved clean off and it rolled and tumbled through the slushy pavement towards Gallagher. He swung back to avoid touching the thing.

The pale wolf had vanished and the grey swung about looking for it north and south before it pointed its massive snout back and charged full bore at the man with the gun. Gallagher cursed, the thing steamrolling at him, hands raising the 50 cal too slow at the beast. It lunged and he fired. The round singed the razored back of the thing and blew out a shop window. The lobo sailed over and before he could tap off another round, the wolf bounded west down a side street.

With his heart clanging inside his ribs, Gallagher felt his legs give out and he sunk, one knee dropping to the dirty slush as he panted and blew. He scanned over the mayhem of the street. The glass eyes of Santa’s head wide on him and he rose up and walked away.

Homicide detail was quiet after the shift change, the night crew settling in while the day shift drifted out. Charlene Farbre lingered at her desk, scrutinizing the case file involving the death of Lieutenant Mike Vogel and another file about the disappearance of Detective Lara Mendes. The strange sighting of Lara and Gallagher’s bizarre denial had eaten at Charlene’s guts all day but she hadn’t had a chance to open the file until now. Not that there was anything new to learn. She had assisted the primaries in both cases and contributed much of the material herself.

She clicked off the file and pushed away the murder book. She had debated the idea of bringing it up with the Lieutenant but held off. Accusing a fellow officer of misconduct was a can of worms no one in their right mind wanted to open. The blowback could be devastating.

Stretching the kink in her lower back, she spotted Wade still at his desk. Charlene bit her lip then crossed through the bullpen. “Hey Rueben. Got a minute?”

“For you Charlene, always.”

She nodded towards the empty cubicle beside his. “Where’s your partner?”

“Keeps his own council these days,” Wade shrugged. “Said he’s got some family stuff to deal with.”

“Has he been acting cagey with you lately?”

“Define cagey.”

“I don’t know. Out of character. Dismissive or secretive.”

Wade leaned back and regarded her. He pulled up the spare chair and nodded for her to sit. “What’s going on, Charlene?”

She sat, took a breath and sketched it out as briefly as possible. Her encounter with missing detective Lara Mendes (or her emaciated twin) and Gallagher’s troubling dismissal of her questions.

Wade listened patiently. “You think he’s lying to you?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore. Three months ago I wouldn’t have even considered it but Gallagher hasn’t been the same since that incident.”

“But why would he lie about something like that? He’s spent every spare moment looking for Mendes. Long after everyone else gave her up for dead. If he found her, why keep it a secret?”

All Charlene could do was shrug. “I know it doesn’t make sense. Do you think I should talk to the Lieutenant?”

Wade shook his head. “That’s dangerous. Why don’t you talk to Gallagher again?”

“I can’t even get him on the phone. Have you even seen him today?”

“Nope.” Wade leaned forward. “Do you really think he’s lying to you?”

“I know he is.” Charlene squared him up with a hard look. “I want to go to his house, talk to him there. He might be more inclined to talk outside of the office. And I’d like you to be there.”

“Charlene...”

“We’re just checking in with him,” she said. “To see if he’s okay.”

Wade frowned, not liking the idea at all but before he could answer, two detectives ran past the desk. Charlene stood up and saw Detective Varadero pulling on his coat. “What’s going on, Ray?”

“Real shitstorm up on Alberta. Some kinda dog attack. Two people down.”

Wade rose out of his chair. “Dog attack?”

“Crazy, huh?” Varadero nodded at the TV screen suspended on the wall. “Fucking newsies are already on the scene.”

The detective ran for the door and Charlene went to raise the volume on the TV. The news footage was an aerial shot of North Killingsworth, two cars steaming from crumpled hoods and the windows of storefronts destroyed. A figure on the ground. It looked like a war zone. The newscaster’s voice boomed up.

“...conflicting reports of a pack of dogs attacking people. Unconfirmed reports say two people are dead. We also have reports of gunfire in the area...”

“Holy shit,” sputtered Wade. He looked back to Charlene but she was already running for the door.

TWENTY-EIGHT

THE WOLVES HAD vanished, leaving no sign of their escape nor any track to follow. Gallagher had driven through block after block of empty streets, Amy watching shotgun, and doubled back for a second, third sweep. He had gotten out and trekked on foot with the dog, cutting for any trace of the monsters but found nothing. Of Lara, there was no sign at all, not even a hint from the husky. They had driven home, hoping she had returned on her own but the house was empty. Amy ran in for a spare set of clothes for Lara and they resumed their search. Amy had hung in there until close to four AM when her chin kept dipping. She laid down on the back bench to sleep while he drove on until he too gave up and sat parked on a low rise with the engine killed and the cold creeping into the cab.

The eastern break over the skyline was already graying in that eerie stillness before dawn and he looked at his watch and rubbed his eyes. He had lost her again. And to what this time? Had the grey wolf killed her? Was she injured and transfigured back into human form, slowly freezing to death in some ditch? Or had the pale wolf simply bolted for higher country like last time?

His daughter stirred, turning over in the backseat. He watched her sit up with that dazed look of the barely awake. She yawned.“What time is it?”

“Five-thirty. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m freezing.” Amy patted the dog beside her then looked out the window. “No luck, huh?”

“Nope. How’s Tonto?”

“Who?”

“The mutt.”

“Sound asleep.” She ran her fingers through his fur and cast her gaze to the window. Snow, industrial buildings, a few trees. “Do you think she went back home?”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s go home.”

His fingers folded around the key in the ignition but didn’t turn it over. Going home meant giving up. Meant that Lara Mendes was gone again and finding her a second time would be a miracle.

“Dad?” Amy leaned forward and put her hand on his shoulder. “Sitting out here isn’t helping anyone. Let’s go home.”

She squeezed his shoulder and he came to his senses. Sometimes he forgot how smart his kid was. Intuitive but sober for such a young person. He fired it up, slid into gear and turned for home. Then he stomped the brakes.

A figure stood in the middle of the road, clad in what appeared to be a tattered blanket. Her hair was wet, the lips blue.

Amy bolted out the door and the dog barked. Gallagher rushed out to help his daughter bring Lara into the backseat.

Killingsworth Street was a disaster zone. Uniformed officers taped off the area and assisted the detectives combing every square inch of pavement in an effort to unravel one simple question; what in the name of Jesus went down last night?

The skid marks of the crashed cars told a tale of slammed brakes but the statements of their owners was confused and contradictory. The civilians found cowering inside a Mini-Mart were similarly unclear and could confirm no part of any other story.

It was a giant dog.

It was a pack of pitbulls.

It was Bigfoot.

Detectives Lidia Summers and Trevon James were on rotation for active calls on the nightshift and therefore primaries on scene. Charlene and Wade worked support along with four other detectives; two from the Homicide Detail and two from Assault. Together they worked the scene while more uniforms showed up to assist and the forensics van rumbled under the yellow tape and the techs got to work. Detective James examined the body of the Seahawks fan while detective Summers, drawing the short straw, sifted through the red costume of the decapitated Santa.

A uniformed beat cop named Martinez found the blown out shell of a concussion grenade. She circled it with a length of chalk and informed Detective Summers of her discovery. Summers cursed, wondering how much more effed-up this crime scene could get. Detective James sauntered over not a minute later to relate that the techs had dug a slug from a storefront. The crumpled shell fragment was, to the tech’s estimate, a round from a 50 caliber output. At that news, Summers threw up her hands and declared quietly to her partner that she had no goddamn idea what had just happened here.

Standing well back from the string of yellow police tape lingered one onlooker who could have answered the detective’s questions. Edgar Grissom cocked an ear to hone in on the police banter above the murmurs of the crowd. He smirked, watching the police grapple to form some cohesive chain of events that led to the mayhem. Bullshit piled atop road apples.

As stupid and impetuous as it had been to tear after the pale wolf out in the open like this, to cajole and fight and sink his teeth into her in the wide open streets of this city, Grissom knew he was safe. The little that he had observed from his short stay in the city of roses, he concluded that two out of three citizens were either batshit crazy or willfully, gleefully deranged. His full-fledged lycanthropic battle on the streets of Portland would garner no more than a shrug and a declaration of ‘whoa dude...’ from the average citizen. Even the tired looking police investigators seemed nonplussed at the statements stammered out by the shellshocked witnesses. Portland, Edgar Grissom concluded, was perhaps the safest city for a lycanthrope to call home. Set next to the precociously strange and the doggedly indifferent, a werewolf could settle in without fear of alarming the neighbors.

He hopped onto the hood of a parked Saab and knocked the slush from his boots and sat watching the street. His plan, simple as it had been, had not worked and he was now forced to recalibrate his approach. The woman was under the protection of a family and he had to work around them or eliminate their protection before he could get to the female. Murdering them outright would be messy and lead to trouble. Especially since the man was a police detective. Simple plans wouldn’t work. Grissom scratched the raw scab on his throat left there by the pale wolf’s teeth and wondered if there wasn’t some way to use the family against Lara Mendes. He looked at the blood on his fingertips.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Grissom swung his head up to see a man marching on him with an outraged look on his face.

“Get the hell off my car, asshole!”

Grissom looked away. “Piss off, son. I’m busy.”

“Get the fuck off it, man! Before you scratch the paint.”

Annoyed, Grissom slid his butt down the hood and the tabs on his jeans screeched loud as they scored down the maroon paintjob. He hopped down and advanced smartly upon the apoplectic Saab owner but the man backtracked away, cursing something about finding a cop. Grissom leaned and spat in the snow and then walked away. Even he couldn’t press his luck with so many uniforms about.

Gallagher shrugged off his coat and tossed it across the seat to Amy, then cranked the heater to full. The dog licked Lara’s palm as Amy drew the coat over her.

Amy blanched at the dried blood caked over Lara’s face. Leaning over the seat, she fished up the first aid box from the back and snapped it open. The dog, forced into the footwell, looked at Gallagher and whined.

“I’m okay, Amy” Lara protested as she waved the girl away.

“Yeah, you’re in great shape. Let me take a look.”

Lara relented, too exhausted and cold to put up a fight. Amy peeled the coat off one shoulder and looked over her wounds. Claw and teeth marks up and down her shoulders and ribs but all of it scabbed over. The worst of it was a ring of puncture marks in Lara’s neck that were still wet and leaking a thin serum.

“That looks bad,” Amy said, unraveling a roll of gauze. “Does it hurt?”

Lara’s teeth were chattering. “I’m too cold to feel anything. Can you turn the heat up?”

“It’s on all the way.” Gallagher tilted the rearview mirror so he could see her. “Let Amy wrap that up. Looks awful.”

Lara pulled the coat tighter and relented to the girl wrapping the gauze over her neck wounds. She looked back at Gallagher through the glass. “How bad did it get last night?”

Amy bit off a strip of gauze. “You don’t remember?”

“Not much. We fought. There were people on the street. Did anyone get hurt?”

“Two people. Dead,” Gallagher said. “Not by you.”

Lara shivered and clenched her teeth to stop them chattering. Amy reached over the seat to get the bundle of spare clothes and put them in the naked woman’s lap. “Here, put these on. We’ll be home soon.”

Gallagher gunned for home but kept it under the speed limit. Cutting across Ainsworth, he wheeled onto the homestretch only to hit the brakes and pull to the curb. “Shit.”

Amy collided against the seat. “What is it?”

“Company. You see it?”

Lara and Amy peered over his shoulder. Further down, a car sat parked in their driveway. Two people stood outside, looking over the wreckage of the garage door.

Amy squinted. “Who is it?”

“That’s an unmarked police vehicle,” Lara sighed. She looked at Gallagher. “Have they spotted us?”

“I don’t think so.”

Amy bit her lip. “What do we do now?”

Gallagher pulled away from the curb and swung a U-turn, parking on the opposite curb but he left the Cherokee running. “Amy, hop over the seat and take the wheel. Go wide around the block and don’t come back until you see that they’re gone.” He opened the door and got out.

Amy clambered over the front seat. “Where are you going?”

“Gonna see what they want.”

“Is that wise?” Lara leaned forward. “Let’s just keep driving.”

“They’ll sit there all day. I’ll get rid of them.” He was about to close the door when the husky leaped over and slithered out of the cab. He tried to shoo it back inside but the dog scampered ahead before turning to look back at him.

“Get out of here,” he said and closed the door. He watched his daughter take the wheel and drive away and then he walked for home with the dog heeling up smartly behind him.

“Hey partner. You should answer your phone sometime.”

Detectives Wade and Farbre stood on the front stoop as Gallagher approached home. Wade offered up a friendly smile while Charlene was all business. Gallagher had doled out the good/bad cop routine so many times before but he’d never been on the receiving end. This ought to be good. Classic approach so he came back with the same. “Is there a problem, officer?”

“You missed some real fun last night,” Wade said, keeping things breezy. “Down on Killingsworth. Shitstorm city.”

“My loss.” Gallagher looked at Charlene, found a frosty return.

“Where have you been?” Charlene said, cutting out the chitchat.

He looked at the husky with its tongue lolling. “Walking the dog.”

“Without your coat?”

“Whoops.” He looked at the detectives. “What do you guys want?”

“We need to talk, Gallagher.” Charlene maintained eye-contact, like the bad cop does. “About Lara Mendes.”

“You find her yet?”

“It’s kind of cold out here,” Wade said. “Let’s talk inside.”

“We can talk out here.”

The smile fell from Wade’s face and it was plain to see how much he hated all this. Charlene remained hard. She squared him up. “Where is she, John?”

“I have no idea.”

“Hey,” Wade cut back. “We’re not on the clock here, bud. We just came to talk before something goes wrong. Charlene saw Lara Mendes yesterday. And she was with your daughter. You’re not gonna deny that, are you?”

He looked at Wade and then to Charlene. “Every word.”

Wade sighed, hating this even more now. Charlene stepped off the pathway and nodded at the ruined garage door. The aluminum panels busted in and torn up like a bomb had hit it. “What happened to your garage?”

“Forgot to open the door before I backed out.”

The three detectives went silent in a deadlock of bullshit. The dog looked on, bored.

Charlene resumed, acid etched into her tone. “She has family, you know. A sister down in Albuquerque. Instead of keeping her all to yourself, maybe she’d like to know that her sister is alive.”

“Have you talked to her?” he spat. “Because I have. I check in with Marisol every three weeks, keep her appraised of my search for her missing sister.”

Wade winced, knowing full well that the missing homicide detective had long been given up for dead. Charlene didn’t bat an eye and told Gallagher so. “You’re digging your own grave with this, John. Bring Lara in. We can sort all of this out. I promise.”

“Thanks for stopping by.” Gallagher turned his back on them and unlocked the door. The husky rose and ran in after him and the door closed tight.

Charlene shook her head but Wade was already walking for the car, shivering the whole way. “I’m freezing. Let’s go.”

Wade started the car and cranked up the heat and pulled away. “So? What now? Talk to the Lieutenant?”

“I don’t want to do that just yet.” She looked out the window, watching the houses pass by. “I might take a page from G’s book and do something stupid.”

“I don’t even want to know.” He steered for the precinct. “How stupid are we talking about?”

“Like get my car and come back and park and watch the house. What’s that on the stupid scale? A seven?”

“Nine. At least. You might want to go home first and put on your long johns.”

Back inside the house, the dog went straight to its bowl and the phone was already ringing. Gallagher finally let himself shiver and once the first one came, he couldn’t stop. Standing in the goddamn cold being grilled by people he worked with. Fucking unbelievable.

He grabbed the receiver, guessing if it was Amy or Lara. “Where are you guys?” he said by way of hello.

“Howdy.”

A man’s voice. One he didn’t recognize.

Gallagher frowned. “Who is this?”

“You’re Lara’s friend, right?” The voice on the other end was drawled and raspy. “We sorta met last night.”

Gallagher let the clock run out, dead air hissing from the phone. “Who is this?”

“We need to talk, Mister Gallagher. My name’s Grissom.”

TWENTY-NINE

“WHAT DO YOU WANT?”

“I think you know what I want.”

“Well you’re shit out of luck, sport. So why don’t you screw off back to whatever rock you crawled out from.”

Quiet. All Gallagher could hear was the man’s breath rasping down the telephone line.

“You know how this is gonna turn out, don’t you?”

“I know how it won’t. You’re going home empty-handed.”

“Stop and think about what you’re saying, Mr. Gallagher. You know what she is. You really want that? You know what will happen to your daughter. Your city.” Another raspy sigh. “Hell, you saw that mess last night. Bad business. For everybody.”

“So you want me to what? Just step away?”

“Exactly.”

“Go to hell.”

“You step away and let Lara come with me and you’re daughter will be left...untouched. Think it over. That’s the best offer you’re going to get.”

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Gallagher snarled. “You threaten me. Over the phone? Why don’t you grow a pair and come talk to me. Man to man.”

“Done,” Grissom said.

Click.

More than anything, Gallagher hated being hung up on. Who doesn’t? Like a perfect slap to the face that the slappee can’t ever reply to except to stand there fuming uselessly with the dead phone in their hand. He hated it so much he almost forgot what he had done. Which was to cajole the bad guy, werewolf, killer dude into shading his doorstep.

“Shit…”

Toggling the kill button, he dialed his daughter’s cell. It rang three times before clicking over. “Amy? It’s me.”

“Thank god. I thought it might be the police calling from the house phone.”

“They’re gone. Put Lara on.”

“What’s going on? Can we come home?”

“Just put Lara on.”

A muffled sound, then Lara’s voice. “What is it, John?”

“You need to drop Amy somewhere safe. A restaurant or somewhere with a lot of people. Then haul ass back here. Grissom’s on his way.”

“What? Get out of there. Now.”

“No. This is ending right here. But the guns are still in the truck. Including the fifty with the silver.”

“What are you thinking?” Lara yelled. “Don’t go up against him. Just get out of there and wait for us.”

Gallagher gritted his teeth. Why did no one listen to him anymore? “Lara, just do it. And be quick.”

This time he hung up first. He expected it to feel satisfying but it didn’t. It was just a shitty thing to do.

Returning the handset to the wall, he ran a quick mental inventory of any weapon in the house. Every firearm he owned was in a duffel bag in the back of the Cherokee. There was a police truncheon hanging off a peg in his office.

He went to go fetch the fuckstick when the living room window exploded and a hurled brick thumped across the hardwood floor.

Amy yanked the truck to the gravel spur and watched Lara fume at the cell phone in her hand. “What’s going on?”

“Grissom’s on his way to the house. Your dad wants me to get you somewhere safe.”

Lara felt herself flung against the door as Amy spun the Cherokee in a hard u-turn. Horns blared as oncoming vehicles swerved around them. “Amy, slow down.”

Amy kicked it. “You don’t expect me to sit this out, do you?”

“No.” There was no point trying stop the girl so Lara didn’t even try. Flinging an arm across the seat, she checked the rear window. No flashing lights or sirens after Amy’s reckless u-turn. “Watch your speed. Now’s not the time to get pulled over.”

Gallagher stomped towards the front door, ready to murder the sonofabitch who smashed his window. Like his home hadn’t been wrecked enough in the last twenty-four hours. His hand reached for the knob when the whole door blasted open like a hurricane and kicked him back six feet.

That hurt. Gallagher looked up from where he’d landed. A blurry figure filled the frame of the blown door. Had to be Grissom. “Mister Gallagher,” the man said, advancing fast.

A cacophony of barking zoomed over his shoulder at the intruder. The dog went berserk and tore after the intruder, lunging for the bastard’s throat. The dog was flung back, crashing into Gallagher’s legs.

Get the nightstick. He bolted for the back hallway, bounced off a wall and rebounded into his office. Tore the black truncheon from its peg, gripping the lacquered finish. Standard issue police fuckstick. He charged back out swinging.

Grissom ducked and said something he didn’t hear. Keep talking asshole. He returned fast on the backswing and gave the stick everything he had. Bingo. It connected with the man’s ear with a satisfying crunch. The son of a bitch yowled in pain but he coiled back and fired a knuckled jab straight into Gallagher’s throat.

The pain was lethal but it was the panic of being unable to breathe that brought him to his knees. His windpipe rattled wet and sticky, slurping up air in sucking gobs. He keeled flat, cheekbone slamming the floor. The intruder came on and kicked his guts in.

Grissom squatted over him, one hand pressed to his ear and blood trickling through the fingers. “That fucking smarts.”

All Gallagher could do was listen to the wet ripple in his throat. Wait for the stars to clear from his eyes.

“I’d heard you were the tough guy,” Grissom said. He lowered his hand and looked at the blood on his fingers and returned the hand to the cauliflowered ear, as if to stop a slow leak. “But you look a bit slow to me, mister Gallagher. Old.”

Gallagher’s vision cleared but he wished it hadn’t. Grissom was abhorrent, caught in some early stage of the morphing. Eyes a pinprick of black inside glowing irises. His teeth sharp and yellowed, crusty with tartar and the stains of god only knew what. Gallagher forced his throat to work, pushing enough air back out of his lungs to utter two agonizing syllables.

“Fuck you.”

“Is that supposed to me make angry? Enrage me enough to kill you quick and easy?” Grissom sneered, lips peeled flat against those discolored wolf teeth. “Clever. But not today.

“I’m not gonna kill you, Mister Gallagher. But I will make this hurt.” Grissom snatched an ankle and dragged Gallagher down the hall into the kitchen. “We’re gonna go for a ride you and me. But first we need to leave a message for our little friend.”

Gallagher wheezed, unable to utter anything more than the sucking rattle in his pipes as he was dragged roughshod onto the linoleum floor of the kitchen.

“Ahh… I love family photos.” Grissom stopped at a wall of framed photographs hung in an artful display. Most of the snapshots were of Amy. Five years old and dressed in a dusty pink princess costume, a plastic pumpkin bucket clutched in hand. Amy at thirteen with a basketball tucked under one arm. Amy at age three, all cheeks and big eyes, nestled between her mom and himself. Smiles as big as day on everyone.

Grissom studied every photo like a patron in an art gallery then swept them all to the floor. Frames popping and glass tinkering as they broke. Grissom regarded the naked wall. “This will do,” he said.

He squatted down, hovering over Gallagher again. “What do you think? Big letters, clear message. In blood too.” He looked at his bloodied hand again but shrugged. “I got enough here to script something but I think this would really be more heartfelt if it was your blood. Lara will be able to sniff out the difference no problem.”

Grissom leaned in close with an index finger raised as if making a point. Gallagher watched the fingernail mottle dark and elongate, growing in length before his eyes.

“Hold still now, this is probably gonna hurt.” Grissom dug the claw into Gallagher’s arm. Dark arterial blood circled his wrist and dribbled over the broken photographs of his daughter.

The CR7 cruised up 22nd and pulled over behind a green Tercel. Charlene Farbre killed the engine and leaned back against the seat. From here, she had a clear view of Gallagher’s house and any traffic coming up or down the strip. Returning to precinct earlier, she returned the unmarked car to the motor pool and got her own vehicle. It didn’t look like an unmarked cruiser so Gallagher wouldn’t notice it parked on his street.

A panel van squatted in Gallagher’s driveway. Plain white with rust buckling the wheel wells and a roof cage for lashing cargo to. Backed in with the rear hard up against the wrecked garage door, back plate hidden. It looked like your average contractor’s vehicle. She gathered up her notebook and marked the time when the headlights on the van shot on. The vehicle rumbled to life and trundled down onto the street. As it drove past her, Charlene tried to get a look at the driver but the window was too grimy to make out anything more than a silhouette.

She was mulling over following the van when another vehicle came up the opposite end of the street and wheeled into the Gallagher home. This one a Jeep Cherokee, maroon paint, maybe ten years old. The driver swung out and Charlene immediately pegged the diminutive figure as Amy Gallagher. The girl ran for the front door but Charlene focused her attention to the passenger following the girl up the steps. Not much taller, a slight build under a man’s winter coat..

Mendes. It had to be.

Charlene dialed the precinct, spoke to the desk sarge. Two patrol units in the vicinity were dispatched to her location for backup.

The moment they stepped through the door, Lara knew they were too late. The splintered door jamb and shattered hall table. Muddied bootprints stamped onto the floor like some crazed dance steps. Hovering overtop all of this was the smell. Grissom’s scent and the evaporating tang of adrenaline left by Gallagher.

Amy tore through the house, screaming for her dad. More wrecked furniture through the house, more signs of a violent struggle. Then Amy was shrieking for her to come quick and Lara’s knees wobbled suddenly, fearing the girl had found her father dead in the mudroom. Staggering in, she saw Amy kneeling over something on the floor. It was the dog. Still breathing but knocked cold, the eyes like whited slits.

The girl screamed, demanding to know where her dad was and what had happened. Lara held the girl tight, talking her down but they both saw the dollops of blood on the tile floor like spilled paint.

Lara told the girl to see to the dog and she went on to the kitchen, trying to piece together the order of events. Grissom had kicked the door in and attacked Gallagher. The dog had gotten in the way trying to defend him.

Then she saw it. A message scrawled onto the kitchen wall in big crude letters. Almost childish in its form, as if written by a hand unaccustomed to writing. The ink was blood and it had already dried. Gallagher’s blood.

COME FIND US

That’s all it said. Lara studied those simple words and considered wetting a cloth and scrubbing it from existence. The girl didn’t need to see this but it was already too late. Amy rushed in behind her, gasping at the blood on the wall.

“What is that?” Amy looked to Lara for some answer and then back to the blood smeared wall. “Did Grissom write that? What the hell does it mean?”

Lara scrambled for some answer that would make sense but there wasn’t one. The racket at the door let her off the hook. Two uniformed police officers stormed inside, barking at them to get on the floor. On the heels of the uniforms came two plainclothes officers. Lara didn’t recognize the man but the sight of the woman made her stomach drop.

Charlene strode in as the uniforms forced Lara and Amy to their knees. A cold edge to her tone. “Hello Lara.”

THIRTY

INTERVIEW ROOM TWO was tiny. A table and two chairs, the beige walls. How many times had Lara been in this room before, questioning suspects, entering and leaving at will? Drilling shitbirds or empathizing with witnesses to chip away at the truth. It was completely different being on the other side now. Unable to leave, unable to breathe in this coffin of a room. It was effective. It wore you down. She gained a new level of respect for those hardened suspects who resisted the stifling closeness and maintained their stony denials or silences.

Cracking wasn’t what had her worried. It was the tingle of adrenaline coursing down to her fingertips. What would happen if she couldn’t keep her head? Keep that secret chamber in her heart clenched tight?

Charlene sat across the table, lobbing question after question at her. Where had she been for the past three months? Why had she fled? Why did she come back? What happened the night Lieutenant Vogel died?

Lara mimicked the flinty silence of every bad mofo she’d grilled in this room. Neither a yes or a no. Nada. No habla. She tuned Charlene out, focusing on the more pressing matters of keeping her head to prevent the lobo from ripping her old friend to fucking pieces.

Charlene blew out her cheeks in frustration. She pushed aside the file before her and changed tactics. “Lara, I have to apologize to you. I gave up looking for you because I thought you were dead. It was a shitty assumption and I’m sorry I didn’t try harder.”

Lara felt her resolve sift away like ash on a breeze. “It’s okay. I would have done the same.”

The harsh edge left Charlene’s eyes. She placed a hand on the closed folder. “Leaving this aside for the moment, where is Gallagher? And that message on the wall. The tech’s confirmed it was blood. His type. Who put it there?”

Lara resumed her silence.

Charlene frowned. “Lara, this is serious stuff. You gotta level with me. Please.”

“Am I being charged?”

“You’re being questioned.”

“Then let me out of here. Charge me or let me go. Simple as that.”

“You’re a key witness into the murder of a police lieutenant. You’re not going anywhere and you know that.” Charlene dragged the folder back to the center of the table. “Give me something here, Lara.”

Lara dipped her head and said no more.

Charlene wanted to scream. Instead, she gathered up the file and crossed to the door. “We used to be friends, Lara. For that, I’ll try and help you any way I can. But you have to help me first.”

She left the room. Lara concentrated on her breathing, trying to slow the beat of her heart. When she was processed through, the officers had turned out her pockets and taken her coat. They had also confiscated the silver stud in her navel, the small talisman keeping the beast locked up in her heart.

Amy had an easier time of it. Questioned by Detective Rueben Wade, she answered most of their questions without lying or omitting too much. Her dad had followed another lead in his obsessive search for his missing partner and came home with Lara Mendes. Of Lara’s whereabouts or the particulars of her absence, she hadn’t been told. Lara had encountered a man she called Edgar Grissom and this man had pursued her to Portland. Amy gave a description of the man, having met him once. This man clearly invaded their home and attacked her dad and what, she wanted to know, were the police doing to find him?

Wade reassured her that they were doing everything they could to locate her dad. In that instance, he had done the lying, unsure exactly what was being done to find Gallagher. He found it hard to believe that Gallagher, of anyone, could be abducted.

Wade then left the room and when he came back twenty minutes later, said she could go. He took her down to the lobby. “I might have a few more questions later. Just follow up stuff. Okay?”

“Where’s Lara?” she asked.

“Answering questions, same as you. We’ll look after her.”

“Will you call me the minute you find out anything about dad?”

“I will.” He patted her shoulder. “We’ll find him, Amy. Just hang in there.”

A standard issue response and Amy knew it. She followed Wade into the lobby, then stopped. “What about our dog? Is anyone looking after him?”

“The dog bolted, wouldn’t let anyone come near him. I think Animal Services is trying to find him .” He patted her shoulder and looked over the precinct lobby. “Now, where’s your ride?”

Amy startled when her mom came bounding at her. Of course they had called her mom. Cheryl was roughly the same height as her daughter and it was obvious looking at her where Amy got her looks from. Amy had inherited her dad’s eye color but everything else was mom. Something she hated at times.

“My God, Amy,” Cheryl blurted after squeezing her daughter so hard Amy was winded. “What happened? Were you hurt?”

“I’m okay, Mom.” Amy pulled away. “Can we go?”

Pushing out the front door, her mother hooked an arm around her as they marched for the car. “Is there any word about dad? Do they know anything about what happened to him?”

Amy heard the tension in her mom’s voice, how she was biting her tongue to keep from screaming. “Not yet. They promised they’d call when they do.”

“You must be tired,” Cheryl said. “Are you hungry?”

“I think I should stay at Dad’s tonight.”

“It’s a crime scene, honey. You know that.”

“What if he calls?”

“They’ll either have someone at the house or they’re monitoring the phone.”

Amy sunk down in the bucket seat. “I need to get the dog.”

“No. I’m not having that dog in the house.”

“He can’t stay there alone.” Amy bristled at her mom’s rules. “He’ll stay in my room. You won’t even know he’s there.”

Cheryl hated dogs, always had. “Okay. But just until we find someone else to take him until your dad gets back.”

Until dad gets back. Like he had simply gone away for the weekend, fishing with his buddies.

The house was dark when they pulled up. With the bay window smashed and garage door destroyed, the house looked like one of the foreclosures that dotted every neighborhood like rotting teeth. Police tape strapped the front door and garage.

Cheryl nosed up behind the Cherokee in the driveway and left the motor running. “I’ll go in with you,” she said, looking uneasily up at the dark foursquare with the green trim. She disliked going inside at the best of times.

Amy slid out of the car. “It’s okay, mom. I’ll be two seconds.”

“We shouldn’t even be here, honey.” Cheryl called out, watching Amy dip under the yellow tape.

The place looked awful. Amy hadn’t noticed how badly it had been trashed when she and Lara ran back in looking for her dad. Heartbreaking and unnerving to see your home beat up and left to die. She popped on the light and looked over the kitchen, calling for the dog. Passing through to the mudroom, she opened the backdoor and called out to the dark backyard. The dog slunk out of the shadows with a soft whimper and wagging tail.

She hugged the husky as it collided into her legs. Cooing to it, she examined the dog for injuries, running her hands over its legs and neck. The dog winced when her hand touched a spot on its ribs but she found no cut or visible wound. Bruised ribs, she guessed. “Come on, boy,” she whispered to it. “You’re coming with me.”

The dog panted at her with those eyes and stayed close as Amy gathered up the big bag of kibble and hauled it out to her mom’s car. She opened the back door and set the bag on the floor and knickered to the dog to jump in.

Cheryl turned in her seat to find the dog panting with its tongue flapping loose less than a foot from her face. Hot dog breath. “When we get home, there’s a lint brush in the kitchen drawer. I won’t have dog hair furring up my car.”

“Okay, mom.” Amy closed the door but then stopped, looking at the Cherokee. Patting her coat pocket, she remembered she still had the keys and marched for it.

“Where are you going?” Cheryl called.

“Hang on,” Amy said, unlocking the truck on the passenger side. The black duffel bag sat crumpled into the footwell. The police had neglected to search the truck. Thank God. Slinging it onto her shoulder, she loaded it into the trunk of her mom’s car and climbed back into the passenger bucket.

Cheryl looked at her. “What’s in the bag?”

“Uh… Christmas presents and stuff,” Amy said. “So no peeking, okay?”

Cheryl backed out of the driveway. Amy sighed and wondered how long this short string of luck would run.

Gallagher ran for his life. Feet stomping through ankle deep snow, bolting through the pines in some dark forest. Brambles tearing at his face as he ran headlong through the brush.

Something big and angry on his heels. Popping teeth and insane yellow eyes.

Heart jacking against his ribcage, he dove through the underbrush and came into a clearing. The night sky was clear and the moon full, its eerie light turning the snow blue. The lobo crashed from the pines and slammed him with the force of a freight train.

No defenses, no weapon. His hands useless against the powerful jaws of the wolf. It tore into his guts and chomped his right arm, snapping the bone. Its maw enveloped his ribs and shook him back and forth with feral savagery.

Whipped under that godless force, his neck snapped and Gallagher knew he was going to die. The monster would kill him and eat his flesh and there’d be nothing but scattered bones to find come the spring thaw. His shattered arm swung free on a hinge of tissue and when he felt a tug on his stomach he knew the lobo had gone for the belly and was dragging loose the purply ropes of intestines. The steam of his guts wisped up into the cold air but the pain subsided and he knew this was the end.

The jerking stopped. He didn’t want to look down but couldn’t help himself. The bony tips of his ribcage shone through the wet gristle of meat.

The wolf was gone.

Lara crouched in its place.

Squatting over him, naked as her birth and her wet hair hung over him, dripping with sweat. She was covered in his blood, as if she’d painted herself red with the stuff. She sklathed forward on her haunches and punched her fist under his ribs. A wet popping sound as she plucked her arm free with the raw meat of his heart in her fist. It beat once, twice and then went still.

He looked away, unable to watch as she devoured it. He screamed but no breath came out, no voice was raised under the blue of that killing moon.

The nightmares were back. Piggybacking the terror was a plunge of disappointment. He’d been doing so well since he’d found Lara. All these nights without the nightmares that robbed his sleep and left his nerves raw. Why now?

It all came back when the scream of his nightmare couldn’t escape his throat. He couldn’t open his mouth. Duct tape, sealed taut over his mouth. Blindfolded. The pressure of the fabric pressing down on his eyeballs. Trapped. His wrists burning under rope ties, arms bound tight against his chest. Ankles trussed.

He listened to the hum around him. The floor vibrated and rattled. A vehicle. Something big enough for him to stretch out in and judging by the vibrations of the floor, the vehicle was moving at a fast clip. Highway driving.

Grissom. The son of a bitch wasn’t content with mopping the floor with Gallagher’s ass, he had to kidnap him too like some hapless victim whose face adorned a thousand police flyers. The nightmares had returned but now he was the one who had vanished. The irony was neither funny nor poignant.

Worst of all, he had brought it on himself by daring the son of a bitch to come out into the open.

stupid
stupid
stupid

THIRTY-ONE

SAFELY INSIDE THE house, Cheryl had gone nuclear. Amy sat with the dog at her feet and quietly endured a barrage of rants and questions and more rants. Norm, her mom’s common-law beau, stood off to the side and interjected now and then to calm Cheryl down. Amy had little use for the man, tolerating his mellow vibe but had to admit he had a way of talking Cheryl down from the ledge. Amy employed the same lifeless answers here in her mother’s kitchen that she had used back in the precinct. Dollops of truth mixed into a batter of denials and shrugs.

The Siberian had saved her butt. Rising from its coil at Amy’s feet, the dog had padded across the tile to Cheryl and, in what Amy could see was an effort to calm or silence the woman, had leaned its flank against her mom’s knees.

It worked. Cheryl lost her cool and ordered the dog from her sight. Get out of jail, do not pass go. Amy clucked her teeth and the dog scampered back and she led the husky to her room. Even with the bedroom door closed, she could hear her mom turn her outrage against Norm until her shrillness subsided into sobs. She pictured Norm hugging her in his hippie way, cooing until Cheryl collapsed into his shoulder with full-body sobs.

Gross.

She fell onto the bed and wondered where her father was. Why did that guy take him? Lara had said that he was after her, not her dad. Where had he taken him? Rueben had assured her that they would do everything they could but they hadn’t been able to find Lara when she was missing. Lara was the only one who could find him now and she was locked up inside Central Precinct.

What if dad didn’t come back at all?

The dog had sniffed its way through the room and chose a patch of floor under the window to curl up in. It raised its head at the sounds of sobs coming from the bed. It rose and hopped onto the bed and lay back down, its chin draped over the girl’s knees.

Lara tried to sleep. Stretched out on the floor of interview room 2, she closed her eyes against the fluorescents and fell asleep. She had seen plenty of suspects stretch out for naps inside the interview rooms and was always amazed how anyone could sleep in these rooms. Now she knew. Hours ticked by with no clock to tally their passing and nothing but walls to stare at. As a detective, she had assumed that any skel hard enough to nap in the interview room was guilty. Now she was sure of it.

She pushed herself up to a sitting position. A figure sat in one of the hard-backed chairs. Squinting against the light, she assumed it was Charlene or Wade but it was neither. A dark figure in a green rain slicker, the hood pulled up to shadow the face.

“Made a real mess of things, didn’t you?” he said.

Lara rubbed her eyes to dispel the phantom. Just a bad dream.

A grimy hand reached up and pulled back the hood. Stringy hair and filthy beard, the eyes hidden under mirrored sunglasses. Ivan Prall’s face was spackled with blood and when he leaned back, Lara could see the open destruction of his torso. Split down the middle, his guts tumbled out and hit the floor with a wet plop. The ropes of intestine lay coiled there and Ivan Prall reached down and scooped them back up. “Hard keeping this stuff in. You and that asshole gutted me pretty bad.”

“Go away,” she said.

“I never meant to pass this onto you. It was supposed to end with me when I killed the son of a bitch who cursed me.” Prall shrugged and a tube of gut spilled out. “But we both know that didn’t work.”

When she and Gallagher were tracking Prall, he was on a mission to save himself. Ivan Prall thought that if he killed the lycanthrope that had infected him, he would sever some kind of spell and cure himself of his own lycanthropic curse. It hadn’t worked and she and Gallagher had killed Prall, but by then it was too late for her.

“You know what you got to do,” he said. “You should have done it a long time ago.”

Lara pinched the skin of her arm. Wake up.

“How long are you gonna last in this fishbowl before you turn? How bad is it gonna get when the wolf is turned loose in here?” More guts tumbled as he spoke and he scooped them back up. “Where’s your knife?”

“They confiscated it.”

“Too bad. That woulda worked.” He looked around the room, the table. “You could try bashing your brains against this hard corner but my guess is they’d stop you before you did any real damage.”

“You want me to kill myself?”

“What other option do you have?”

Lara’s eyes fell to the patchwork of scars on her forearm. How easy would it have been to just cut deeper? How many times had she wavered with the silver blade hovering over her wrist? Too late now.

“Have you killed anyone?”

She looked at him. “What?”

“As the wolf. You killed anybody?”

“No.” She shook her head sharply but her brow furrowed, doubt creeping in. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything when it happens so how would I know?”

“You’d know.” Ivan Prall scratched his foul beard. “There may be some hope for you yet if that’s the case.”

“What kind of hope? A cure?”

“Your soul. If you ain’t taken a life as the wolf, maybe you won’t go to Hell.”

She didn’t want to have this conversation. Not now, not with him. But there was nowhere to go. In for a penny, in for the pound. “Is that where you are? Hell?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

He slipped the sunglasses off and his irises glowed yet with that eerie amber, some vestigial remnant of the wolf still in there. There were tears too, dribbling from the corner of his eyelids. “It’s awful. It’s so goddamn awful…”

Wolves don’t cry, she remembered. Prall himself had told her that. Apparently that rule didn’t apply to the dead.

It was too much. This onetime lobo holding his guts in and crying into his rancid beard. Lara lay back down and turned her face to the wall and waited for it all to go away.

The husky snored, crowding her space on the bed. Amy lay awake, watching the minutes click over on the bedside clock.

Dad had been taken.

Lara under arrest.

She was trapped in her mom’s house.

Something had to be done. Amy stared up at the ceiling and formulated a plan, discarded it and formulated another.

She sat up, shook the dog awake. “Wake up.”

Creeping downstairs, she set her things by the front door and scarfed down a bowl of cereal and fed the dog. A small whiteboard hung on the refrigerator door and she took the marker dangling on its string and tried to think of a note to leave for Cheryl.

“Honey?” Cheryl tiptoed into the kitchen, her arms folded against the chill. “Why are you up so early?”

“Uh, I got a lot of things to do today,” Amy said. Think fast. “Thought I’d get an early start.”

Cheryl squinted at the clock. “It’s not even six. Is everything okay?”

“I couldn’t sleep. Needed to do something, you know?”

Cheryl nodded and put her hand on her daughter’s arm. Gave a little squeeze. “Your dad’s going to be okay. I know he will.”

“I know.” Amy nodded to where the dog sat waiting by the front door. “I’m taking him with me. We won’t be back until tonight.”

“Oh. Be home for dinner, okay?”

“Don’t wait for me. I’ll fix something if I miss dinner.”

“I’ll keep a plate warm for you.”

“Okay.” Amy gave her mom a squeeze back. “Go on back to bed. I’ll see you later.”

Cheryl patted Amy’s arm and yawned and headed back towards her room. Amy wanted to say something more. I love you or goodbye but she held her tongue, knowing it would alert her mom that something wasn’t right.

She listened for the click of the bedroom door and then slipped on her coat. Hefting the black duffel over her shoulder, she led the dog out and closed the door behind her.

She got off the 24 bus and walked the last five blocks home with the duffel bag killing her shoulder. The dog trotted ahead, sniffing everywhere and marking territory. She was worried there would be a cruiser parked in the street to watch the house but the street was empty. Letting herself in, she left the bag by the front door and went to her room and dug out her backpack. She stuffed it with extra clothes, all heavy winter wear stuff and then took it out to the hall closet and tossed in extra hats and gloves.

Hauling the backpack and duffel outside, she loaded the gear into the back of the Cherokee. Some of the camping gear her dad had packed was still here. The rest of it, including the extra bag of dog kibble, had been unloaded just inside the garage and she loaded it back into the truck. The duffel and her backpack went in next.

The husky looked up as she came back into the kitchen and followed her into her dad’s office. She rummaged through the desk drawers until she found his stash of emergency cash. Two hundred and fifty dollars, some loose change. She folded it into her pocket with her own cash and opened the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. The dented license plate was stuffed in the back, along with its paperwork. She turned out all the lights in the house and went back to the garage for a screwdriver.

Ducking low behind the Cherokee, she removed the plate from the back and replaced it with the old dented plate. Never one to be above bending rules, her dad had once showed her the extra set of tags he had kept handy. He’d kept cagey about what exactly he needed these plates for but seemed pleased with himself for setting up tags that officially belonged to someone who only existed in a file with the DMV. Small mercies, she could use these false tags now.

She whistled and the dog hopped through the driver’s side door and on into the back. Amy climbed in after and fired it up. The gas gauge registered full, to her relief, and she pulled out and drove away.

“Rise and shine sunshine.”

Lara sat on the floor as the door swung open and a detective entered. A man, moustache and gut of a seasoned pro. “Detective Mendes in the flesh. They told me they found you but I thought for sure they were pouring shit down my socks.”

Detective Latimer. Veteran homicide cop and pillar of the detail. The few times Lara had dealt with Latimer, he was an asshole. Little had changed in her absence.

Latimer grunted as he sunk into a chair. “Do you know what I been doing since you up and vanished on us, Mendes? Cleaning up the mess you left behind. For months now. That was a helluva crapout you left us with. Meanwhile, everyone around here’s been so ‘oh where could she be?’ and ‘we look after our own around here. Find her’.”

Lara said nothing. Clearly Latimer needed to blow off steam. So let him.

Latimer was just warming up. “Me? I knew you were dead. You know how I knew that? Because no cop would just bugger off like some French backpacker on tour. Not after this shitstorm. If she’s alive, I told ‘em, she’d be back to help tie this up. No cop leaves their balls twisting in the wind like this.” The blotchy patches on his cheeks brightened. “But low and behold, you pop up outta nowhere. And, this is the kicker, they tell me you won’t talk. Izzat true? All this shit smeared over the detail and… YOU WON’T TALK?”

Latimer rose, grunting under the effort and he brushed his hands together as if they were soiled. “Sweetheart, you shoulda been dead. Cuz you’re going wish you were after this is done.”

“Feel better?”

“What?”

Lara craned her neck. “That little speech. Did it go as well as you’d rehearsed it?”

“Dig that grave a little more, Mendes. Your tombstone’s all picked out and waiting.”

Another shadow darkened the open door. Detective Wade. He held a clutch of papers in hand and pushed them into Latimer’s chest. “Latimer, who’d you blow to swipe this file out from under Charlene?”

“I’m the one with the book collecting dust, not her.” Latimer looked at the forms in his hand. “The hell is this?”

“Orders. You gotta take her to the hospital for an assessment before anymore questioning.”

Another capillary burst on Latimer’s nose. “I don’t got time to babysit a doctor visit.”

“Lieutenant’s orders. Take it up with him.”

Lara bristled at Wade’s words. She rose to her feet. “Hey, I’m fine. No doctors.”

“Out of my hands, Lara” Wade said. “They just need a doctor to check your pulse and officially declare you among the living.”

A hospital. Doctors probing and prodding. How quickly before they found something out of order and called in some other doctor for a second look? Biopsies and tissue samples and then somebody calls the tabloids. “No,” she said, trying to keep the panic from her voice. “I’m fine. Really--“

“Shut up.” Latimer dragged her to the door. “A small reprieve before the guillotine. Let’s get this over with.”

Lara shot Wade a pleading look but all he did was shrug as Latimer escorted her away.

Amy smeared an am across her brow. A cold sweat that she hoped the desk sergeant didn’t notice. “Please. Detective Farbre knows me. She’ll okay it.”

The desk sarge shucked up his shoulders. “She’s not available. Sorry.”

“Then try detective Wade. He’s my dad’s partner.”

“Honey, this is a busy place. Tell me exactly what you want and maybe I can help.” He looked as exasperated as she felt.

“A woman was brought in last night.” Amy sighed, going through it all again. “Her name is--“

A bustle at the hallway cut her short. Lara, escorted into the lobby by Detective Wade and another plainclothes officer. Amy darted past the desk towards them. “Lara!”

Latimer thrust out a hand. “Whoa, back up kid.”

“It’s okay,” Wade said, waving Amy in. “It’s Gallagher’s daughter.”

Amy slowed at the sight of Lara. Her hands were cuffed and her eyes look hollow. “Lara, are you okay?”

Lara startled. “Amy, what are you doing here?”

“She’s fine,” Wade said. “Detective Latimer here is just taking her to the hospital for a quick assessment.”

“Hospital?” Amy looked at Latimer, then back to Wade. “You can’t. I mean, can I talk to her for a minute?”

“Sorry, kid.” Latimer pressed on, tugging Lara after him. “We got to go.”

“Please. Let me talk to her.”

Wade looked down at those puppy dog eyes and hated himself for caving. “Okay. Keep it short.”

“I don’t got time for this,” Latimer sputtered.

Wade fixed the blotchy-faced detective with a stern eye. “Yes you do.”

Latimer made no attempt to hide how much he hated this. He pointed to the bench. “You got exactly two minutes. Go.”

“You look awful,” Amy said as they sat down.

“I’m fine.” Lara kept an eye on Latimer, hovering close by.

Amy lowered her voice. “We have to find dad.”

Lara lifted the cuffs on her wrists.

“Where are they taking you?”

“They didn’t say,” Lara said. “My guess is Providence.”

“You need to get away from them. I’ve got the truck packed, ready to go.”

“Easier said than done.”

“Not for you.” Amy zeroed in on her eyes. “You’re stronger than they are. If you choose to be.”

Lara shook her head. “Amy… you don’t know what you’re asking. I can’t just turn it on or off like that.”

“You don’t have a choice, Lara. Dad never gave up looking for you. Now we have to find him.”

“Time to go, ladies.” Latimer barked.

Lara felt her legs go numb. The girl was crazy, asking her to just wolf out and overpower cops, bust out of a hospital.

“I’ll be parked outside the hospital,” Amy hissed before Latimer broke in. “Find me.”

“See ya, kid.” Latimer nodded to Amy and led Lara away. Amy watched as they were joined by two uniformed officers who flanked the detective and his ward as they went out the door.

THIRTY-TWO

THE CORRIDORS OF Providence Portland Medical were a miasma of smells that assaulted Lara at every step. Disinfectant and blood and body odor and desperation. A wall of scent that overpowered her like tear gas. The fact that she was this sensitive to it meant the wolf inside was uncoiling, the first uptick of heartbeat signifying what was about to unfold.

She was escorted to a small examining room, Latimer nodding for her to sit on the gurney. “Sit tight, we’ll get this over with soon as possible.” He unlocked the bracelets. “Then you’re all mine.” Latimer posted one of the uniforms to stay in the room and he and the other officer left.

Lara massaged her wrists and tried to breathe through her mouth. She could smell every sick person who had passed through the examining room. The remaining officer stood with his back to the door. There wouldn’t be a better time but she hesitated over what she was about to do. Letting slip the wolf just enough to overpower her guards but not enough to take over. Like walking the edge of a knife.

She slid off the table. The officer raised a hand in warning. “Sit back down please.”

“Officer, I’m sorry for this,” she said. He was probably going to get hurt.

“Everything’s fine,” he said in an even tone. “Just have a seat, please.”

Later, PO Pudowski would be unable to explain exactly what happened next. One second he was warning her to sit back down and the next he was face first on the floor with a knee driven into the small of his back. Despite outweighing his prisoner by a hundred pounds, Pudowski found himself tossed and folded like a dirty sheet.

“Sorry.” Lara shackled the officer with his own cuffs.

PO Pudowski bucked and kicked and yelled his head off. Lara sprang up and planted her heel into the officer’s back just as the door swung open.

Here they come.

Latimer was first in, the other uniform on his tail. She didn’t bother apologizing to Latimer before grabbing his collar and pivoting on her heel. Airborne, the detective crashed into the wall and landed on the bed, tipping the whole thing to the floor.

The uniform shot an arm round her neck and hauled back. Lara’s feet left the ground as she was tilted back in the chokehold. Her gut instinct was to bite down on the young man’s arm. How bad would that turn out? Pudowski was scrambling up and she kicked her feet off of him and slammed the other officer into the wall. The chokehold slackened and she slipped out. He reached for his sidearm. She folded him in two and jettisoned him into Pudowski. They crashed over Latimer like tenpins.

Latimer cursed when he saw the open door. The prisoner gone.

Lara sprinted past gaping faces in the corridor and shouldered through a door. An empty stairwell, one flight down to where the exit door fed out onto the street. At the bottom she shrugged off her coat, stuck it under her arm and calmly pushed out to the street. Keeping an even pace, she struck north through a parking lot and didn’t look back. Taking the air, she tried to pick out Amy’s scent from the toxic stink of the city street.

Amy stood outside the Cherokee, one eye out for Lara and the other for parking authority. The only place to pull over was a no-stopping zone but it afforded a good view of the northeast corner of the hospital. But a pesky parking cop might be a problem if he issued a ticket to the bogus tags on the truck.

Of Lara, there was no sign. What if she couldn’t find her? What if Lara couldn’t even escape and was at this moment being prodded and examined by doctors aghast at what they were seeing?

The dog slung its head out the open window. Amy let him out and told him to stay. Maybe the combined scent of her and the dog would help Lara find them.

Then she spotted the ticket cop. He popped up between the parked cars to her left, issuing the notices and slipping them under wiper blades. Only a few minutes before he made his way to them. Another panicked glance at the hospital but there was nothing to see.

“Come on, boy.” She coaxed the dog back into the truck, trying to stifle her panic and when she looked up, Lara was there. Amy couldn’t stop the smile stretching her jaw muscles. “You made it! I was starting to worry.”

Lara flung open a back door. “Get us out of here.”

Amy hustled behind the wheel and pulled into traffic without looking. A car honked at being cut off and Amy ignored it, speeding up. The wail of siren froze her blood. An ambulance sailed past.

“Take a right up here,” Lara said from the backseat. “Cut over to Halsey.”

Amy checked Lara in the rearview. She didn’t look good, doubled over with sweat beading her pale face. “Are you all right?”

“It’s happening.”

“Oh shit.” Amy reached for something on the passenger seat and handed it back. “Here. Best I could do.”

Lara took the bundle and unraveled it. A big carving knife. The tip broken off and the handle wrapped tight with hockey tape to form a sturdier grip. The tingle in her fingers confirmed that it was sterling. She had seen this knife before. Gallagher had told her it came from his dead mother’s carving set. They had used it to gut open Ivan Prall.

She pushed up her sleeve and ran the edge of the blade into her forearm. Blood welled up under the silver and the effect was immediate. Her heartrate dropped, her mind cleared. The dog watched her with wary eyes.

She searched out Amy’s eyes in the mirror. “Are you okay to drive?”

“I’m fine. Stay down.”

Lara slid down in the seat, ignoring the sting from the blade in her arm. “We’ll have to lose the truck soon. It won’t take them long to flag your dad’s vehicle.”

“We’re good,” Amy said. “I swapped out the plates.”

That took Lara by surprise. “With what?”

“Dad had bogus ones. They’re issued to the city. Got the paperwork too, it’s in the glovebox.”

Lara felt her pulse slow even more and watched Amy drive. “Girl, you’re awesome.”

They stayed off the main corridors for as long as they could then Lara had Amy take the Vet Memorial across the river into Washington. On the north end of Van, Lara told her to pull over. Amy turned into an empty lot surrounded by hemlock trees and killed the engine and everyone disembarked. The dog scampered off, marking every tree in a ten yard radius.

Amy kicked at the gravel, watching Lara stretch. “How do feel?”

“Exhausted but I’m glad to be out of there.” Lara looked at the girl. “Hey. Thank you.”

“Did they keep you in that room all night?”

“Not exactly the Ramada. Weird being on the other side like that.”

“Like a criminal.”

Lara nodded.

Amy watched the husky bounding over the terrain. “What now?”

“Need to get my bearings. Then try to pick up their scent, determine which way they went. Is there a map in the glovebox?”

Amy rummaged the glovebox and came back with a map, unfolding it across the hood. Clicked on a flashlight. “How precisely can you track them? Is it a general direction or can you pinpoint the route they took?”

“They went north, I can you tell that. I should be able to follow their path. It just means stopping every so often to double-check.”

“Cool.”

“We’re about here.” Lara pointed at a spot on the map and trailed her finger up half an inch. “We need to find a bus station. Get you a ticket and you can head home. I’ll call to update when I can.”

Amy leaned back. “I’m going with you.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“No.” Amy’s features set to stone. “That asshole has my dad. I’m going with you.”

“Amy, you were great back there, getting me out. And the plates and packing the truck with gear but this…” Lara stumbled, chose her words carefully. “You know what Grissom is. I can’t bring you into this. Your dad would kill me.”

“He’ll be dead unless we get moving. Two are better than one. And I’m not some useless kid.”

Lara steeled herself. “I am going to find your dad and bring him back. But I can’t do that if I have to look out for you too. You’re a crackerjack kid, Amy. No doubt. But you’re sixteen and--“

“Seventeen,” Amy cut in.

“I can’t do it. I won’t.”

Even the dog sensed the standoff. It stood watching them, one forepaw lifted and waiting for something to happen.

Amy yanked open the truck’s rear door and dug around and came back with the nine millimeter. “See that stop sign?”

The red sign leaned in the tall grass thirty feet from where they stood. Lara glanced nervously at the road. “Put that away, Amy.”

“Three rounds in the ‘O’.” Amy planted her feet and brought the gun up in both hands. A tiny pause before she tapped off three rounds. The Glock bucking only slightly in her clenched hands.

Lara watched the puncture marks bloom inside the third letter of the stop sign. The smell of the gun drifted across the frozen grass.

Amy bent to pick the spent casings from the ground and slipped them into her pocket. “I know what we’re going after, Lara. I know our chances aren’t worth crap but I’m going with you. It’s my dad who’s in trouble and if you think you’re gonna ditch me here, you got another thing coming.”

Lara blew out her cheeks, cried uncle. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s find your dad.”

They drove the rest of the night, travelling east through The Dalles then north, past the towns of Kennewick and Pasco. They had pulled over twice so Lara could recalibrate her fix on the trail. Amy had started to fade so Lara took over behind the wheel and Amy hunkered down in the passenger seat to sleep.

When she woke, the truck was quiet and still. The driver’s seat empty. They were parked at a decrepit looking gas station. A light snow was dusting the few cars humming past on the road. Lara stood on a gravel spur, looking out across a vacant field of snow to where the treeline hemmed in the sightlines. A wall of pine and cedar and darkness. The dog was nowhere to be seen.

Amy swung out of the cab. “Why did we stop?”

Lara turned to look at her. “They crossed the border.”

“How do you know?”

Lara kicked at the snow with her boot. “Because the border is twenty minutes north and their scent is already cold. They’re still travelling north, up into the BC interior.”

“So we cross the border too.” Amy watched a tractor-trailer roar past. “It’s Canada. How bad can it be?”

“Not if we get stopped. I have no ID on me. Your name has probably been red-flagged to border authority. And if they search the truck, we’re screwed.”

“Is there some other way in?” Amy nodded to the treeline before them. “It’s not like we have to swim across. There must be some backroad we can take.”

Lara shook her head. “There’s no roads anywhere near the demarcation line. The border’s patrolled constantly. More so on this side. We’d be spotted in a heartbeat.”

They watched the road, neither one speaking. The dog trotted up behind Amy and nosed her hand.

“We’ll have to chance it,” Amy said.

Lara looked at her reflection in the windshield. “God, I look terrible. We should clean up first, try to look like tourists.”

Amy opened up the back. “I packed us some clothes. Brought your toothbrush too.” She nodded at the ramshackle gas station. The exterior door of the bathroom was filthy and chipped. “How disgusting do you think that bathroom is?”

“You don’t want to know.” Lara rifled through the bags, pulling out clean clothes. “So what’s our story? Why are we visiting British Columbia?”

“To see family.” Amy pulled out the small toiletries bag. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”

Lara’s face darkened.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. It’s just, I usually spend Christmas at my sister’s. This will be the first time without her in five years.”

Amy kept unpacking stuff, pretending she didn’t see Lara quickly wipe her eyes. “Maybe when this is all over, you can call Marisol. Just to let her know you’re okay.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

The bathroom was cramped and it smelled and they jostled over one another as they changed clothes and made themselves look as normal and bland as possible. Just two gals travelling into another country for the holidays. With a cache of lethal firepower hidden in the back.

The husky was waiting patiently outside the door when they came out. They climbed back into the truck and drove for the border.

THIRTY-THREE

GALLAGHER AWOKE TO silence. No vibrating rumble of the vehicle nor low hush of highway whipping past. He sat up, stiff from the hard floor beneath him and blinked his eyes against the gloom. His coat had been tossed over him as a blanket. The temperature had dropped and he wasn’t in the van anymore.

His hands were free, the restraints gone. So too was the blindfold and the gag over his mouth. The floor underneath him was wooden and it creaked under his weight at the slightest movement. Slits of light broke through chinks in the wall and his eyes picked out the contours of a room. Bare walls and the old wood floor, dark joists strapped across the ceiling. The room smelled of must and dirt and rot. Where the hell was he?

He got to his feet and his head swam like a bad hangover. His eyes found the outlines of a door. He expected it be locked but the door swung open with a croak of rusty hinges. The glare of sunlight off the snow blinded him. The ground stretched out before him and ended at a wall of trees. Giant pine and cedar, a few spruce trees. His boots crunched the snow as he stepped out and turned back to survey the building he had awoken in. A ramshackle wooden house of blackened clapboard and grey cedar shingle. At least a century old, the timbers skewed and the beams tilted out of plumb. Crumbling slowly in on itself with the weight of the snow pushing the roof down. Hemmed in close behind the house stood the treeline, the heavy forest creeping in as if slowly swallowing the structure.

He stood on a road. Fresh tire tracks in the snow. A single vehicle had passed this way, presumably the one he’d been transported in. The treads snaked away as the road twisted around a bend. He followed the tracks, rounding the bend. More buildings came into view, lining both sides of the road. Some were houses or small cottages, others were tall with wide verandas. Storefronts with picture windows. All of them as old and decrepit as the one he’d awoken in. A crumbling pioneer outpost from the early part of the last century, left to molder against the wall of pines creeping in around it.

A ghost town.

The border crossing was relatively quiet, even for this time of the year. Two pickups and a handful of tractor trailers snaking their way through the guard booths. Lara drummed the steering wheel and watched the vehicles inch forward. Not one had been pulled aside.

So far.

“I think we’ll be okay,” she said. “They’re waving most people through without a fuss. Christmas, I guess.”

Amy bit her lip and turned to regard the dog in the backseat. “What about the dog? What if they hassle us about him?”

“Just be cool and everything will be okay.”

“This is crazy. Maybe we should turn back, try something else.”

Lara took the girl’s wrist. “You have to calm down. These people go on their gut instincts. Any paranoia or twitchy behavior will set them off. So be cool. Okay?”

Amy took a breath and counted sheep as they inched closer. Needing to distract the girl from her own demise, Lara asked her about basketball. Was she still playing guard? How had her team performed this year?

It worked. Amy launched into a breathless recap of their season and how she had improved her game but still had a problem fighting off the bigger players. Lara kept her talking until they drew up before the yellow swing arm.

The border guard peered at them with an air of practiced boredom. A woman in badly applied eyeshadow and plastic nails asked them where they were from and what their nationality was.

“American,” said Lara. “From Portland.” The key to bullshitting your way through was to cut as close to the truth as you can. A ruse Lara had gleaned from an endless parade of shifty smokehounds trying to eyefuck her in an interview room.

“Where are you headed?” the guard asked.

“Calgary.”

The woman bent low to see Amy and then scanned the rear seat of the truck. “What’s the purpose of your visit and how long will you be staying?”

“We’re spending the holidays with some family. Coming back the day after Boxing day. So five days.”

“Uh-huh. Is that dog registered?”

Lara just rolled with it, spotting a test when she saw it. “Yup.”

The woman clicked her fake nails on the window sill. “What’s his name?”

Amy gulped. The dog didn’t have a name. Why hadn’t they ever named the dog? How stupid had they been?

“Ivan,” Lara replied without missing a beat. “He’s not liking the drive at all.”

The woman clicked her teeth. “They’re like little kids in the car, huh?”

“Exactly.” Lara smiled back. “What kind of dog do you have?”

“Sharpie,” the guard said. “She hates the car too.” She reached for her control panel and the liftgate swung up. “You have a Merry Christmas.”

“You too.” Lara waved and drove through the checkpoint, picking up speed as the dotted lines guided them onto the road into another country.

Amy gasped for air, realizing that she had held her breath the whole time.

The husky stuck its snout through the window, flaring its nostrils against a fresh blast of wind and scent.

Another hour on the road before stopping for gas. They bought a roadmap and sandwiches and let the dog stretch its legs. Amy unfolded the map on their knees. “Where are we?”

“We crossed here in Boundary.” Lara pointed at the map. “So we’re about here. They’re still north of us.”

A dollop of tuna salad dribbled onto the map. Amy wiped it away and snaked a finger along their route. “There’s a lot of wilderness here. And not too many towns.”

“Mountains too.”

“Can you tell if we’re getting close?”

Lara shook her head. “He’s got a day’s start on us. Plenty of lead time.”

“You need some rest. You’re looking a little bleary.”

“I’m fine.”

Amy leveled her with a look. “Lara, you’ve been driving for how many hours? You’re starting to weave all over the road.”

Lara couldn’t deny it. The last hour had been rough, her eyesight blurring the road ahead. Now with a meal in her belly, exhaustion set in to roost. “Okay. We’ll find a motel somewhere and get a couple hours of sleep, then continue on.”

“I don’t want to lose anymore time,” Amy said. “You sleep in the back. I’ll drive for a while.”

“You’re exhausted too. We both need to be alert when we get there.”

Amy looked at the map again. “Where’s there?”

“There’s only one highway that runs through these mountains.” Lara traced her finger up the map to an open space of green. “They turned off the main road, somewhere up in here I think.”

Amy lifted her gaze to the road. “What if we’re too late?”

“Your dad’s going to be okay.”

“How do you know? He could be--“ She cut off the thought before uttering it.

“Grissom wants me to find him. He won’t do anything drastic until I do.”

Amy took a breath to calm down. “What are we gonna do when we get there?”

“I don’t know yet,” Lara said. “One more reason to rest up and clear our heads.”

Amy lowered her eyes to the map again. “Looks like there’s a town up here. Not too far.”

“Okay, let’s crash there. Where’s the dog?”

The tiniest crack of a smile lifted Amy’s mouth. “You mean Ivan?”

“I know. My mind blanked out on names. Except for that one.”

Amy stepped out and opened the back door, whistling for the mutt. The husky trotted up out of a ditch with its nose dusted in snow and leapt into the back.

The crumbling shacks held little but musty smells and broken glass. The dry bones of woodmice strewn amongst the debris on the dryrot floors. Gallagher roamed from building to building, exploring the earthly remains of whatever town this was. He found a blacksmith’s shop with an anvil and blast furnace still intact. Rusting pickaxes and spades piled into a corner, the wooden handles splintered and gone. He hefted the pick, the tool of a miner and guessed that this was once an outpost of the goldrush. One of a countless number of towns that sprung up overnight when some crazed hermit panned gold from a creekbed. Abandoned just as fast when the vein ran dry and no further ore could be picked or dynamited from the mountainside.

He ducked under the low lintel and stepped out to the road. His eyes cast up and down the drag, ears cocked for any sound but there was none. Where was Grissom? Did he dump him here and keep moving? Why bother abducting him at all? Cupping a hand over his mouth he hollered up a ‘hello’. A bird startled from a tree and flapped away. Nothing more.

He explored more of the dead village, passing the barnboard wreck of a stable and the ruins of a church. The roof had caved in and the cross that had once crested the steeple lay poking up out of the snow.

The single tire treads wound past the ruins of the church and graded down the hill. There, at the bottom of the slope, was a vehicle.

A plain-looking cargo van, quiet and still on the incline. Rushing down, he jerked open the driver’s door. Empty.

The keys, impossibly, remained in the ignition.

He turned the key but nothing happened. Not even a click. He turned it again and again. He popped the latch lever and climbed out. Threw up the hood and peered into the engine. The distributor cap was gone, the cables ripped out to leave the plugs exposed and useless. Searching around the van, hoping to find where it had been tossed but there was no sign of it. Gallagher spit onto the snow. The vehicle was useless.

Opening the rear door revealed little save the space he’d been confined in. There was a toolkit and a chainsaw. A red gasoline canister, three-quarters full. Trash and debris.

What the hell was the bastard up to? Grissom had transported him all the way out here to this ghost town and then crippled the van beyond repair. That meant that Grissom was close but had no further need of the vehicle.

End of the line. For everybody.

Amy awoke to a cold nose pressed into her cheek. The husky snorted and wagged its tail. Pushing the dog away, she sat up and looked at the window. Still dark outside.

Lara didn’t stir in the bed next to her. She didn’t wake, didn’t even seem to be breathing she lay so still. Amy shuddered and got dressed quietly and took the dog outside.

She let the dog run and walked to the truck stop just south of the motel. Got coffee, eggs and bagels to go and headed back. Slipping back inside the motel room, she found the bed empty and the bathroom door closed. A hushed break from the other side of the door that sounded like sobbing.

Amy stood still, listening. “Lara?”

The sobbing ceased, replaced with the sound of running water.

Lara emerged from the bathroom, patting her face dry with a towel. “We overslept.”

“Guess we needed it,” Amy shrugged. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” Lara reached for her clothes. “Is that breakfast?”

“Greasy spoon fare.” Amy handed over a cup of coffee and watched Lara dress. “Anything you want to talk about?”

“No. Let’s get going. We’ll eat on the road, okay?”

The highway was empty of traffic so she let Amy drive. A single vehicle passed them travelling south before the sky broke grey. Sunup still an hour away. Lara studied the map, trying to spot some area of terrain where Grissom might hold up.

Amy held the wheel. “Any luck?”

“No.” Lara put the map down and watched the road. “They’re close though.”

“How can you tell?”

“It’s hard to explain. I can just tell.”

The Cherokee drifted over the yellow line. Amy corrected her course. “When you change into the, you know, wolf, do you remember anything?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

Amy steered on. “I think when you become the wolf, some part of you is still conscious.”

“Can’t be.” Lara watched the trees whip past. “It’s an animal. Not even an animal.”

“When we were in the garage and you changed then, you didn’t attack me or dad. You…or it snapped and snarled but held off. It wanted to attack but something held it back. That was you.”

“You’re reading too much into it.”

“No. There was something in the wolf’s eyes. Some recognition or something.” Amy glanced at her but Lara stared out the window. “I saw that other one up close, the grey one. There was nothing but murder in that thing’s eyes. Hatred, savagery.”

Lara stopped listening. Something was wrong and it was wrong immediately. She sat upright and looked back. “Stop the truck.”

“What’s wrong?”

“I lost them. Pull over.”

Amy drifted onto the snowy shoulder and slowed. Lara jumped out before the vehicle had even stopped. Turning her nose to the road ahead and downwind the way they had come.

Amy leaned into the passenger seat. “What is it?”

“I lost the scent.” Lara climbed back inside. “Go back. They must have turned off the road somewhere.”

Amy cranked the wheel and doubled back down the empty road. “Where did we lose them?”

“I don’t know. Keep your eyes peeled for a turn-off or side road.”

Amy slowed her speed and they scanned the ditch on both sides. Trees and snow and rock. It all looked the same, with no break or clearing. The dog was on its feet now and Lara lowered the back window so the husky could poke its muzzle out into the wind.

“There,” Amy said, pointing to a faint break of bare white in the roadside. A windrow of snow bifurcated with tire treads.

She turned into the break and plowed through the windrow. The side road, if it was a road, appeared as no more than a winding path of white cutting through the trees. Unplowed as it was, the snow was cleft with twin tracks that snaked ahead and vanished among the pine trees. “I don’t know if this is even a road. Is it on the map?”

“No.” Lara checked the map again. “This is just some old logging trail.”

“Are you sure they went this way?”

Lara’s nose quivered. “This is it.”

Amy shifted into neutral, coasting over the snow and toggled the shifter. A short grinding sound before the four-wheel drive bumped in.

THIRTY-FOUR

THE TEMPERATURE DROPPED when the sun went down, sending Gallagher scrambling for shelter. One of the ramshackle houses had a fireplace and a few dry matches scattered on the mantel. He broke up what furniture there was for firewood and passed the night on the dirty floor. He didn’t sleep but he didn’t dream either.

When morning came his back was stiff and his mouth parched. A sour ache churned his stomach and he couldn’t remember when he last ate. The ghost town looked as dead as ever in the grey light and he went back to the blacksmith’s shop to rummage among the broken tools for a weapon. There was an axe with a heavy blade but the petrified handle split under the first test swing. Tossing it back with disgust, he quit the shop.

The treads of the van were still visible in the snow so he followed them. It would be miles of dense forest before any sign of life but it was better than staying in this hamlet of tombstone houses and dryrot history.

Keeping a casual pace he lost sight of the town and was enveloped in a bleary scape of snow and tree trunks with nothing but the tracks before him to distinguish anything. He’d not gone far when he heard something rustle the trees. Gliding invisible among the pines, matching his pace. Stalking him.

He should have looked harder for a weapon. Even a heavy stick would do but there was nothing in his hands and even less in his pockets.

Another few paces and the wolf appeared. It sklathed out of the trees and onto the road before him. Massive in its girth, the hackles raised and its chops slung open to reveal the rows of outsized teeth. He assumed it to be Grissom but this wolf’s pelage was dark, almost black. It wasn’t Grissom. Some other lobo.

A second wolf emerged from the treeline to his left and then two more on his right flank. Without turning around, he sensed the fifth one moving up behind him. Werewolves. A pack of them, like storybook beasts with their snouts curled back in snarls. Monstrous in their abhorrence, things that skulked the ragged periphery of the natural order. Blasphemous things all.

The monsters were enormous but seemed thin and ragged. Deep scars riven across their snouts and dorsals. One was walleyed, as if driven insane by its condition and another loped in a peculiar trot, one hind leg missing from the shank down.

His heart seized up at the sight of them, these things from his nightmares. His hands went numb, all the fight draining out of him. Encountering just one of these monsters had ruined his life but now this. A pack of them.

Just lie down and die.

Get it over with.

The wolves circled at a distance, as if sensing his defeat and waiting for him to give up the ghost. Sidling in a trot, muzzles low to the ground. Grouping and then fanning out.

A gap opened on his right flank and Gallagher moved, stomping through the trees, traversing uphill. The lobos sklathed forward and he clambered up a low foothill, keeping one eye on the pack as he went. For a moment he fooled himself that there was an advantage to this, moving uphill of the monsters but it was a pretense and no more. He was at their mercy and the wolves were simply taking their time with it.

Clambering up, he saw a dark maw opening against the snowy hillscape. The mouth of some cave or cleft in the mountain. He scrambled towards it. Shelter or a last stand. An Alamo.

The wolves closed in, bolting forward and running at a pass towards him without striking. Taunting him. Gallagher cursed them and flung a dead branch at the nearest one and clambered on with all he had. He heard their jaws pop at his heels, teeth snapping like death.

It was a mine shaft. The mouth of it framed in moldering beams, a few broken tools strewn aside like artifacts from some mad archeological dig. Gallagher crashed over the broken timbers and scrambled inside. Moving further in, his boots slipping on what felt like loose shale. Impossible to run, visibility swallowed in the gloom. He fell, a rattle of dry sticks against his knees and then he looked back. The opening of the mineshaft was an orb of white light in the pitch.

The wolves passed against the opening and passed again, dark forms against the light but they did not enter. After a moment they appeared no more and he knew they were waiting for him to come out again.

Gallagher stepped warily but there was nowhere to find a firm footing, his boots crunching over this pile of dry sticks that blanketed the entire floor of the mine. When his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw what he was treading on. Bones. The calcified ribcages and broken skulls and snapped vertebrae of man and animal alike carpeted the floor of the cave like some mass ossuary.

This was no shelter, no last defense. It was a killing floor. The wolves lair. No Alamo, no last stand.

Gallagher sunk down, rattling a slurry of drybones under him, and tried to remember the last words he had spoken to his daughter. It hadn’t been goodbye.

The road winnowed down to a treacherous slice of snow, little more than a gap in the brush. The wheels dipped and clunked over the snowcrust, jerking and popping the Cherokee’s suspension. Amy’s knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel as she fought to keep the vehicle on the path.

“Easy,” Lara said, one hand on the dashboard. Wondering if she shouldn’t take the wheel.

“Sorry. It’s hard to see the road.”

“That’s because there isn’t one.”

Amy slowed to a crawl and followed the path as it meandered through the thicket of snowloaded branches. The road vanished as she negotiated a hairpin turn. Then she hit the brakes.

An enormous tree lay across the path. The massive trunk four hands in diameter and God only knew how many tons of it. There was no going around it.

Amy looked at Lara. “Now what?”

“We weren’t meant to drive any further.” Lara studied the fallen timber and the snowbound path underneath it. The vehicle treads they had followed passed underneath the deadfall. “The tree was pushed down after the vehicle drove through.”

“Grissom pushed it down?” Amy blinked at the massive thing.

Lara pointed to the sheared end of it, the sawdust splayed over the snow. “He cut it down.”

“Okay. So what, we go in on foot?”

“Yup.” Lara checked the road on her side. “But let’s turn the truck around so it’s pointed the other way. Just in case we have to leave in a hurry.”

The tires spun in the snow and Amy cursed when she bumped up against a tree but got the Cherokee turned around in the tight space. She climbed out and let the dog out of the backseat.

Lara strode away from the stink of the vehicle to catch the breeze coming through the brush. The hair on her arms stood up and something cold fingered up her spine. Trouble on the wind.

Amy unloaded the weapons from the duffel. She checked the load on the Eagle and laid it aside and checked the Glock. This she stuck into her coat pocket and reached for the shotgun. Pumping it once to find it unloaded, she took up the hulls loose in the bag and loaded them into the chamber.

The dog was antsy. Nose twitching at the road ahead and pacing in a circle only to stop and sniff the air again. Amy turned, saw Lara acting strange too. Stock still and staring off in the same direction as the husky. “Lara, you okay?”

Lara didn’t respond, didn’t move.

“Is dad out there?”

Lara shook her head as if to clear it. “Yes. So is Grissom.”

“I guess the dog smells them too. He’s acting weird.”

There was more than that on the wind. Exactly what, Lara couldn’t tell but she didn’t like it. Could Grissom’s musk be that strong or was it something else? She looked at Amy. “I think you should stay here. Keep the truck ready to go when I get back.”

“I’m not doing that.” Amy went back to unloading their gear.

“Something isn’t right here, Amy. Please.”

“We’ve run this number already. I’m not staying back. Not if that bastard has Dad.” Amy plucked a flashbang from the bag. “What’s out there?”

“More wolves.”

Amy stopped what she was doing. A heartbeat and then she hauled her backpack onto her shoulders and closed the hatch. She came round with the shotgun in one hand and the 50 .cal in the other. “I don’t care.”

The husky slunk between them and leaped onto the fallen tree.

“If you can smell Grissom from here, can he smell you coming?”

“Yes.” Lara registered the weapons in Amy’s hands. “Where’s the Glock?”

“In my pocket.”

Nodding to the Eagle and the shotgun. “Which one do you want?”

“What’s the plan?”

“Find your father. Kill Grissom.”

Amy held out the big handgun. Lara took it and chinned the Mossberg clutched in the girl’s hand. “Are you okay with that?”

“The spread is lethal,” said Amy. “If there are other wolves, I want a good shot at blowing them to pulp.”

Lara scrutinized the girl’s eyes. For the hundredth time she questioned the wisdom of bringing her to this place but there was no turning back now. She cinched up her coat and Amy did the same and they set out on the trail, the husky loping through the snow before them.

Nothing passed before the mouth of the cave, nothing blocked the light coming in. Gallagher sat among the bones and scrambled his brains for a plan. He rummaged through the ossified remains, the bones tinkling like dry wood, until he found a thick stem of femur broken off at one end in a splintered point. Barely a weapon.

A shadow rose up before the mine entrance but the silhouette blocking the available light stood on two legs, not four.

“Come on out of there,” the figure called out.

Grissom.

Gallagher held his breath, didn’t move.

“The wolves are gone,” Grissom hollered up, his voice ringing off the walls of the mine shaft. “Come out of there. We need to talk.”

No sense in hiding. Gallagher made for the entrance, his bootheels grinding the skeletal twigs under each step. The splintered bone spur clenched in his fist. If he was lucky, he might get a chance to drive it through the son-of-a-bitch’s eye.

Stepping out of the darkness into the pale light, he scanned the terrain. No wolves, just the man.

Grissom stood back from the entrance, raising his palms as if to prove there was nothing up his sleeve. “They’re gone. I called ‘em off.”

Gallagher gritted his teeth. The last thing he wanted from this bastard was to parlay. “Where did those things come from?”

“All over.” Grissom lowered his hands. “This country, some from the States. One of ‘em came all the way from Mexico.”

“And they’re all like you?”

“No, they’re nothing like me. They’re true wolves now.”

“True wolves?”

“True as can be,” Grissom said. “They changed all the way, no shred of humanity left. They can’t ever change back.” He kicked at the snow with his boot. “So no, they ain’t like me anymore. Or Lara. They’ve gone all the way.”

Gallagher eyeballed the distance between himself and his abductor but there was too much ground to strike. Grissom was strong and he was fast. Keep him talking, draw him in. “What is this place?”

Grissom stuck his hands in his pockets, casual as can be. “Used to be called Blackwood back in the gold rush days. But you won’t find it on any map. Quiet, ain’t it?” He rocked back on his heels, friendly and gregarious. “That’s what I like about it. Mind you, about two years back, we had some folks set up camp here, looking to build some half-assed hippie commune. They didn’t last too long neither.”

“Why was that?”

The man grinned. “They didn’t cotton much to its true residents.”

“You.”

“Us,” Grissom said. “The pack winters here. Come the spring, we’ll move back north.”

Another step closer. Grissom remained relaxed, like he was chitchatting on a streetcorner and didn’t seem to notice that Gallagher was closing the distance. Gallagher kept jawing. “Why’d you bring me here?”

“Lara needs a little push. And I knew she’d come if I hauled your sorry ass up here.”

“You think she’s coming?”

“I know she is.”

“So what then? You take her prisoner?”

“Won’t have to.” Grissom scanned the trees about, the mountain. “Once she’s here, among her true kind, she’ll stay of her own accord. Take her place in the pack.”

Gallagher turned his head and spat into the snow. “Just like that, huh? You think she’s going to settle in with you filthy mutts.”

“Where is else is she gonna go? With you? We both know that ain’t gonna work.”

“Why? Why go to all this trouble?”

“Every pack needs a female.” Grissom kicked at the snow. “Our numbers have been cut down. All males now. The pack needs to rebuild. That means breeding.”

Gallagher almost dropped the spur, taking in what the man said. “Breed? Are you fucking crazy?”

“It’s not easy, not with our kind at least. But Lara’s strong. She can do this.”

Gallagher gritted his teeth to stay calm. A half step. He ballparked the distance to six feet. Almost there, keep him talking. “And what happens then, when Lara joins your pack?”

“I think you know.”

“You’re going to kill me.”

“Fraid so.” Grissom shrugged, like it was all out of his hands. “See, Lara’s got one last step to make to become a wolf. She’s never taken a human life and that’s where you come in. When the prodigal returns, you get to be the fatted calf.”

Gallagher snarled. “Then I hope you choke on my bones you ugly son of a bitch.”

“That’s the spirit, detective.”

“Course, that’s assuming Lara comes at all. She’s no dummy.”

“Oh she’s coming all right.” Grissom turned and looked back towards the town. “In fact, she’s already here.”

Grissom’s back was almost turned. No better chance. Gallagher sprang, slamming the man into the ground. The bone spur in his fist plunged deep into Grissom’s neck. Blood erupted up over his hand, gurgling onto the snow.

The roar from Grissom’s throat was an echo straight from Hell it sounded so inhuman. He bucked like a bronco, throwing Gallagher.

Gallagher rolled across the snow, sprang up only to be flattened by a ten-ton weight. Blood spackled over him as Grissom shoved his face into the icy ground. Hissed in his ear. “You’re a tough old bastard, ain’t you? Tough meat too but maybe we can tenderize that some.”

Gallagher felt the blow to his skull, but only for a tiny moment.

THIRTY-FIVE

THE DOG HAD picked up the scent, bounding ahead on the snow-packed trail. Lara trudged on, the hair on the back of her neck bristling at each step. Grissom and Amy’s father were close but there was something else jagging her nerves raw. The vastness of the evergreens and the mountains, a steamy fog lifting from the snow. The absence of people and their stench. The immensity of sky plucked at some chord in her heart that was hard to deny. Had it been so bad, those days of exile with no companion but the birds? It would be so easy to shrug off her skin and slip into the wolf. Lara Mendes could be left behind like the husk of a moulting snake while her lupine shadow ran free.

The only thing spoiling the moment was the sound of Amy’s boots grinding the snow.

The girl marched in silence, cutting a grim figure for someone so young. Armed with the pump action and a cast of pure murder in her eyes, she bore little resemblance to the seventeen-year old she had left behind in Portland. Maybe she was feeling the wild call to her too.

Amy sensed her eyes on her. “Are they close?”

“Very.”

“So what’s the plan?”

“Grissom will come out to talk. We demand he free your dad.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

“I’m going to kill him,” Lara said. “Either way.”

Amy narrowed her gaze on the woman. The cold frankness of her voice. “Is that necessary?”

“He won’t stop until he gets what he wants. Either I give in or he dies. There isn’t any other way.” Lara marched on, the path rising uphill. “We have some element of surprise. He’s only expecting me.”

“Will that be enough?”

Lara’s eyes dropped to the Mossberg in the girl’s hand. “Are you prepared to use that? Because if you’re not, I’ll go on alone from here.”

“I’m sure.” A half-truth. Lara’s demeanor had changed since they left the truck and it frayed at Amy’s resolve. Lara seemed alien and distant, some stranger marching beside her in the middle of nowhere.

“Amy, if this gets messy I may change. You might have to get your dad out on your own.” Lara stopped and took the girl by the arm. “Can you do that?”

“Yes. But I think you should fight it. There’s something different here and if you change, I’m not sure you’d come back to us. Sounds crazy, I know, but…” Amy shrugged and left the rest unsaid.

They went on, cresting the hill and looked down at the tombstone shacks of the dead town. There was no sound as they approached, no winter birds flitting from the trees. Even the breeze held its breath.

Amy gripped the shotgun tighter as they passed the first of the abandoned structures. Leaning in the snow at odd angles, the rotting front stoops like broken teeth in a leering face. “What is this place?” Amy hissed.

Lara shook her head, her eyes peeled for any movement as the passed through the gauntlet of haunted houses.

A burst of movement. Amy brought the shotgun to her shoulder but lowered it as the husky came bounding back at a dead run. It circled around them, whimpering.

Amy thumped his ribs. “He’s scared.”

“He smells what’s here.” Lara stopped moving, listening. “Wolves.”

“Grissom?”

“More than him.”

Amy took a step backwards. “Oh shit.”

Lara nosed Grissom before her eyes spotted him. The road, flanked by dryrot shacks on both sides, was empty and then it wasn’t. The figure seemed to rise up out of the earth and there Grissom stood, straddling the road as if waiting on an old friend.

Amy brought the gun to bear and would have fired if Lara hadn’t snatched the barrel. The girl shot daggers at the woman. “What are you doing? He’s all alone.”

“We need to find your dad first,” Lara snapped. “Keep your cool.”

Grissom watched them inch forward, unconcerned or unaware that he’d almost been shot. “What took you so long?”

It took all Lara had to keep the 50 caliber weapon pointed at the ground. Every instinct itching to just shoot the leering son of a bitch. “Where’s Gallagher?”

“He’s here.” Grissom stopped and regarded her. His eyes slunk to the girl and his mouth stretched into a pervert’s grin. “I’m surprised you brought the pup. Hello Amy.”

“If you’ve hurt him I swear to god I will kill you.” Amy felt all the blood rush to her head and her hands tremble in stifled rage. “Let him go. Now.”

“Business first, kiddo.” Grissom turned his eyes back to the woman. “You ready to join us, Lara? The pack’s waiting on you.”

“I’m ready.”

Amy startled, chanced a glance at Lara. What if she was speaking the truth, unable to resist what was clearly calling out to her? That meant she had walked right into a trap and she wouldn’t save her dad. He would die alone out here, at the mercy of the wolves. So would she.

“Let me see Gallagher first,” Lara said. “I’ll go with you, but after the girl and her father are safely away.”

The grin on his face soured. “Let’s drop the bullshit, okay? You know how this plays out.”

Amy didn’t want to hear anymore. She nestled the stock into her shoulder and leveled the barrels at Grissom’s face.

“Amy, lower the damn gun,” Lara hissed.

“Shut up.” Amy kept her sights on the man. “Where is he?”

Grissom leered, nonplussed at staring down the business end of a twelve gauge barrel. Bending at the knees, he reached down and pulled up a rope hidden unseen on the ground. Trailing it up, the rope lifted from the snow and lead off behind one of the shacks. He tugged it smartly and something stumbled into the open.

Gallagher staggered in, kicking up snow with each step. Hands bound behind his back and Grissom’s tether noosed around his neck. His face was bloodied and he stumbled as if drunk each time the cord was yanked. He dropped to his knees and hung his head as if shamed.

“Dad!” Amy bolted, pure instinct upon seeing her father in such a state. Her arm was snatched, holding her back.

“Stay where you are.”

“What are you doing?” Amy pushed Lara off but couldn’t shake her. “He’s hurt.”

“It’s a trap. He wants you to run in.”

Amy ceased but a wire burned hot in her brain. Wanting nothing more than to blast Grissom away but her only weapon was useless. The buckshot would flay her father at this range before hitting its target.

“Cut him loose, Grissom” Lara shouted. “He’s not the one you want.”

“Put the canon down. Come to me.” Grissom gathered the slack rope into a loop. “Simple as that. Then he can go to the girl.”

“Gallagher first.”

“You got nowhere else to go, Lara. You’re one of us now.” He let the rope fall. “Can’t you feel it? All around you, this place calling to you. It’s home. Where you belong.”

Amy held one eye on Lara, feeling a chill up her spine. The woman was trembling and her eyes flared up with that unearthly amber. She was feeling it. “Lara…?”

Lara swung the Desert Eagle up in both hands and pulled the trigger. The boom deafening. The shot was intentionally high but Grissom instinctively ducked all the same. “Now,” Lara demanded.

The man’s face darkened. Gallagher was still on his knees but his face tilted up at them, squinting at two blurry figures as if witnessing a mirage.

Grissom sounded. Some inhuman noise. A bark of command that brought forth the wolves.

They padded out from the shadows of the ghost town. Five in all. Outsized beasts from some childhood nightmare. Scarred and foul and mad-looking. Spittle ran from their chops as the wolves snorted up the smell of kin and fresh meat.

Amy’s heart dropped into her guts at the sight of them, these monsters. She could smell them from where she slackjawed and the musky tang of them choked liked tear gas. She stumbled back, turning to Lara for a cue.

Her heart withered altogether.

Lara was on her knees, a blasted expression in her eyes. The gun barrel dipped into the snow. The proximity of the wolves, their scent and appearance, blew the wind from Lara’s sails and expunged reason from her mind. Her eyes flared brighter and Amy knew the woman was beginning to change. To give in.

“Lara, don’t!” She grasped her by the collar and shook hard. “Snap out of it!”

The lobos skulked in. One kin, one easy kill.

Grissom’s voice echoed over the bedlam. “I was saving Gallagher for the big kill. Your first human, Lara. Your baptism. But here you brought the girl. She’ll do.”

Grissom clicked his teeth and the wolves swung their muzzles in his direction. He uttered some obscene roar and nodded to the man in the noose.

The wolves surged forward in a primal attack. Their massive teeth ripped into John Gallagher and his blood bloomed red on the dirty snow.

THIRTY-SIX

EVERYTHING IN AMY Gallagher’s eyes slurred to slow-motion horror as she watched the wolves swarm her father. She heard him scream in pain, a sound she’d never heard before. A sound no child ever should.

Lara remained on her knees, lost in some private hell of her own. The big gun with the silver-tipped rounds lay useless in her hand, the barrel end filling up with snow.

Amy dropped the shotgun and snatched the Eagle from Lara’s cold hand. Planting her feet, she raised the heavy weapon in both hands and drew the bead on the mass of roiling wolf flesh.

Boom.

The recoil knocked her shoulders back. A wolf cartwheeled under the impact, its hind quarter destroyed. It let out a diabolical cry and the pack reared up en masse and charged at her.

An enormous lobo with white flecking thundered up fast, its jaws opening wide to swallow her whole. She corrected her aim and blasted the round straight down the monster’s gullet. Its spine exploded outward in a spray of gore that showered the wolves behind as it tumbled grotesquely over the ground.

The pack broke ranks, scattering confused against the destruction that had downed their frater. They thundered past and snapped and roared at the girl. Amy tracked the darting targets with the muzzle and blasted another round. It went wide, strafing the trees.

The crack of gunfire jerked Lara from her spell. She saw the bloodied mess of the lobo before her, the lone girl fighting off a pack of lycanthropes. She snatched up the discarded shotgun and fired from the hip. The wolves roared at the sting and she pumped the slide and fired again.

The banshee of the wolves was deafening, their attempt to regroup fouled by the blasts of buckshot and silver caps. They broke and scattered for the trees, leaving only the fading sound of their pads thundering into the wilderness.

Lara swung the Mossberg round but Grissom had vanished. All that remained was the dark form of Gallagher sprawled in the snow. He didn’t move.

The dog rose up from where it had hunkered down during the racket of gunfire. It bolted for the prone form on the snow and when Amy and Lara caught up to it, the husky was licking the bleeding wounds.

“Dad?” Amy dropped and touched his cheek. The eyes half-lidded. “Dad, wake up!”

Unconscious. Blood seeping through his coat. Lara hauled him up and peeled back the parka. “Help me get his coat off.”

The girl didn’t move, didn’t react. Shock numbing brain and limbs alike.

“AMY!” Lara snapped. “We need to check his wounds. Help me.”

Amy moved robotically as the shock tried to freeze her blood. She tugged the coat free and they laid it under him . There was more blood staining the shirt and Lara tore this away to expose the wounds. Smearing the blood away revealed the angry puncture wounds left by the wolves’ teeth.

“Oh God,” Amy gasped at the rows of teeth marks. “They bit through the coat…”

Both knew what that meant. Neither gave voice to it. The dog lapped at the blood. Lara pushed it away. “We need to stop the bleeding.”

Amy slipped off her backpack and dug through it. Tossing a small first-aid kit to Lara, she rooted out two rolls of gauze, some tape.

“You packed all this?” Lara said, watching Amy pull more supplies from the backpack. “Smart girl.”

They worked fast, cleaning away the blood and patching the wounds as best they could. Laying his arms straight, Amy cinched the coat over him to keep him warm and Lara bent to examine the wound on his leg. A noise filtered through the trees, stopping them both.

The awful howling of a wolf, out there in that chaos of wilderness.

Lara was on her feet with the gun sweeping the treeline. The dog froze with one paw raised, ears cocked.

“Are they coming back?”

“I can’t tell.” Lara lowered the barrel. “We’re wide open here. Get him inside.”

They dragged him over the snow to the nearest tinderbox shack and laid him out on the bare floor. Amy pushed back the panic bubbling up her gullet. “Is he gonna be okay?”

“There’s no major bleeding, no arteries severed.” Lara cinched his coat tighter. “We need to keep him warm, in case he goes into shock.”

Amy cradled her father’s head in her lap and smoothed the hair from his brow. His skin was cold against her palm. “We have to get him out of here.” She rubbed the heel of her palm into her eyes and looked at Lara. “We have to get him back to the truck.”

Lara shot to the door and surveyed the dead town. “We wouldn’t get very far.”

Not the answer Amy could stomach. “We can’t stay here. Those things will just pick us off. We can carry him. Or drag him or whatever.”

“Catch your breath.”

“No, goddamnit! We found him, now we have to go.”

Lara stayed her vigil at the door, unable to look at the girl.

Amy loathed being ignored.

Easing her dad’s head to the floor, she sprang at the woman. “We can’t wait here to be slaughtered. Help me carry him!”

“Stop!” Lara barked back. “We need a plan.”

Amy saw Lara’s hands tremble. Something was wrong. “You’re stalling. You’re feeling it. Aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The wolves. They’re getting to you.”

“Don’t panic on me.” Lara bit down her own rage but the look in the girl’s eyes unnerved her. The betrayal and revulsion laid bare in those young eyes.

“Why don’t you go to them? If that’s what you want, just go. Let me take my dad and leave.” Amy shook her head and snarled. “The only reason we’re here is because of you.”

Lara snapped. What broke from her throat sounded neither English nor human. A guttural animal noise. A flash of amber flared over her irises and Amy took another step back, suddenly regretting what she had provoked.

The sound of their voices wormed into his unconscious brain but what had truly awoken him was the goddawful smell. Gallagher’s eyes opened to an extreme close-up of teeth and his heart jumped until he realized it was only the husky. Lapping his face and assaulting him with dog breath.

He pushed it away and tried to sit up but the pain zapped him with its voltage and he lay still until it ebbed away. He studied the dark ceiling above and listened to the voices in the room until his foggy brain could stitch together a few broken pieces of memory. Grissom outside the cave. Wanting to kill Grissom. A rope around his neck, pulling him along like a mutt on a leash. Ho ho, the irony of that. How clever.

After that, nothing. A black hole. Had he been shot?

The voices again, somewhere out of his range of vision. He clenched his teeth and hauled himself up into a sitting position, the agony sharp enough to make him vomit. He caught his breath and squinted at the two figures across the room. Lara. She had come for him, like he knew she would. But who was the other one?

He blinked at the smaller figure clutching a shotgun. It couldn’t be Amy. Lara wouldn’t be that stupid or careless to bring his daughter out here. And yet, who else could it be?

His voice didn’t want to work. Too parched or too raw or maybe it was injured. He tried again, forcing it up but all that came out was “Why?”

The women turned. First Lara then Amy. Of course it was Amy. They rushed to him, both talking at the same time. “How do you feel…lie down…don’t talk…does it hurt?”

“Why?” His throat reduced to spitting out single words. He looked at his daughter. “Why are you here?”

“Easy,” Amy said. “You’re hurt.”

He grabbed at Lara, wanting to shake her violently. “Why did you bring her here?”

Lara didn’t answer. She pulled his hand away.

Amy zoomed into his frame of reference. “Dad, slow down. You’ve been hurt.”

“What?”

“You’ve been hurt,” Amy repeated. “Be still.”

The pain hadn’t gone away, his anger had simply overruled it. He looked down and saw the blood on his clothes. His coat had fallen open, along with his shirt. Gauze bandages taped over his ribs. Still no cognizant memory of how he’d been injured. “How?”

Neither Amy nor Lara spoke. How many times had he seen his daughter cry? He knew the facial tics when the floodgates were threatening to open up.

Jesus, how bad could it be?

Lara softened her tone. “Do you remember anything?”

“Grissom. A rope around my neck.” He shrugged. Even that hurt.

“You were attacked,” Lara said, then stopped. Reluctant to spit out the rest.

His daughter’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “Grissom set the wolves on you. You were…mauled.”

He didn’t want to believe it but the blood and the pain said otherwise. Shards of memory floated back like smudged Polaroids tossed into the air. The stink of the lobos and the sting of their teeth. He had been bitten by the wolves.

bitten
infected
cursed

The truth of it punched him down and he boiled it back up and spewed it out in a banshee wail so anguished and abrupt that his daughter and old partner backed off. When the dregs of it ran dry, Gallagher hung his head and wished it all away. After all this, coming so close, only to be trumped and doomed in one razor cut.

He felt a hand on his cheek. Amy, tipping low to find his eyes. “Dad,” she spoke in a gentle hush. “It’s okay. We’ll figure it--“

“Don’t,” he cut her off. “Don’t even go there.” Gallagher pushed her hand away and coiled up. Said no more.

Lara watched the exchange. The sting in the eyes of the girl and the withdrawal of the father. She knew what was wringing out his insides because she had experienced it. But she had suffered it alone. “John,” she said. “Snap out of it. I know what you’re going through but we don’t have time right now. Accept it and deal.”

His eyes flashed venom. “Accept it? Like this is a case of the clap? Whoops?”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” She tapped the watch on her wrist. “We’re on the clock right now.”

“Get away from me.”

It was his turn to be shaken senseless. Lara snatched him up and rattled him so hard he felt the meat slur from his bones. “You don’t have time for this, John. Your daughter is here and the wolves are out there.” Her tone softened as her rage ebbed off. “I’ll help you through it. Just not now.”

He pushed her hands away and croaked into a sitting position. He shook his head and spat onto the floor. “How did you get here?”

“The truck,” Amy said. “But it’s back down the road about a quarter mile. Grissom blocked the way in.”

“Who’s got the fifty cal?”

“I do.” Amy pulled the Eagle from her pocket.

“How many silver rounds left?”

Amy slid the magazine out, eyeballing a hasty count. “Half the magazine. Four.”

He looked at Lara. “Where are the wolves?”

“They scattered.” Lara turned to the open door, the breeze blowing in. “They didn’t go far.”

Gallagher rattled up the Mossberg and thrust it into Amy’s hands. “Take this and make for the truck as fast as you can. Take the dog with you.”

“What about you two?”

“Lara and I will make a stand here and kill as many of them as we can.”

“No,” Amy gritted. “We’re not doing that.”

Lara agreed. “That won’t work, John.”

“It’s you they’re after, not her.” His tone harsh, accusatory. “Amy’s fast. She can make it.”

“And what if the pack splits and some of them go for her?”

His face darkened. She was right and he hated her for it. Amy put it to rest. “Forget it. I’m not leaving. Think of something else.”

No one spoke. The dog paced near the door, unable to sit still.

“There’s gotta be something.” Amy’s frustration bubbled up. She kicked at a broken floorboard. “We have weapons. There’s three of us against five of them.”

“Six,” Gallagher said. “I counted five wolves, plus Grissom. Twice our number.”

“It’s five,” Lara corrected him. “Amy took out one of them.”

His eyes brightened on his daughter. “You did?”

Amy shrugged. No big deal.

“Good girl.” He pushed himself up. “Where is it?”

THIRTY-SEVEN

THE CARCASS LAY in the snow where it had died. The three of them looked down at the wet mass of blood and fur.

“Hell of a shot,” Gallagher had limped out of the shack despite their protests, slow and unsteady but determined to walk. “Score one for the visitors.”

“We’re still trailing.” Amy turned away from the gore at their feet. “Three to five.”

“Are you two done with the basketball analogy?” Lara frowned. “Because I’ll go wait over there until you are.”

The dog sniffed at the carcass warily. It snorted then withdrew, keeping clear of the dead thing. Gallagher watched the husky as it raised its snout to the air. “What we need is to even up the numbers. All the way.”

Lara knelt over the carcass, studying the glassy eyes. “How so?”

“By incinerating them. Come over here.”

He pointed down the grade. “There,” he said.

The road inclined down past a few outbuildings to where the white cargo van squatted in the snow. Lara arced an eyebrow. “Was that your ride?”

“Yup. Not a pleasant one.”

“Why didn’t you just drive away?” Amy asked.

“Grissom disabled it. But the gas tank is at three-quarters. And there’s a canister in the back.”

Amy scowled. “So it’s useless.”

“Just the opposite,” Lara said, seeing what Gallagher was hinting at. “It’s a bomb, waiting to go off.”

“You want to blow it up?”

Gallagher nodded. “We rig it to explode, get the wolves to close in and ka-boom.”

“That would even the odds,” Lara agreed.

He looked at Lara. “We keep the van between us and them and then blow it when they’re close enough.”

Amy wasn’t buying it. “What if they don’t go anywhere near it?”

“We lure ‘em close.”

“With what? Us?”

Gallagher turned back to the carcass in the snow. “These things aren’t used to losing, are they? To something fighting back.”

“No,” Lara agreed. “They’re top of the food chain.”

“Maybe we can rattle their confidence first. Confuse them.” He turned to Lara. “There’s a chainsaw in the back of the van. Can you get it?”

Lara’s skepticism was palpable, her words almost moot. “What for?”

He smiled. “We’re gonna cut the head of that thing.”

“Just give it a sharp tug. When it catches, throttle it up and start cutting.”

Lara gripped the chainsaw in one hand, the other tight on the rip cord. She looked down at the carcass. The wolf’s tongue splayed out of the open maw. “I don’t think I can do this.”

“You have to,” Gallagher said. He would have gladly sawed the bastard thing up but his injured left arm was too weak to hold the chainsaw. “There’s nothing to it.”

Lara stalled. This thing wasn’t her, she knew that, but she recoiled at the thought of dismembering it. With so blunt an instrument as this.

“He’s right,” Amy said. She stood with arms folded, a hint of suspicion lingering in her gaze. “I know it’s gross but you have to be the one to do this. Cut any ties to these…things.”

The contempt dripping off Amy’s last word left Lara wondering how much the girl resented her for putting them all in this situation. This was a test. Beheading the dead wolf no more than a line in the sand. What are you, Lara Mendes? Woman or wolf? On which side does your allegiance fall?

She yanked the cord hard and the engine fired up and sputtered out. Another pull and it roared to life and Lara throttled the gas. The chainsaw roared, lethal and powerful, in her hands. Tilting it down, she bit the buzzing blade into the grey pelage and the blood flew, spewing out a fine mist across the snow like red spray paint. Amy stepped back to prevent being misted by the blood.

The action slowed as the blade sunk into the neck meat and she sawed the blade back and forth, pushing it deeper. It snagged on the bone and sputtered out. Placing her boot on the thing’s jaw, she worked the saw free and pulled the cord again. Another stab into the carcass but slow and cautious against the vertebrae to avoid another choke. The buzzing vibration numbed her hands but she kept sawing down and then the blade slipped through into the snow. The severed head of the wolf tipped over like a split pumpkin.

“You’d make a hell of a lumberjack.” Gallagher reached down, clutched the wet pelage and hoisted the wolf’s head into the air. Gore dribbled down the exposed meat and bloomed against the snow, the head twisting slowly in his grasp. “Heavy son of a bitch too.”

Lara hit the killswitch and dropped the chainsaw in the snow. Amy’s face paled to a shade of seafoam green. “Sick,” she said.

The husky usually heeled up beside Gallagher but with the gory mass in his hand, the dog kept its distance. Dogs can display a variety of facial expressions; warmth, anger, playfulness. Disgust is nigh impossible for a canine’s limited range but somehow the Siberian conveyed its revulsion with crystalline clarity.

The head plopped into the snow as they approached the van. Gallagher flipped open the small fuel door and spun the cap off. Lara threw open the rear doors. “How do you want to rig this?”

“Keep it simple,” he said. “I need some cloth or rags. Then we splash out a trail gas to a safe distance up the hill.”

Lara turned to Amy. “Toss me the backpack. Then get the canister from the back.”

Amy handed her the pack and went to the backdoors. Lara dug out a roll of gauze and unfurled it. “Will this do?”

“Perfect.”

Amy returned, loosening the cap off the red plastic fuel container. Gallagher soaked the gauze in fuel and fed one end down the van’s tank, letting the other trail down the side of the van. “Can you tell where the wolves are?”

“North of us.” Lara nodded towards the road leading out of the ghost town. “They’ll come that way.”

He looked off in that direction and then crossed to where the decapitated head lay upended in the snow. Nudging it with his boot, he flipped it right side up. “Trail out the gas around this thing, then lead a trail of it up the hill.”

Amy gathered up her backpack while Lara poured the gasoline over the ground, trailing out a path back up the road. When the canister ran dry she tossed it into the trees and the three of them crossed to the broken veranda of the nearest house.

Amy called the dog to her and rubbed her hands down its back. “Now what?”

“We wait.”

Amy looked up at the paling light over the tree tops as the last of the daylight faded away.

Night fell and draped all with inky pitch and then the moon rose over the treeline. The sky was clear and filled with stars. The moon burned cold in the night sky and burnished the snow around them with a pale blue glow.

The three wayfarers sat hunkered on the broken steps, shivering as the temperature dropped. Amy looked up at the riot of stars and studied the moon, how it hung there like a paper lantern in the dark. “Look at that. Full moon.”

Lara and her father glanced up but made no reply, their eyes dropping back swiftly to the road before them.

“Kinda funny, I guess.” Amy craned her neck, wondering if staring at the full moon could harm one’s eyes. “Now, of all nights. Will that affect the wolves?”

Lara looked up at the sky again. “It’s giving us plenty of light.”

“Will they howl at it?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Lara said.”These aren’t typical wolves.”

Amy blew into her hands. “I’m cold. I wish we could start a fire.”

“Try moving around. Get your blood pumping.”

Amy got up and stomped her feet. Lara watched the girl pace around and stop to stare up at that big moon and pace around again. She turned to Gallagher, who sat quiet and huddled up with his arms crossed over his knees like some gargoyle on a perch. His eyes fixed on the road outbound before them. She put a hand over his arm. He was quaking underneath. “Hey. Are you all right?”

“I feel stiff.” He raised his good hand, clenching and unclenching a fist. “Like every muscle is seizing up on me.”

It was the paralysis that was working through his limbs. It would worsen until his entire body was paralyzed in a death-like rigor that would leave only his mind free. Lara had undergone it after being attacked and remembered it as the most terrifying experience she had ever suffered. Ivan Prall had called it a baptism. She related none of this to him, only squeezing his arm and saying “You should get up and stretch.”

Gallagher watched his daughter pacing the snow and then leaned in to Lara, speaking in a hush. “How long do I have? Before this starts affecting me?”

“I don’t know. I think it effects everyone differently.”

“Then these fucking wolves had better hurry up before I keel over.” His eyes went back to the road. “How stupid is this plan?”

“It’s going to work. Don’t second guess it.”

They both watched Amy pace the ground in a circle. “All that matters now is her,” he said. “Whatever happens here, she has to get out.”

“I know.”

“Promise me, you’ll get her out of here.”

“Don’t talk like you’re saying goodbye.” She shivered and folded her arms tight around her. The tone of his voice scared her and she didn’t need that hanging over her. Not now, not with what they had to face. “It’s not fair.”

“You’re right.” Gallagher studied her profile as she kept watch. “Sometimes I forget that you got your battle to fight. I’m sorry.”

A breeze blew the snow up, kicking white pixies between them. She touched his arm again, sought out his eyes. “So am I. I never meant to put your family in danger.”

“We’re here now, we’ll finish this.” He coughed, wincing as a flash of pain shot through him. “Jesus. How bad does this get?”

“Bad.”

“I don’t know if I can deal with this.”

“You have to.” She brushed away the snow nesting on her eyelashes. “I did it. So can you.”

“I’m not so sure. You survived this, managed it. I don’t know if I’m as strong as you are.”

She thought he was pulling her leg but saw neither smirk nor wink in his eye. She leaned her head against his shoulder and meant to say something reassuring about their predicament but when she spoke, something else tripped from her lips.

“I love you, John. Whatever happens now.”

“You better.” He leaned in and kissed the crown of her head. “Cuz I love you back.”

“Heads up.” Amy stopped pacing. “They’re back.”

Lara shot to her feet. How had she missed it? The wolves slinking back without her detecting it first?

The road before them was a pale band of blue bookended by dark trees. The wolves no more than shadows without origin creeping into that open sea of blue haze.

Gallagher rose and fought to keep his balance. All three watched the lobos advance. They had divvied up the weapons. Amy refused to take the pump action but Gallagher insisted. It packed a punch and his hands were shaky. He took the smaller caliber service issue and Lara wielded the canon. The husky spanned the road before them, back and forth with its tail slung low.

Amy glanced quickly at the other two. “Do they see us?”

“Yes.”

“Amy, over here.” Gallagher motioned to a spot beside him. Amy planted herself behind them. He swapped the Glock to his numbed hand and dug into a pocket for the lighter ensconced there. Their collective gaze fixed onto the wolves, waiting to see what they would do.

The pack trotted near the dead vehicle and the lead animal halted and the others heeled. Their snouts dropped to the snow in unison, tails lowering as their noses picked out the unnerving smell near the van.

The severed head stained the snow and the wolves approached it cautiously, circling it with their noses slung low. They closed in on it and prodded it with their snouts and backed off in a start and circled round. One lobo shot its head skyward and throttled up a mournful howl to the moon. The pack howled up after it until the sky reverberated with their baleful cries.

Gallagher dropped to one knee, the disposable lighter in hand. Stretching out before them, invisible in the snow, lay the trail of gasoline snaking back to the vehicle.

“Fuck you pooch,” he said and flicked the lighter to the fuel.

The flames whooshed up and fled down the road in an arrow of fire, zigzagging towards the pack of monsters. The wolves stopped howling and veered backwards. Any animal, even unnatural beasts such as these, instinctively fear the flame.

The fire snaked down the snow in a headlong rush as it closed the distance. Then it sputtered out. The flames roiled up less than twenty paces from their target and winked out in a hiss.

As quick as it had started, it vanished. Their plan evaporated the instant the flame died.

“Oh God.”

The wolves charged. A rampage of snarls and rage. Three weapons came up like a firing squad at an execution. The crack of the hammers was deafening and gunsmoke filled the air.

The wolves scattered, veering off the main road to the shadows but still they came on. A hellish noise of popping teeth as they rushed forward, invisible in the darkness. Booming towards them on both sides.

Gallagher barked at them to move back. “Get inside. Now!”

They careened up the tilting veranda of the desolate house, retreating to the door when the first wolf sprang. It shot up over the railing, splintering the balusters. Its jaws sprang open as it hurtled towards Amy. Lara and Gallagher turned and fired and the thing bucked backwards and skittered for cover but already the others were charging in.

They slammed the door shut, shot the bolt through. Something hammered into it from the other side and the bolt held but the top hinge plate tore from its desiccated casing. A massive and foul snout shot through the gap, the snapping teeth wet in the pale light. Gallagher jammed the pistol barrel under the thing’s jaw and fired. Blood geysered up out of the nose and the snout withdrew.

The east window exploded in a spray of glass and splintered muntin, another wolf bulking the frame as it dove inwards. Amy pivoted on one heel with the Mossberg leveled and blasted a hole in the damned thing. The kick knocked her back but she recovered, racked the slide and fired again. The monster retreated. Lara pushed over a dusty hutch to cover the breached window. It tilted forward as another of the lobos tried the window, forcing its way in and Lara fired at it. Blood sprayed across the sash.

The door bucked again, Gallagher shouldered it back. The west window exploded as another wolf sought entry. Splinters of wood rained down from above. Gallagher looked up to see cracks in the rafters as something traversed the decayed roof over their heads.

Another blow against the door jostled him back and he all but tripped over the chainsaw left on the floor. He blinked at the tool. Blunt and close range but probably more effective than the nine millimeter in his hand.

He cursed, looking for a way out but there wasn’t one. How long could they hold them off in this tinderbox shell? Three doomed piggies with the wolf blowing at the door and their ammunition going fast. And out there, at the bottom of the hill, lay the trap they had abandoned, rigged but yet to be tripped.

There is a way out. Simply a question of how badly you want it?

He snatched up the chainsaw, flipped the toggle and yanked the cord. He called his daughter to him and she backed towards him, the shotgun trained on the window. “Amy, bolt this door after I go, Understand?”

She saw his hand draw back the bolt on the lock. “What are you doing? You can’t go out there!”

“I’m gonna buy us a little time. Just lock this after me!”

“Are you crazy? No.”

“We can’t hold them off much longer.” He squeezed her arm. “Trust me. Okay?”

Amy shook her head, refusing to cooperate. He pulled her close and kissed her brow. A roar at the window broke the spell as another lobo fought its way inside. Amy swung the barrel up and blasted it full in the face.

With his daughter occupied, Gallagher slipped out and shut the door behind him.

THIRTY-EIGHT

A WOLF WAS waiting for him. As if knowing that one of them would rabbit. It squatted there in the snow and sprang up at him with its jaws open.

Gallagher throttled the gas and swung the chainsaw up to block those awful teeth and cut deep into the lobo’s maw. The Husqvarna sawed through the yellow teeth, splicing deep into the bone. The wolf shook its head in a frenzy to extricate itself and it ran off.

He ran through the snow, the impact of each step jarring his wounds, the pain hot. The wolves came after him, pounding at his heels until he stopped and swung the chainsaw. The whizzing blade caught the fur of the closest lobo and the others backed off. And then it was a game of keepaway as the wolves chomped and he swung the buzzing saw at them. The lobos darted and feinted and he throttled the chainsaw to keep them back, moving downhill one step at a time.

The van squatted in the snow, the fuel door propped open just as they had left it.

The husky skittered along the floor. It barked and snapped at the wolves erupting through the windows and then cowered under the blasts of gunfire. When the wolf burst back into the window, popping the casing out with its bulk, the husky leapt and sunk its teeth into its neck. Jerking violently back and forth, trying to rip open the tough hide but the monster swung its head round and clamped its teeth onto the dog’s flank.

Amy shouldered the pump action but held off the shot, screaming at the dog to get out of the way. She saw the wolf bite into the husky and the dog yelped, hit the floor. It scrabbled away leaving a smear of blood behind. Amy unloaded the charge and the wolf screamed from the blast of buckshot to the face. She pivoted back to scream at her father but he wasn’t there. The door cracked open.

Lara spun at the dog’s cry and fired. The trigger piece locked, the gun jammed. The piece was hot as she hammered the slide to spin out the jammed round before the lobo crashed inside. Then she heard Amy scream for her father. Her eyes took in the girl and the open door but no Gallagher. He simply wasn’t there. Had he been snatched away?

“Where is he?” Her voice shrilled with panic.

Amy turned and her mouth gaped but no words came. The terror in the girl’s eyes was raw.

The husky limped forward, dribbling blood from its flank, and pointed its nose to the door. It bolted forward, hopping in a peculiar limp past Amy’s knees as it shot out the door.

“No!” She grabbed at it, hollering for the dog to stop but it sped past leaving her with a handful of bloodied mane.

Amy spun back to Lara for help, for anything. All she saw was the wolf bursting through the window like a hurricane, taking Lara down in a flurry of teeth.

Leviathan teeth chopped at Gallagher’s heel and he swung the roaring chainsaw but the monster dodged and parried. The wolves were playing with him now, matching his pace with unhurried grace, each lobo watching for an opening to take him down.

He felt a slick warmth run down his belly and he knew that the gauze had ripped away and he was bleeding anew. How long before he lost too much blood to keep up the pace? The van was close. The trap.

An unnatural roar blew hot on his ear. The crazed looking wolf with its walleyed stare pounded in recklessly as if it meant to run him over and he brought the burring saw teeth hard onto its snout. It cried out and he throttled it harder, exulting in the demon’s pain.

He sprinted for the van. Triumphant. Overconfident.

The scarred lobo with the disfigured snout came in like a shot on his starboard flank. It took him down hard and its teeth sunk into his ribs. It shuddered him hard, the way it would a fieldmouse and then let go and he spun crazily through space and slammed hard into the panel side of the cargo van.

Thumping onto the snow, light spots in his eyes. His injured left arm folded underneath him like jelly and bent at an angle it was never meant to. The bone shattered. The sunspots faded and he realized he had landed beside the van. Snapping jaws clarified before his eyes and he saw the pack surround him.

Easy pickings. No more challenge than a broken rabbit. The damned things almost leered at him with perverse lupine grins.

“Fuck you, hoss,” he hissed at the nearest wolf. “This ain’t your show.”

He dug into a pocket and came back with the cheap plastic lighter. Next to him, the open fuel door and the rippling stink of gasoline. The petrol soaked rag of gauze. One flick and it was all over.

Light ‘em up.

The wolves closed in.

Amy.

He thought of his daughter. He wished he could say something more to her. What was there to say? Goodbye never works. He wished this didn’t have to happen, that none of it had come to pass. He wouldn’t be around to see his daughter grow up. All those clichéd milestones. Graduating high school, maybe college. Dinners when she’d come home for the weekend. Walking her down the aisle to some putz he would never approve of but would fake for Amy’s sake. Kids. Grandkids.

There was so much left to do. All he had left were seconds.

She’d be okay. Amy was smart, tough when she needed to be. More than that, she was wise. Wiser than she should be for a kid her age. That happened to kids of divorce; they got wise or they got troubled. Amy would be okay, even after all this crazy bullshit. He trusted her in that.

But before any of that, he had to do what was required. To underwrite that future.

The lighter wavered and he couldn’t stop his hand from trembling.

Do it. Now or forever.

Movement snagged his eye and something shot through the legs of the wolves surrounding him and collided into him. For a flashing moment he thought it was one of the pack but it was too small. It licked his face with a coarse tongue.

The dog squirmed up against him, wagging and whining as it licked his chin. The mangy Siberian he had pulled from the pound all those months ago. Of all the times…

“No!” He pushed it away. “Get outta here! Go!”

The husky slunk its head low, confused and cowed, but it wouldn’t leave.

He swatted its rear, trying to make it bolt away but the stupid dog wouldn’t run and now it was too late.

The wolves closed in. No way out now.

He pulled the dog in and draped his arm round it. Cursed it for being so goddamn thickheaded. The plastic lighter flickered in his hand and the flame blew. Gallagher pulled the dog close and buried his face into its neck.

It was bright and it was hot and the flames ate the breath from their lungs.

And then it was over.

The weight of the wolf pinned Lara to the floor. She kicked at it like a mule. Two battles, fighting off the wolf with its teeth in her and holding back the wolf inside. The lobo within clawed at the door of her heart but she wouldn’t let it out no matter how much her nerves screamed for release. Capitulating to the lupin now would mean the death of them all.

The wolf bit down, its yellow eye walled up at her own. She caught a glimpse of Amy hammering the butt of the shotgun against the monster, trying to crush its skull. Feeling the impact of each blow through the teeth in her shoulder but the lobo refused to let go. She twisted under it, gaining some wiggle room and drove her thumb hard into the wolf’s eye. It popped with a wet smack.

The thing reared back and shook its head as if trying to dislodge the crushed eyeball. Then an awful noise broke against the timbers of the house. The howling of the pack, savage and unearthly. A war cry. The wolf lunged away, crashing through the door as it escaped.

Lara felt herself jerked upright, Amy pulling her to her feet. The girl was in a panic, barking at her to hurry. “Slow down,” she said. “Where’s your dad?”

“He’s out there. He ran outside.” The girl’s eyes were crazed with urgency as she pulled Lara to the door.

The pain in her shoulder clouded everything. The girl wasn’t making sense. Why would Gallagher run outside? It didn’t make any sense.

They hurtled down the broken steps, lurching onto the snow. Further down the path they saw the wolves congregated before the crippled van. Then a glimpse of Gallagher, clutching the husky to him and then it all flashed out in a ball of fire.

The shockwave knocked them back. The fireball mushroomed bright against the winter sky. Tiny comets of flaming shrapnel zipped past their ears.

Lara turned her eyes from the light of this artificial sun, disbelieving what she already knew was true. Gallagher had sprung the trap.

He was gone.

She reached for Amy. The girl’s face blanked in shock, her lips worked up and down without sound until a single word tripped out.

“Dad.”

The girl stumbled for the inferno, repeating the word like a mantra. Lara pulled her back and Amy fought to get away but she held fast until the girl collapsed into her.

A cry of anguish erupted from the bonfire. A mass of molten flame stumbled from the blaze and careened over the snow this way, now that. The wolf a shimmering mass within a rolling ball of fire. It staggered on, howling as it went and Lara blocked her ears until the monster fell into a heap and howled no more.

The burning vehicle popped and blew, smaller eruptions that flung more shrapnel through the air and these flaming missiles struck the dryrot shacks of the town. The desiccated wooden frames went up like stacks of kindling and the fire reached out its greedy fingers to touch the next one, a daisy chain of flames winding its way through the ghost town.

“We have to go.” Lara pulled the girl up but Amy wouldn’t budge. Still in shock, Lara doubted the girl could even hear her. “Please, Amy. The fire is spreading.”

Amy flailed and pushed away, saying she didn’t care and then she lay down on the snow and hugged her knees.

Lara watched the girl shudder with sobs but she had made a promise and pushed down her own grief. She snatched Amy up and jerked her clean to her feet. “We’re getting out of here. If I have to carry you, I will.”

The girl lowered her head and took the woman’s arm, letting herself be led away. Lara turned them away from the burning wreckage and guided the way out. The heat rolling off the burning shacks singed their faces as the fire raced from ruin to ruin. She quickened the pace, startled at how fast the decayed outpost was going up in flames.

An ungodly shriek rang out, stopping them in their tracks. They turned. A ball of fire broke from the inferno and shot towards them. Flames riffled and trailed like a comet’s tail as the burning wolf thundered at them. Its boiling eyes locked on Lara and Lara alone.

Even through the flames, Lara deciphered those ravaged eyes. Grissom.

She blanched. Only enough time to push Amy out of the way before the fireball slammed into her, impacting with the force of a runaway train. The woman and the wolf tumbled over the ground. Flames hissed against the snow and teeth popped in the woman’s face. Her hands singed holding back its jaws. The wolf savage and driven mindless with pain, its sheer strength overpowering her.

She could not win this contest, doomed if she tried. Lara dug deep and unclenched some small part of her heart and allowed the wolf a little space. Just enough to stretch its limbs and give her its strength. Like walking on razorwire; too much and she would lose control, too little and the burning lobo would snap her neck in two. It was already too close, the beast blowing hot on her face.

It flared up in her eyes, a guttural sound rumbling in her throat. Power hummed her veins and Lara Mendes dug her fingers round the wolf’s throat. Its windpipe collapsed under her grip and she didn’t let up until the monster choked and rolled away.

The wolf scrabbled madly over the snow, its hide billowing up greasy black smoke. It jerked and reeled in spasms, morphing with the roll of tremors. Fur and blood flew off with each paroxysm until the wolf shed its skin to lay bare the man.

Amy rolled onto her knees, eyes saucered at the struggle, then the transfiguration. The man lay in a wreckage of twisted limbs and charred flesh. She looked away. Lara gasped for breath like an asthmatic. A volcano trembling to erupt.

Amy threw her arms around the woman and pulled her close. The way one would to a child suffering a fit. “Easy,” she cooed. “Push it down.”

The woman shrilled at Amy to get away from her. She shrugged and shirked, trying to slip free but Amy held on that much tighter and whispered into her ear. “You’re bigger than it. Push the wolf down.”

Tremors rippled through her stem to stern. Lara bit down, folding the wolf back into its place in some dark and unmapped chamber of her heart. The wolf bansheed for release but she choked it back until the lobo capitulated and sank with a low tail.

Amy felt Lara go limp. The struggle was over, Lara had won

Bitch.

A garroted voice, gurgling out that single word. Grissom clawed at the frozen ground, a charred husk of a man reeling under the eye of the moon.

“Bitch,” he gibbered, smoke puffing from his lungs. He dragged his broken frame forward. “You were supposed to be our bitch...”

Amy felt Lara shudder and held her tight until the last tremor passed and she hissed at Grissom. “Shut up. Just shut up and die.”

Grissom rolled over onto his back. Eyes open to the night sky, a last tendril of smoke issuing from his lips. “You were the one. You were supposed to save us…”

Amy gritted her teeth, willing the man to die. She dug through the pockets of Lara’s tattered parka until she came up with the big gun and its calibers of silver tipped catastrophe. She gripped the piece in both hands and leveled the barrel at the burnt man.

Her arms trembled under the weight of it. The man was a monster. A killer. She screamed at herself to put him down but the man’s eyes rolled up to meet hers and her finger froze on the trigger piece.

A hand touched her arm. Lara teetered up on shaky knees. “Give me the gun.”

Amy didn’t respond, didn’t move. Her arms locked in place.

Grissom swiveled his eyes to Lara. “You betrayed the pack…”

“I’m not like you,” she said. “Never was.”

Boom.

Amy pulled the trigger and Edgar Grissom’s head erupted in a vomit of gore over the snow. The upper half of his skull splayed out but his jaw remained whole. It gibbered open and shut as if there were some last words to say but nothing spilled out and then the jawbone stilled.

The moldering cottages around them burned in a riot of orange and yellow flames, the dried up mining town giving up the ghost to the fire and the heat of it melting the snow around them.

The woman leaned on the girl and they turned away and tottered back the way they had come. No father, not even the dog.

They said little on the drive home. Stopping at a gas station, they cleaned up as best they could before crossing the border. Despite having to work the holiday, the border agent was cheerful and seemed to sense the grief rolling out the window of the Cherokee. She waved them through, wishing them a merry Christmas.

Traffic was light as they came back to city. Amy shrank down in her seat as the familiar sights zipped past the window. It didn’t look the same. Never would.

The Cherokee rolled to a stop outside of Cheryl’s house and Lara killed the engine. Amy looked up at her mother’s house and listened to the truck tick and sputter.

Lara grasped for something to say but there were no words that fit. All she could do was reach out and take the girl’s hand.

“What happens now?”

“I don’t know. I can’t stay.”

Amy nodded and Lara felt her heart sink even further. After all the girl had been through and now she had to abandon her.

Amy wiped her eyes. “Where will you go?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe south.”

“Will you stay in touch?”

“Of course.”

Amy scrounged a pen from the glove box and scratched out an email address on a scrap of paper. She handed it over and swung out of the cab. “Goodbye, Lara.”

“Goodbye, Amy.”

Amy closed the door and watched the truck roll away and then she turned and went up the steps.

NEW MEXICO

- One month later -

THIRTY-NINE

THE BUS RIDE was long and tedious and Amy tried to sleep through most of it. Twenty-six hours on the road from Oregon to New Mexico, with stopovers in Boise, Twin Falls and Salt Lake City. She slept coiled up in the seat with her shoes off and her head vibrating against the window. The stir of the other passengers woke her and she squinted out the window at that unending flatland. A line on the horizon, low hills in the distance and sky. She had never seen anything so barren.

“We’re here,” said the man next to her. He straightened up and ran a hand through his hair. “About damn time too.”

Amy watched the desert scrub give way to flat-topped buildings and grey strip malls as the bus wheeled through the streets of Albuquerque. She slipped on her shoes and silently thanked God the bus ride was over.

The bus trip was her brilliant idea but her mother had flat out refused to let her go. All kinds of terrible people travel by bus, Cheryl argued. It’s no way for decent people to travel she declared and refused to buy a ticket. Amy packed her gear and paid for the ticket herself. Cheryl had insisted on driving her to the station and on the platform she slipped an envelope into Amy’s pocket as they said goodbye. Amy didn’t touch it until the bus had pulled away, opening the envelope to find a modest stash of twenty dollar bills. The note read: Walking around money. Call if you need anything. She smiled at that.

She stepped off the bus and collected her backpack from the luggage compartment. The sky overhead was blue and the air dry, so unlike the constant dampness of home. Shouldering the pack, she looked over the people milling through the bus station for a familiar face.

Lara Mendes cut through the foot-draggers, her face beaming with a big, big smile. The backpack slid to the floor and they embraced and held on and when they pulled back, both wiped away tears. “It’s good to see you,” Amy said. “You look great.”

“I’m so glad you could come, Amy.” Lara leaned back to get a better look at the girl. “Did you cut your hair?”

“Nope.”

“Well, there’s something different about you. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Lara took the backpack and led the way out of the station, asking how the trip was. Amy told her about the cranky man who complained at length about how federal taxation was killing America.

“Sounds brutal.”

“I told him I was running away from home. Pregnant.”

“Did that shut him up?”

“No. He wanted to save me.”

They turned up 2nd Street to a gravel parking lot.

“Oh my God,” Amy said. “You still have the truck?”

Lara unlocked the Cherokee and loaded in the backpack. “I should probably trade it in for something else but, I don’t know. I’m kind of attached to it now.”

Amy bit her lip to stem the tide rising up in her. Seeing Lara after all this time, and now their old truck, brought it all back. When she climbed into the passenger side and closed the door, it hit her even more.

Lara saw the girl struggling. “You okay?”

“It’s just the truck. It smells like dad.”

“I know.” Lara turned the ignition. “The dog too.”

Amy laughed.

Amy watched the streets roll past the window. The flat-topped buildings and dust-blown exteriors, all the signs in Spanish. “How do you like living here?”

“It’s all right,” Lara shrugged. “It’s got good parts and bad parts, like any place. I’m settling in.”

“What’s your place like?”

“It’s small. But nice.” Lara turned off Third Street and headed west on Gold. “Have you heard from Charlene lately?”

“She stopped by last week,” Amy said. “Not officially or anything. She just wanted to see how I was doing.”

Before saying goodbye that last time in Portland, the two of them had discussed the police investigation that would follow. Amy would stick to the story she had initially told Detective Charlene Farbre; that her dad had located missing homicide detective Lara Mendes and the two of them appeared to be working some private investigation. As to Lara’s escape from police custody, Amy would claim total ignorance. She told Detective Farbre that, following her father’s abduction, she had stayed at a friend’s house for a few days.

After dropping Amy off at her mother’s house, Lara had made one last stop before leaving Portland for good. At a payphone on Fremont, she called Charlene Farbre and told her that John Gallagher was dead. Sketching out few details, Lara told the detective how the suspect involved in her own disappearance had abducted Gallagher and she had gone after them but she had failed to bring him home. The suspect’s name was Edgar Grissom. Both the suspect and Gallagher had perished in her attempt to free her former partner. The detective had insisted that she turn herself in immediately but Lara appealed to Charlene, an old friend, for clemency. The phone call was the best she could do right now but asked that Charlene go easy when she questions Gallagher’s daughter. The girl knew nothing of this. Lara had said goodbye and ended the call.

To her credit, Charlene had done what had been asked and kept Amy out of the investigation as much as possible.

“I feel kinda bad for Charlene,” Amy said. “Left with all those questions, not knowing what really happened. Must be frustrating.”

“That’s police work. She’s used to it.”

The truck rumbled along and Amy sat back, listening to the familiar hum of the engine. She watched the buildings as Lara drove out of the core and she watched the people on the street go by. Everything seemed so flat here, the houses and the horizon.

She chewed her lip trying to think of some polite way to broach what was on her mind. There wasn’t one. “What about you? How are you coping with, you know, your situation?”

“I’m good.” Lara cracked the window down to let in some air. “I mean, it’s still there. It’s always there but it’s under control. It’s gotten a lot easier to manage, to tell you the truth.”

“Have you had any, like, episodes?”

“One. But that was my doing. I drove out to the desert one night and let it happen. I just wanted to see how much control I had.”

“Oh.” Amy couldn’t help the surprise in her voice. “What happened?”

“I ran the desert. But I was still there, you know? Still present. When the sun rose, the lobo came back to the truck and it was all over.” Lara wheeled onto another street. “I caught a cold from it.”

“A cold?”

“You wouldn’t believe how cold the desert gets at night. And there I am, in my birthday suit and sweating like you wouldn’t believe. Hurrying to get my clothes back on. I’m lucky I didn’t catch pneumonia.”

Amy smirked and Lara slowed the vehicle. She swung the Cherokee into the driveway of a modest ranch style home. A rabbitbrush hedge framed the yard. “Is this your place?” she asked. “It’s nice.”

“This is my sister’s house.” Lara swung out of the cab. “Come on, I want you to meet her.”

Amy blinked. “Your sister?”

Marisol Sparks was a few years younger and looked nothing like her older sister. Five foot nothing with a big smile, her hair cut short in a bob. Marisol came out of the kitchen wiping her hands on a towel and threw her arms around Amy. Kisses on both cheeks. “Finally I get to meet the famous Amy,” the woman said. “I’ve heard so much about you. Come in, come in.” Amy took another step inside the door when Marisol suddenly hugged her again. “Honey, I’m so sorry for your loss. I’ve said prayers for you and your dad.”

Caught off guard, Amy glanced at Lara but her friend just beamed like a proud aunt. Marisol chased them inside and shouted into the living room. “Jackson, come say hello to tia’s friend!”

A small boy with big eyes peeked around the corner and studied the guest but came no further. Marisol said something to him in Spanish but the boy clung to the wall. A quick wave was all he offered as a greeting.

“He’s shy around strangers,” Lara said. “Give him a few minutes, he’ll warm up to you.”

While Marisol hurried back into the kitchen, Amy took Lara’s arm. “Is this safe? I mean, staying with your sister?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine.”

“What did you tell her? About your disappearance and stuff?”

“I told her everything. Are you hungry?” Lara shrugged out of her coat and hurried for the little boy watching from the doorway. Amy watched her go, unsure she had heard Lara correctly.

Marisol had prepared dinner, something special for her sister’s friend. Amy had never had chile rellenos before and helped herself to thirds. Jackson warmed up to her over desert and had brought out his favorite toy, a Spiderman figure, and showed Amy all the tricks it could do. Marisol asked after Amy’s mom and how school was going, her plans for the future. So warm and welcoming, she seemed to Amy like an aunt she had never met before. Amy asked if Marisol’s husband, who was serving overseas, was coming home any time soon.

“They’re supposed to rotate him back home in April.” Marisol ruffled her son’s hair. “We’re counting the days. Right, honey?”

“Seventy-two,” Jackson said loudly.

Lara beamed. “Can you believe how smart he is?”

Amy wanted to help with the dishes but Marisol would hear nothing of the sort, insisting that she and Lara catch up. Amy rubbed her belly, regretting having thirds. Lara leaned and squeezed Amy’s hand. “How about you? How are you coping?”

Amy shrugged. “I dunno. It still doesn’t seem real, you know? That he’s gone. Sometimes I forget that he’s not here. I’ll think of something to tell him, something funny I heard, and then I’ll remember that he’s gone.”

Noise tumbled from the other room. Jackson playing Spiderman. Amy flushed, went on. “It doesn’t seem to get any easier. I mean, you here people talk about closure and stuff. I keep waiting for that to happen or at least not hurt so bad when it comes but…”

“Closure’s a myth,” Lara said. “I don’t why people talk about it like you can put your grief in a box and be done with it. It doesn’t go away, it just hurts less each day.” She nodded towards the kitchen, the sound of dishes clanking in a sink of water. “We lost our dad when we were kids. I was twelve, Marisol nine. I still miss him.”

“Do you still think about him?”

“All the time.”

Amy spun her teacup around with one finger. “Maybe it would have been easier if there’d been a funeral. Something to mark the occasion. But we had nothing to bury.”

“Maybe.” Lara pushed her chair back and rose up. “Grab your coat. We’ll get going.”

“Where to?”

“We’ll drop your gear at my place, then take a ride. There’s something I want to show you.”

They climbed back into the truck after saying goodbye. Marisol made Amy promise they’d be here for dinner tomorrow night. She was planning something special. Amy demurred, said “Don’t go out of your way for me, Marisol. Please.”

“Who do I have to cook for?” Marisol replied. “Please. Just be here at four tomorrow. On the dot.”

Five blocks west, Lara pulled up before a small Santa Fe with vigas extended from the façade. The interior was small and barely furnished. “It’s not much to look at, is it?” Lara said. “I kind of like it Spartan like this.”

“It’s cute,” Amy said as she got the tour.

Two bedrooms off the back. Lara showed her into the smaller of the two and laid her backpack on the bed. “This is the guest room. Again, not much to look at.” The bed pushed against the wall was small, the dresser secondhand.

“Stop apologizing.” Amy looked out the window. “I love it.”

Lara ended the tour in the backyard, “This is the nicest part of the house.” In contrast to the interior, the yard was a riot of cactus and shrubs, ironwork furniture and ornaments hung from branches. A clay chiminea bookended by two log benches.

“It’s beautiful,” Amy said, trying out a chair. “Where’d you get all this stuff?”

“Most of it was left here by the previous tenant. Kinda hippyish but I like it.” Lara crossed the yard and leaned over the fence and called to someone on the other side. “Hey Nestor, come say hello.”

An older man appeared from the neighboring yard. Grey moustache and deeply etched lines in his face. He propped an arm over the fence. “You must be Amy,” he said, extending a hand. “I’m Nestor.”

Amy shook the man’s hand, feeling his callused palm.

Lara patted the man’s arm. “Nestor’s a master woodworker. He’s done some work for me. His stuff is amazing.”

The old man looked at Lara. “Have you shown her the piece?”

“Not yet.”

Nestor nodded and turned to Amy again. “Let me know what you think after you see it. If it doesn’t meet your approval, I can do another.”

“I’m sorry,” Amy said, cocking a brow at Lara. “See what?”

Lara frowned. “It’s supposed to be a secret, Nestor.”

“It is?” Nestor shrugged and tottered away. “Whoops.”

“What’s he talking about?”

Lara shooed her back inside. “Come on. I’ll show you.”

Back in the truck, Lara steered out of the neighborhood and drove for open country. Amy watched the houses flit by, giving way to vehicle yards and empty lots and then these too vanished until all there was to see was the flatland of the desert. The blacktop before them a postcard of a high lonesome highway vanishing against the horizon.

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Amy said. “It’s wild.”

Lara propped an elbow on the window sill. “It’s big. All that sky. Keeps you humble.”

“So what’s this big secret?” Amy couldn’t stop grinning.

“Patience, young Jedi.”

“Ah come on.”

Lara pointed towards the arid land to the west. “See that foothill over there? The one closest to us. It’s there.”

The Cherokee slowed and Lara swung off the main road onto a dusty track, the truck dipping as it rode over a downed cattle guard. The track led up the incline of a low hill, bouncing over dips and bare rock until they pulled onto a plateau. Dust wafted from the tires and Lara asked her to wait for it to disperse before opening the doors.

They went on foot from there, Amy’s shoes gritting over the sandy rock face. From atop the hill, she beheld a vista of the Chihuahuan scrub below and beyond that the sprawl of the city. It was colder up here, the wind sharper.

“Watch your step.” Lara jumped down an edge where the rock face dropped. A bench of flat rock led out to where the hill inclined steeply below them. “There it is,” she said.

At the far edge of the bench was a cairn of stones piled into a mound like the forgotten resting place of some lost pioneer. Jutting up from the mound of stones stood an archaic-looking headstone, some dark plank of hardwood framed up against that big sky and flat landscape. The edges of the milled wood were already pumiced raw from the windblown grit.

Amy squinted at it, thinking Lara had taken her to some odd tourist spot. “What is it?”

“Go see.” Lara shooed the girl forward.

The inscription was hand carved. What she read there took her breath away.

JOHN WILLIAM GALLAGER

Father

Friend

Lawman

Amy blinked at the tombstone in its berm of rocks. The air felt thinner than ever as she read the inscription a third time.

Lara came up alongside. “Well? Do you hate it?”

It was a minute before Amy found her voice. “You did this?”

“Nestor carved the headstone. I planted it here.” Lara looked down the slope. “Your dad had said, on more than a few occasions, that he loved Clint Eastwood movies and stuff. So, mira.” Lara glanced up, tension wrinkling her eyes. “So, do you hate it?”

“I love it.” Amy threaded her arm around the woman’s elbow. “He would too.”

“I’m glad.”

“This is a beautiful spot. How did you find it?”

“That night I tested myself, I came up here. Or the lobo did. Somehow I remembered it. I drove the truck up here afterwards and hunted around until I found it. And then, without really thinking about it, I just started collecting rocks and piled them up.”

“And the headstone?”

“That didn’t occur to me until later. I kept coming back here, just to sit and be alone. But the pile of rocks never felt like it was enough. So I had Nestor carve up an old-fashioned gravestone.”

The wind kicked up. Icy gusts finding the gaps in their clothing. “It gets pretty cold up here.” Lara cinched up her coat. “Whenever you want to go, just say so.”

“Can we stay a bit longer? I just want to sit awhile.”

“Of course.” They sat on the bare rock. Amy tucked her feet under her and Lara studied the clouds in the sky.

“It really is a beautiful view,” Amy said. “Do you come out here a lot?”

“I do. That’s why I placed the headstone facing east.”

Amy tilted her head, not following. Lara nodded at the skyline before them. “That’s due west. And up here, the sunset is spectacular.”

Amy smiled and settled in. After a while, she huddled closer to Lara for warmth and they watched the sun slant towards the earth, burning the undersides of the clouds a soft shade of pink.

“How long were you planning on staying?”

Amy tilted her head. “Dunno. A week. If that’s okay with you?”

“Make it two. I could use the company.”

Copyright © 2014 Tim McGregor

All rights reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons is purely coincidental.

In 2009, a Californian man died after being attacked by the jaguar he had acquired illegally. In the investigation that followed, the victim’s brother-in-law told police that he had warned the man repeatedly about his choice of pet. “You can’t keep a wild animal,” he had said. “Any fool knows that.”

1

LARA MENDES JOSTLED IN the bucket seat as the truck dipped and bounced over the uneven terrain of New Mexico scrub. A mile off the nearest blacktop, the truck rambled over a broken cattle guard tread by javelinas. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she wished she had taken another aspirin. Her head was throbbing and her teammate’s endless chit-chatter was making it worse.

“She said she needed space,” said the young man behind the wheel. Mason Linardo was twenty-six years old. He had a buzzed head and a knack for falling for the wrong kind of girl. Alongside the latter, he had a fondness for blathering his woes onto Lara’s lap whenever he had the chance. “That means she’s dumping me.”

Lara shot a glance at her colleague before returning her eyes to the open pan of the desert before them. Of all the members of the team, she didn’t mind partnering up with Mason. He was a good kid. He was just clueless when it came to women and felt a compulsion to tell her every time he got his heart stomped. She guessed that he was hoping for some insight into women. She had little to offer.

“Maybe you’re reading too much into it,” Lara said. “Give her some room. Maybe she feels smothered.”

“I’m not smothering her. I just wanna hang out.”

“You go overboard every time you meet a new girl, Mason. Don’t overshare. Leave some mystery for her to ponder.”

Mason fired a look her way. “Mystery? I’m not some player, Lara. I’m honest and—”

“Watch the road,” she interrupted. “By all means be honest. It’s just, you don’t have to move in with the girl on the second date, you know? Take it slow. Don’t give away all your power.”

He rolled his eyes. “Power? Jesus.”

“We’re here.” Lara nodded to the object rising up among the ironwood trees before them. A desert watering station.

The station consisted of no more than a 60 gallon barrel of water seated on a steel bed, the word ‘agua’ stenciled into the plastic hull. A pole rose thirty feet from the bed topped by a blue flag that dipped and sawed in the wind coming over the plain. A beacon for any unlucky soul wandering the wasteland of the Chihuahua desert, four miles from the Mexican border.

Lara climbed out and approached the tanks, checking the spigot and then the water level. “Still full,” she hollered back to Mason.

Mason stretched as he swung out of the vehicle. “Does it look like it’s been used recently?”

“No.” She examined the spigot again before circling around the water station. “No garbage or debris. No one’s been here since our last patrol.”

Mason watched the shadow of a bird pass over the scrub. “I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

“Mark it in the good column,” Lara said. “Means no one’s needed it.”

The watering station was one of five set up in an arc through this leg of the county, a man-made oasis for migrants desperate enough to cross the border in this inhospitable country of sagebrush and grit. Since the tightening of the border, migrants were forced into this diabolical terrain more and more, resulting in a staggering number of deaths from exposure and dehydration.

The water stations had been set up by an organization called Humane Borders in an effort to reduce the death toll. The organization that Lara was a part of was a local outfit called Luna County Rescue that patrolled the scrubland for any migrants stranded in this unforgiving climate. She had joined the outfit two months ago and found the work to her liking, the people amiable and welcoming. She had also proved herself to be an outstanding tracker with an almost uncanny knack for finding half-dead migrants hidden amongst the scrub and rock.

“Let’s get on to the next one.” Mason turned to climb back into the truck. “Slow day means we can knock off early, hit Larry’s Hideaway before happy hour ends.”

Lara made no reply. Mason looked back and saw her standing near the tanks with her back to him. Looking out over the vast expanse of all that horizon. “Lara? You coming?”

“Something’s here,” she replied without turning around.

“Survivor?”

“Maybe.” She marched forward, boots crunching the grit of the desert floor. Nary a glance back or gesture to follow, just striding through the dwarf scrub.

“Another hunch?” Mason shook his head but followed all the same. He didn’t like the way Lara spooked out like this, just marching off to chase ghosts no one else could see. Anyone else, Mason would have ordered back to the truck but he’d learned to keep his trap shut with Lara and just follow her lead. Nine times out of ten, she’d be onto something.

They had patrolled together for over a month and Mason didn’t know the first thing about her. And it wasn’t for lack of trying. No matter how hard he pried or overshared his own business, Lara never gave up any personal details. He had no idea if she was married or where she came from or if she had family somewhere. Quiet didn’t describe the woman on that score. Worst of all, she never laughed. He’d spun out his best stories and favorite jokes but all he got was nada. Mason was determined though. He’d crack her smile if it killed him.

It was mid-day and the sun was punishing and Lara considered running back to the truck for the hat she’d left on the seat. A faint trace of scent was tickling her nose, drawing her further out into the wasteland. It wasn’t far, whatever it was, and she already knew there was no need to hurry, no need to run. Descending into the gravel wash of a dry creekbed, she halted and looked down at the thing that had lured her here.

“What’d you got?” Mason came up behind her, boots slurring the loose pebbles. “We need medical?”

“No.” Lara held up a warning hand to slow him. “Too late for that.”

Bodies left out in the unrelenting New Mexican sun bloated rapidly after death, the gases within expanding and gurgling. The body at Lara’s feet looked more like an enormous foul cocoon than anything that was human. The skin was burnished black in places, dark purple in others.

“Oh Jesus. I hate bloaters.” Mason stopped in his tracks and kept his distance from the thing in the dust.

Lara hovered over the body, studying it without touching anything. The only indication of the sex were the clothes, the face distended beyond proportion. Nothing with pockets and thus no chance of identification hidden inside. “She couldn’t have been out here that long, the way the body’s bloating like this.”

“How long you think?” Mason watched Lara scrutinize the corpse with a neutral wash over her face. Not an even upturned nose. How she managed that, he hadn’t a clue. His own stomach would often flip and churn if he got more than ten yards from a bloater. Lara? Like it was nothing, like she did this every day.

“Two days. Maybe three.” Lara stepped back and circled the body, eyes hawking the ground for anything. There, by the woman’s foot, was a small rosary in the grit. The beads coiled in the dust like a tiny rattlesnake. She hunkered down to pick it up.

“Don’t touch it, Lara.” Mason took two steps back, as if anticipating an explosion. “That body pops, the stench gas’ll knock you out.”

“Your phone got any bars?”

He dug out his cell paced around for a signal. “And here I’d thought we’d be home before sundown. Stupid me.”

Lara squatted on her heels, trying to gauge the excruciating end of this poor sojourner’s life. There was no canteen or plastic water jug anywhere in sight. Dehydration was an awful way to die. Slow and draining. She wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy.

Old habits are hard to break and this habit, this puzzling over a dead body to determine its departure from this realm, was a strong one. Nine months ago, it had been her job to puzzle out crimes as a detective with the Portland Police Bureau over a thousand miles away in the damp capital of Oregon. The habit remained but everything else had changed drastically, not the least of which was that she was on the run from that very same police force. Since relocating to New Mexico, Lara Mendes had been living under the assumed name of Lara Quesada. And Quesada could no more resist a challenge than Mendes could so they both scrutinized the victim for any detail it might provide.

Something didn’t sit right. Lara stepped back from the body to gain perspective, thinking she had missed something in her initial examination. Whatever it was, it sent alarm bells ringing up her spine. It took two heartbeats to realize it wasn’t the corpse that was ringing the bells. It was something else, out there in the scrub. Hidden and waiting to die. Something that triggered her preternatural sense of smell.

Still pacing back the ground, Mason looked up to see his team-mate marching swiftly through the ocotillo. “Yo, Quesada! Where you going?”

She didn’t answer. Lara broke into a run, northeast into the wide void of the desert.

“Shit.”

Mason ran after her, cursing the whole way. Another spookshow turn of hers. Like one wasn’t enough for today. He’d had his fill of dead bodies and wished momentarily that he’d called in sick today or at least requested another member for today’s patrol. Lara’s spooky spells were not fun. He abandoned the call altogether and broke into a full sprint to catch up, hollering between breaths for her to stop.

She stopped and became still.

“Don’t tell me you sniffed out another one?” It was meant as a joke but when he drew level with Lara, no word of a lie, he saw her nostrils twitching.

“Someone’s here,” she said. Her eyes scanned the horizon, as if the culprit was about to pop from the ground like a jack-in-the-box.

Mason ran his eyes over the hard scrabble terrain. Nothing but nothing was out there. “How can you tell? I don’t see anything.”

He watched her nose twitch again and then her head dialed ten degrees east. “There.”

She was off like a shot, diving into the shade of a rocky outcropping. Digging for something under the red shale. When he caught up, Lara Quesada was dragging something from the shadows.

“Not another bloater,” he cringed. “Please.”

“Breather. Run back to the truck, get the med kit. Now!”

He couldn’t believe it. A girl, maybe seven or eight years old, curled tight into a ball like a frightened turtle but her eyes were open. Traumatized and scraped raw but alive. A breather, not a bloater. “Holy shit,” he muttered.

“Mason!” Lara snapped. “Give me your phone first. Then get the water!”

It broke the spell. He tossed his phone to Lara and broke full tilt for the truck, praying like mad that they could save the sand-gritted child left to die on the desert floor.

2

“AMY?”

Zero response. A pencil dropped, hitting the scuffed floor of the classroom. A boy in the back yawned.

“Amy Gallagher?”

Amy Gallagher fixed her gaze out the window in a glassy-eyed stare, oblivious to the classroom around her and the teacher trying to get her attention. Mr. Swan, English. Someone laughed, another muttered the words ‘space cadet’.

A million miles from the classroom, Amy was snapped back to the present by a sharp poke to her spine. She turned to see Gabby ready to stab her again. “Snap out of it,” Gabby hissed. “He’s talking to you.”

Amy swung her eyes to the front of the room. A reedy man in a gray cardigan leaned against the desk, looking at her. As did everyone else in the room. Mr. Swan smiled at her with restrained contempt. “Good morning, Amy. Nice of you to join us.”

Amy slid down her chair. “Sorry.”

“We were discussing the nature of evil in the Scottish play. The role it plays within MacBeth himself.” Mr. Swan nodded at a student to Amy’s right. “Devon here was saying that there is no evil, just psychoses. How did you put it, Devon?”

The boy shrugged. “Calling it evil is an easy-out for MacBeth. Seeing witches and stuff. It’s shifting the blame away from him when in fact, all the murderous acts come from his ambition. Calling it evil just muddies the issue, makes it easier to dismiss his own involvement.”

“Yeah but there are witches,” countered a girl in the next row. “The weird sisters. Banquo sees them too, not just MacBeth.”

Mr. Swan nodded gravely before turning a cool eye back to Amy. “So, Amy. What do you think? Was the evil real or was MacBeth simply excusing his own murderous ambition?”

Amy slouched further down, eyes on her desk, wishing it would all go away.

“Miss Gallagher,” Swan huffed. “Try and stay with us.”

Amy raised her eyes to his. “Talia’s right. Devon’s blowing psycho-babble up your butt. As usual.”

“Elaborate, please.”

“True evil exists.” She swung her gaze back to the window. “Monsters are real. And sooner or later, they get us all.”

Someone snorted up a laugh and another guffawed. Devon sat smug in vindication as the class laughed off Amy’s reply. Gabby withered in humiliation. Amy returned her gaze to the window, her expression blank and uncaring. The term ‘space-cadet’ muttered through the class for a second time.

“Your sign is a little crooked.”

“What?” Amy asked.

Gabby leaned up against the lockers. “The sign on your back. The one with the big target.”

“Funny.” Amy tossed her tattered Shakespeare text into the locker where it flopped open at the bottom. Students filed past them in the hallway, dragging their feet between the bells.

“Why do you make it harder on yourself?” Gabby posed. “Especially in Swan’s class. He grades on participation.”

“And? You care why?”

Gabby rolled her eyes. “Your grades are bad enough. Don’t give the dude ammunition to sink you.”

“What’s the point?” A student passed by, brushing Amy’s shoulder. Amy flinched as if stung. “I can’t stand this place anymore.”

Gabby blew her bangs from her eyes, watching Amy dart her head around as if expecting to get jumped. Her patience was running thin, her options dwindling about how to help Amy deal. The girl had gone through something terrible and lost her dad. Exactly what she’d gone through, Amy had never said (a sore point that she tried her best not to resent) but Gabby had spent the last three months trying to be there for her. Amy’s grief was incomprehensible and, at times, exhausting. Give her time, Gabby had scolded herself. Amy will come around, things will get back to normal. But that wasn’t happening. Something fundamental had snapped within Amy during the Christmas break and the girl had never been the same. Gabby’s experience of grief was limited, a cat that had died when she was eleven, so she was no expert but something wasn’t right. Amy was getting worse, not better, as if she was drifting away from everything that was normal. To make matters worse, Amy didn’t seem to care either.

Amy flinched again as another student brushed too close to her. Gabby didn’t know if this twitchy jumpiness was a natural part of grieving or if this was exclusive to Amy. “Easy, amigo. No one’s coming after you.”

Amy drooped her shoulders and let out a sigh. She exuded fatigue. “Wanna blow off the rest of the day?”

“I would love to but we can’t.”

Amy stared into her locker. “I don’t want to be here, Gab.”

“The staff don’t even want to be here.”

The bang, when it came, was loud and sharp. The crack popped Gabby’s ears and then all went blurry as she was yanked hard to the floor. Pulling her friend down, Amy kicked and skidded away as if she was on fire, her face pale as flour. Terror writ large in her eyes.

“Amy, stop! Let go.”

Laughter in the hallway. People lurching and howling as the sulfur tang of a detonated firecracker hung in the air. The shredded hull of the cherry bomb still smoking on the floor.

“Amy,” Gabby hissed, trying to peel her friend’s grip from her arm. “It’s just another firecracker. It’s okay.”

While the crowd howled and fist-bumped, Amy panted for breath. The naked terror in her face drained slowly as Gabby pried her arm free from her fingers. “It’s just a stupid prank.” Gabby stood and brushed herself off. She looked through the faces in the hallway and spotted a leering grin. “You’re a fucking asshole, Devon!”

Teachers scrambled into the hallway, demanding to know what was going on. Students shuffled away, claiming ignorance. Gabby took Amy’s hand and hauled her to her feet. “Time to book. Get up.”

“My knees are jelly,” Amy coughed.

“Walk it off.”

Amy felt herself propelled forward as Gabby pushed her towards the exit. The teachers buzzed and tittered around the paper remnant of the kiddie explosive like blowflies on a scrap of meat.

~

Amy’s hands were still shaking so Gabby took the keys and unlocked the door for her. They dropped their bags in the foyer and shuffled into a kitchen with an enormous fridge and a high end industrial range under a stainless steel hood. Tastefully appointed and kept spotless, much like the rest of Amy’s mother’s house. Cheryl Kessler, the former Cheryl Gallagher while married to Amy’s father, did not believe in skimping when it came to home decor or utility.

Amy dropped into a stool at the island while Gabby opened the double-doors of the refrigerator and studied its contents. “You want something?”

Amy propped her elbows onto the granite counter but said nothing.

Gabby poked around the shelves. “Maybe you should eat something. Let’s see, last night’s take-out. Tabouli salad. Froo-froo cheese.”

“I’m not hungry,” Amy muttered.

“Right. A drink, then.” Gabby plucked a large bottle of craft-brewed lager and popped the cap off with her Bic lighter. Plunked two glasses down before them.

“Don’t open Norm’s beer,” Amy said. “Cheryl will have a conniption fit.”

“Too late.” Gabby poured and pushed one glass into Amy’s hand. “Drink up. It’ll calm you down.”

They sipped their beer in silence for a moment. Gabby tapped her mismatched fingernails on the countertop. “I think you should go talk to someone.”

Amy simply closed her eyes.

“I know, I know,” Gabby continued. “You don’t want to but you’re getting worse. Not better. You’re jumpy and paranoid—”

“I’m not paranoid,” Amy stopped her.

Gabby twisted her lips into a sneer. “You’re constantly looking over your shoulder when we’re out somewhere. You clock every exit no matter where we go. You startle at the smallest noise. I keep waiting for this to pass, telling myself it’s some phase you’re going through but it’s not going away. Like today. What the hell was that?”

“What?” Amy shrugged. “It startled me.”

“No. See, I was startled. You were downright terrified, like a bomb had gone off. Your fingers left bruises in my arm you were grabbing me so hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“This is what’s getting worse. These weird tics and the jumpiness. You need to talk to someone.”

“Enough already.”

Gabby sighed dramatically. “Something’s bottled up inside you and it’s coming out in weird ways. You gotta let it out before it screws you up completely.”

“It’s just grief. It does weird things to people. That’s all.”

“Then talk about it. Let it out.”

Amy wiped away the moisture beading on the side of her glass. Her friend wasn’t far off the mark. Sometimes there was so much bottled up she thought she would explode but there was no way to let it out. She shrugged again. “What’s there to say? I miss him. I wish he wasn’t dead. I’m sad he’s gone. That’s all there is to it.”

“Bullshit,” Gabby barked. “There’s a million more things to say. We’re supposed to be friends but you won’t even give an inch about the worst thing that’s happened to you? Don’t you trust me?”

“Of course I do.”

“Well?”

Amy almost laughed at the irony of it. She had had this conversation before, trying to get her father to open up. Three months prior to this, she had watched him grow paranoid and unstable, reeling from a traumatic event that he wouldn’t talk about no matter how hard she tried to get him to open up. And now here she was, repeating his history, post traumatic stress and all. But now she understood his silence and these same reasons kept her own tongue still. “I’m sorry, Gab.”

“Jesus, Amy.” Gabby finished her glass and then pointed a sharp finger at her. “There’s nothing noble about being stoic. No matter what Mr. Swan says.”

A rumble from outside snagged their attention. Through the window in the foyer, they caught sight of a Land Rover pulling into the driveway.

“Mom’s home,” Gabby said.

“I can’t deal with her right now.” Amy slid off the stool. “Do you want to duck out the back?”

Gabby shambled back to the foyer. “Nah. I’ll run interference, tell Cheryl you’re sick.”

“Okay.” Amy made for the stairs.

Gabby hoisted her bag onto her shoulder as the front door popped open and Amy’s mother struggled inside with grocery bags weighing down each arm. Cheryl Kessler was a bottle blonde with a big flash of a smile. It was easy to see where Amy got her looks from. “Hey, Cheryl.”

The smile flashed wide as Cheryl’s eyes lit on her daughter’s friend. “Gabby! How are you?”

“Okay. You want a hand with those?”

“Thank you. These bags are about to pop my shoulder off.”

Together they lugged the bags to the counter, Cheryl scanning the room. “Where’s Amy?”

“She’s not feeling well.”

“Again?” Cheryl nodded, taking in the open bottle of beer on the granite top. “What happened this time?”

Gabby shrugged. “She had another, you know, episode.”

Cheryl sighed with a dramatic flair. Then she shook it off and began unpacking the groceries. “Well, thank you for bringing her home. Do you want to stay for dinner?”

Gabby peered into one of the grocery bags. “What are you making?”

Amy sat on the floor of her room with her back to the closed door. The voices of her mom and friend drifted through the crack under the door and she listened to them talk about how sick she was. Later that night when everyone had gone to bed, Amy would creep downstairs and turn the deadbolt on every door and lock every window. Back in her room, she would reach under the bed for a shoebox hidden there and open it. Lifting out her father’s handgun, she would slide out the magazine to check it and then slide it back home. Slipping the Glock under her pillow, she would crawl back under the covers and pray for the nightmares to give her the night off.

3

LARA STOOD IN THE hallway, looking through the glass of the hospital room where the girl was being treated. Rather than call for an ambulance, they had driven the girl themselves. The truck bounced crazily over the rutted path as Mason gunned for the highway and Lara treated the little girl as best she could. Suffering from exposure and severe dehydration, the Emergency Room doctor gave Lara no answer as to whether the child was going to survive. Pray, the nurse said as they rushed the girl through ER. Pray and wait.

Praying and waiting in hospital corridors was nothing new. Lara had done plenty of both in her old life as a police detective in Portland. Part of the job, hospitals never used to bother her until she herself ended up in one. Three days in a coma after a vicious wolf attack, when her entire world turned upside down. She avoided them now.

“We gotta go back for the body,” Mason said as he came up alongside her at the window. “Sheriff wants one of us to go with him and show him where it is.”

In the mad rush to get the child out, Lara had almost forgotten about the bloater they’d found near the tank. “Did you tell him where water station four is? Easy enough to find on a map.”

“Yeah but he still wants one of us to go.” Mason dug a coin from his pocket. “Want to flip for it?”

Spending forty-five minutes inside a prowl car with the local sheriff was definitely not something Lara wanted to do. Alongside hospitals, police officers were another thing she avoided now. She had answered a few questions for the Sheriff but it had been mercifully brief. The Sheriff, while amiable, was from an older generation and had assumed that Mason, being male, was in charge. She was more than happy to not correct him and let Mason field the enquiry. “Can you do it? I want to stay with the girl and hear what the doctors say.”

Mason swung his gaze to the girl in the room. She looked tiny in the hospital bed. “Even if she lives, they’re just going to bus her back across.”

“Someone should be here when she wakes up. I think the other person we found was her relative.”

“Hell of a thing to wake up to.” The weight of it settled slowly onto both of them and they were silent for a moment, watching the little girl in the bed. Mason touched Lara’s arm. “Okay. I’ll go with the sheriff.”

“Yo!” The voice bellowed up behind them and they turned to see a man with broad shoulders and long hair swept up into a top-knot, for which Mason had dubbed him the ‘urban samurai’. He waved and hollered up, “Score another one for Luna County Rescue!”

Mason nudged Lara’s ribs. “Oh look. It’s your boyfriend.”

“Bellowing through a hospital.” Lara’s expression fell as the man approached. Derek Trumbo was another member of the Luna team, one whom Lara tried to avoid whenever possible. Trumbo was loud and overbearing and his arrogance set Lara’s teeth on edge. She disliked arrogance but could abide it when it was warranted. A skill or an ability or experience, something to back up the arrogance. In Trumbo’s case, there was no qualifier. He simply thought he was God’s gift to the team and was often confounded that others didn’t see it as well.

“Boyden called, told me you were here.” Trumbo thumped Mason on the back and nodded coolly to Lara. “You guys shoulda called me.”

“We were in a bit of a hurry, dude,” Mason said. “Next time we find someone near death, we’ll call you before the ambulance.”

“Always the funny guy, huh Mason?” Trumbo peered through the glass at the girl in the room. “How’d you find her?”

“Lara worked her magic,” Mason said, nodding at his team-mate. “We’re were checking number four and Lara went all quiet and spooky on me. Then she marched straight out and finds a body. Bloated one too.”

Trumbo wrinkled his nose. “It didn’t pop, did it?”

“No, thank God. I’m trying not to lose my lunch and there’s Lara’s taking a closer look, cool as a cucumber. Like she finds them all the time.”

“No shit? You got a nose for bloaters, Lara?”

Lara didn’t even look at him. “Just got lucky.”

“Lucky?”

Mason went on. “So we’re dealing with that, then Lara goes all spooky again like she’s picking up a scent. Marches off to this big rock and finds the little girl.”

Trumbo looked Lara up and down, all but sneering. “Is that so?”

“The woman’s a bloodhound.”

Lara bristled. She liked Mason, she honestly did, but he talked too much. But it was Trumbo’s stare that got under skin. She often caught him staring at her with a weird intensity. At first she thought he was simply leering, the way some men do, but later saw how his eyes squared her with contempt. Like she had done something to offend him.

Trumbo clucked his teeth. “No shit? Guess someone is gonna get a gold star on their report card.”

Lara said, “I’m gonna have it framed for the office wall too.”

Mason held up a hand. “Okay, you two. Play nice.”

“What’s your secret, Lara?” Trumbo asked. The ire in his voice dialed up a notch. “That’s the third time you sniffed out a survivor that everyone else missed.”

“Like you said. Just lucky.”

“Shit. I’d be playing the slots if I had that kinda luck.”

Mason stepped away in a huff. “To hell with you guys.”

A doctor stepped into the hallway, glancing between Lara, Mason and Trumbo. “Are you the people who brought the girl in?”

“That’s us,” said Trumbo, jumping credit.

“How is she doing?” Lara asked.

The doctor dropped his hands into his pockets. “We’re treating her for severe dehydration now. The risk here is brain damage. Do you know how long she was out there in the desert?”

“No,” Lara said. “Is she awake? Can I speak to her?”

“We don’t know when she’ll wake up, unfortunately. Or if she’ll be able to speak when she does. It’s that serious.”

Lara took a step closer to the window, looking in at that tiny form under the thin hospital sheet. “Can one of you stay with her for her now?” She looked to Mason and Trumbo. “We can take shifts sitting with her.”

Trumbo shrunk back from Lara’s eyes. “I can’t. Got shit to do.”

“There might be a few volunteers I could wrangle to help you. I’ll see what I can do.” With that, the doctor nodded and marched off down the corridor. The three members of the rescue team contemplated the intervening silence.

“I got to go take a ride with the sheriff,” Mason said. He strode down the hallway. Lara and Trumbo followed him out, cutting through Emergency to get to the exit doors. “You still gonna stay, Lara?”

“Yeah. I’ll sit with her for a while.”

Mason nudged Trumbo’s arm. “You wanna come along? We got to go collect the bloater we left in the desert.”

“Sure. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find another survivor.”

A commotion at the automated doors snapped their attention away. Two paramedics barged through, rushing in with a gurney. The man on the gurney was covered in blood. An oxygen masked strapped over the flapping wet tissue of his torn face. A gruesome sight. Lara and Mason leapt sideways to get out of the way. A woman with a blasted expression followed the melee through the doors. In her hands was clutched a plastic Tupperware tub spilling over with ice. “Where’d they go? Where!”

Mason reached out and took the woman’s elbow. “Through that door. What happened?”

“My stupid cousin and his pet.” The woman’s hand shook badly and ice tumbled from the container.

“His pet did that to his face?”

“Pet tiger,” she spit. “He’d raised it from a cub. I told him it was dangerous but he just laughed. Thought he was real badass having a pet tiger. It just turned on him.”

Everyone’s eyes fell to the tub of ice in the woman’s hands. Lara spoke up, “What’s in the ice?”

“His nose. I think.” She ran after the gurney, ice tinkling to the floor after her.

Mason looked at his comrades, eyebrows arching in disbelief. “Pet tiger?”

“Serves him right,” Trumbo grumped. “What the hell kind of fool keeps a tiger locked up at home? Dress it up, call it a pet but then pow. Nature kicks in and the damn thing rips your face off.”

Mason shook his head. “Dude shoulda stuck to pit bulls. Shit.”

Lara watched but said nothing. Her brow knit up with a stitch of consternation. Trumbo caught sight of it and laughed. “You can’t keep a wild animal,” he said. “Sooner or later, it’s gonna turn and eat you alive.”

Trumbo guffawed all the way out the door. Lara remained where she was, unwilling to follow the man. Mason didn’t like the look on her face and it took him a moment before realizing why. He had never seen Lara look troubled before.

4

IT WAS THE SHIVERING that woke Amy. Blinking in the dark of the bedroom, she realized she had kicked the blankets off in the night and the chill had goosed her flesh. She reached for the duvet when a noise stopped her. A dull thud, then a scratching noise. The pale light washing in from the window swiped dark as if something blocked it out. She didn’t want to see what it was but her eyes were already turning upwards.

The wolf was there. Its eyes glowed red and blood dripped from its jaws. Its pelt was cindered and still smoking as if it had crawled out of Hell itself. Its snout thudded the glass of the window, testing it. Then it coiled back, ready to burst through the pane.

Amy reached under the pillow for the gun but it wasn’t there. As she hit the floor, a hand snaked out from under the bed and snatched her ankle. Like the wolf, the hand was blackened from fire. Raw bone peeled through the charred skin as it clutched harder, pulling Amy under the bed with it. Then the window exploded as the wolf burst through the glass.

Feverish with a cold sweat, Amy knew it was a nightmare before snapping awake. Her head knocked against the dresser leg and she realized she was on the floor. No wolf, no ghostly hand reaching out from under the bed. The window remained whole and undisturbed. Something was clutched in her fingers and when she raised her hand she saw the gun. The safety was off and her index finger curled tight over the trigger piece.

She didn’t move, didn’t dare breathe for a full minute. Thumbing the safety back on, she laid the piece on the floor. It could have gone off so easily, thrashing around in her nightmare. Having the Glock tucked under pillow gave her a thin shred of security when she closed her eyes but she’d have to rethink that strategy. She could have let off a round so easily. What if her mom had come into the room? The nightmares were getting worse all the time, the violence of them. This wasn’t the first time she’d woken up on the floor.

She started to reach under the bed for the shoebox when she remembered the ghostly hand that had clawed her ankle. She bent low and peered under the bed. Dust bunnies and the shoebox, a stray sock. No burned hand, no monsters waiting to drag her under. She slid the box out, laid the piece inside and pushed it back. When she saw how badly her hands trembled she folded her arms to stifle them and leaned back against the wall.

This wasn’t going to get any better, not on its own anyway. She had watched her own father suffer through the symptoms of post traumatic stress before he was forced to confess the awful circumstances behind it. Working as a detective in the homicide detail, he and his partner, Lara Mendes, had pursued a suspect who turned out to be a monster. Not a metaphorical one, not a psychopath or serial killer. Ivan Prall, the suspect in question, was a lycanthrope. An honest-to-God werewolf, who, when cornered by Lara, transformed into the wolf and attacked her. Infected her. Lara disappeared and her father spent three months tracking her down. Two days before Christmas, all three of them were trapped in a ghost town in the wilds of British Columbia and set upon by more wolves. They fought them off but the three of them were outnumbered and outgunned until her dad done something terrible to even the odds. Triggering a rigged-up explosive, he managed to destroy most of the monsters but sacrificed himself in the process. She and Lara had escaped and returned home; she to Portland and Lara to New Mexico. Life went on but nothing was ever the same. Now, four months later, Amy could barely cope.

When she closed her eyes, she could see with brutal clarity the flash of spark and resulting fireball that took her father’s life. One second he was there, surrounded by werewolves with his back against a vehicle. Their adopted but nameless dog clutched in his arms, then nothing. The white of the explosion, the mushroom cloud of smoke and he and the dog were simply gone.

Amy understood why he had done it but she couldn’t forgive him for it. The grief was unbearable and smothering, like drowning in molasses. Piled atop that was the terror and the PTSD. There were monsters under the bed and wolves waiting around every corner. She startled at every small sound and slept with a loaded gun under her pillow and the terror never let up. It exhausted her.

In the month after the incident, she had gone over the details of that night a thousand times; grasping at some other way that the events could have played out. Some other option that didn’t involve her father incinerating himself to save her. The phrase ‘if only’ began to haunt every thought and second-guess her every move. If only she hadn’t choked when the first wolf attacked. If only she had taken better aim with the massive fifty caliber handgun and scored the silver-tipped round into a monster’s skull instead of strafing the monster’s hindquarters. If only her father hadn’t become obsessed with finding his missing partner or if only Lara had fled beyond his reach. It was a futile, tragic game to puzzle over but she couldn’t stop running the scenarios in her head. Worse still were the quiet moments when she’d forget that he was gone. She’d hear something funny at school and want to tell him when she got home only to remember with a flattening crash that he wasn’t at home. Or at the office or out on a case or anything. He was just gone.

She wiped her eyes when she caught the sound of footfalls shuffling sleepily outside her door. Her mom was up and Norm would follow soon after and the awful, foggy, dreadful new day would start. Amy glanced at the clock and then closed her eyes, wanting nothing more than to cocoon inside her room and never come out again.

Cheryl was dicing fruit at the counter as she crossed the kitchen towards the gurgling coffee maker. Norm sat on a stool at the island and when both of them wished her a good morning, Amy replied with a polite return. Maybe, she thought, if she was as cloyingly pleasant as they were, her mom and Norm would be satisfied and stay the hell off her case this morning.

“We missed you at dinner,” Cheryl said as she chopped almonds on a battered cutting board. “For a moment there, we were worried you’d miss breakfast too.”

Wishful thinking, Amy reminded herself, was a slow boat to hell. “I had this idea of going all anorexic, you know? Just to fit in and improve my social standing. But I’m starved so maybe I’ll give bulimia a shot instead.”

Norm laughed. “That’s so last century. Try smoking. Kills the appetite.”

“Why don’t you comedians set the table.” Cheryl waved the knife at him. “You can destroy your health on your own time.”

“Buzzkill,” he said. Norm Kessler, Amy reminded herself, wasn’t a bad guy. He could actually be half-decent at times but he remained her mom’s husband. When it came to Amy, his job was to support Cheryl without crossing any boundaries. To bolster mom but never impose. Alone, Amy didn’t mind him, but around her mom, Norman was one pubic hair shy of being a sycophant.

“So,” Cheryl said, “do you want to talk about what happened at school yesterday?”

“Not really.” Amy poured the coffee, spilling half of it on the counter.

“Honey, you can’t just skip half a day like that. Your grades are bad enough as it is.”

Amy grunted without actually saying anything, a habit she’d fallen into recently. The last thing she wanted to talk about were dismal grades.

Cheryl wiped her hands on the dishtowel. “Gabby said you had another episode.”

“Do we have to do this now?”

“Yes, now. The school year is almost over and you’ll be lucky if you don’t fail completely. These episodes are becoming more and more frequent. What are we going to do?”

“You can start by not nagging at me.”

Cheryl’s jaw clenched as she bit her tongue. The word nag touched a nerve. Norm leaned forward to intercede. “What your mom means, Amy, is that we’re worried about you but we don’t know how to help. We think it’s time you started seeing a counselor.”

“We?” Amy shot back, reminding him of his boundaries.

Cheryl said, “You need help and clearly, all I do is make the situation worse.”

“Look, mom. It’s just grief. It does weird things to people. Okay?”

That dampened the proceedings. Cheryl floundered for a moment. “It’s more than that, honey. I know what grief is. I know what depression looks like. This is something else and I’m worried to death it’s just going to get worse if we don’t do something now.”

“I know,” Amy conceded. “But I don’t need a shrink or a therapist to deal with grief. I just need time.”

Cheryl’s eyes softened. “Well, maybe we can help with that.”

“How?”

Cheryl took a breath then let it out. “It’s time to deal with your dad’s house.”

All of the oxygen slipped from the room. Amy set her cup down, afraid she would hurl it against the wall. “No.”

“We have to, honey. We can’t carry it any longer.”

The house owned by the deceased detective John Gallagher had sat untouched since December. It had been Amy’s other home since she was eleven years old but she hadn’t stepped foot inside it since the incident. Aside from the police, the only person who had ventured inside was Norm, and that was only to board up the front door that had been smashed open by the assailant who had kidnapped her dad. A month ago, Cheryl had brought up the issue of the empty house, gently suggesting that it was time to think about selling it. Amy had refused to even float the idea.

“I know this is difficult and you don’t want to let go,” Cheryl said. “But it’s been four months now. We’re still paying the mortgage on it and we just can’t carry two households anymore.”

“You just can’t wait to sell it, can you?” Amy’s eyes narrowed to slits. “No. It’s my home and I’m not losing it.”

“We can’t keep it, honey. I wish we could but we can’t. And there’s still so much to do before we can even list it. There’s all of your dad’s belongings to deal with and the repairs—”

“I’m not having this conversation.” Amy turned for the stairs. “You’re not selling my home!”

“Fine. You want to keep it, then you make the monthly payments. Because we can’t float it anymore, not without running us into debt.”

“Amy,” Norm spoke up, cautiously. “You don’t have to go back in there or deal with any of your dad’s things right now. You’re mom and I can sort most of the stuff and any of the important things can be moved into storage. Okay?”

“Stay out of it, Norman,” Amy said. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

“I’m afraid it does.” He spoke softly and slowly, the way one does to a jumper on a ledge. “I know this is hard and you don’t want to deal with it but your mom needs you to be reasonable.”

Amy squared them both with an icy glare. “You two make me sick. The man’s barely cold in the ground and you can’t wait to divvy up the property. We’re not selling it! If I have to, I’ll go move in and live there. Alone!”

She stormed away. She heard her mom call after and then Norm’s voice telling Cheryl to leave it and let the kid cool off.

5

LUNA COUNTY RESCUE WAS headquartered out of the back of a strip mall unit, where the loading dock was. The storefront half of the space belonged to Our Lady of the Broken Tears ministry. Established by Pastor Raymond Talbot, the rescue mission operated as a charitable adjunct to his nascent ministry in the lonely strip mall. Mornings began with a debrief of the previous day before Pastor Talbot divvied up assignments and routes to the seven member team.

The debrief was already underway when Lara pushed through the door and tried to slip into a seat beside Mason without interrupting the meeting. Pastor Talbot spotted her immediately and held up a hand. “There she is.”

The assembled members turned around and clapped their hands in a quick but enthusiastic round of applause. Lara shrank in her seat. She despised being the center of attention. Mason whistled a hoot to prolong both the clapping and her torment.

Trumbo sat on the far side of the room with his arms folded, refusing to play along. The puckered sneer on his face hinted at a sour taste in his mouth.

“Well done, Lara” the pastor said once the rumble died away. “Mason was just giving us the details of how you found the little girl yesterday. He described it as spooky but I suggested that maybe some higher spirit was guiding you.”

“We got lucky.” Lara nodded at Mason to acknowledge his part in the rescue. She wished the pastor would change the subject so everyone in the room would stop looking at her.

“Any word on the girl’s condition?”

“She’s stable,” Lara said. “I just came from the hospital now. The doctors are optimistic.”

Pastor Talbot beamed.“That’s good news. You ought to be proud of yourself, Lara, for saving that child’s life. I know we are.” Her team-mates nodded in agreement and flashed her silent thumbs-up signals. Save for Trumbo, who yawned like a bear.

Mason studied Lara’s drawn expression. “You okay?”

“Tired. I spent half the night at the hospital.”

“Why didn’t you call me? I could have come to relieve you.”

“It’s fine. I wanted to be there.”

“Did the girl wake up?”

Lara folded her hands in her lap then nodded. “She asked for her mom.”

His knee stopped bouncing. “What did you tell her?”

“I said we’d find her.”

Mason winced. “You can’t promise things like that. For all we know the body we found was her mom’s. What are we gonna tell her?”

“The truth. If her mom is gone, she needs to know.” She watched his knee resume its bouncing then added, “I’m not asking you to do it.”

Pastor Talbot waited for all eyes to drift his way again. “Before we get to the day’s routes, I need to share some bad news. Lambert Auto informed me yesterday that they’re withdrawing their support for our mission and will no longer be providing any funding. As you know, Lambert was one of our biggest financial supporters and without their backing, our rescue mission here is extremely hampered. We will have to tighten our belts.”

Trumbo sat up. “Why did they pull out?”

“They said their charitable givings were stretched too thin. Translation; they’re being pressured politically. Public support for our mission is shifting and our opponents believe we’re exacerbating the border problem, not helping it.”

Another hand shot up in the back. “What do you mean by tightening our belts?”

The pastor leaned against the whiteboard on the wall. “Unless I can find another business to replace Lambert’s funding, we are going to have to scale back the operation. We can crunch numbers as best we can but it will probably mean reducing the team by two, maybe even three members.”

A collective groan passed through the assembled members. Pastor Talbot held up a hand, as if waving a white flag. “I know, I know. And I’m sorry. But I wanted to be straightforward about this and give everyone ample warning. But until then, we still have a job to do.” The pastor wrapped up the session by assigning the teams their routes for the day, the number of water stations to check, but a pall had settled over the room, dampening the triumphant mood that had started the briefing.

Derek Trumbo stayed seated after the briefing was over. The pastor had ended with a short prayer for any help the Almighty could grant them in their mission to help those who were literally lost in the wilderness. The team rose from their folding chairs and milled about, chatting or filling their travel mugs from the coffee urn. Trumbo leaned back in his chair and peered through the crowd to the far side of the room where Lara Quesada stood speaking with Pastor Talbot.

He had never liked Lara Quesada, not since day one. And now she was a threat.

Trumbo considered himself to be a stand-up guy and he often told people so. He went out of his way to make any rookie member of the rescue team feel welcome and valued. This wasn’t idle feel-good shit or obligatory team-building. As a team leader and member with an unmatched record in finding survivors in the vast wasteland of the New Mexico desert, his inclusion and mentoring meant something to the rookie crews. At least it had until this punta Lara showed her face two months ago.

As usual he had welcomed her onboard and gave her tips on what to expect and what was expected of her. The pastor was the one who did the recruiting but it was Trumbo’s job to size up the potential acolytes. Show them the ropes and school them through the often hazardous work of pulling refugees out of the dust. Lara had been polite but oddly cold. Trumbo forgave it as first-day jitters but found the same response again and again. A cold fish, plain and simple. Some people were just like that.

And it wasn’t like she was that hot anyway, he reminded himself. Sure, he may have poured on the charm a little too much those first few days but who didn’t? He’d mistaken her for Jersey Italian at first. The dark hair, the complexion, the tough exterior. When he learned she was just another chica from the block, he figured he had a bird in the hand for sure. Not the way it played. Chica was so aloof around him the bitch could have passed herself off as wasp. Few things pissed him off more than a chica posing above her station. It galled him now to remember that he had been so welcoming back then. Back before the punta had set out to ruin him by performing above her pay grade.

Some women were just like that, he reminded himself. They saw every man who wasn’t gay as a threat and had to, just had to, prove herself better. Prior to Lara’s arrival, Trumbo had been the point man, the stand-up guy who got the job done. Then Lara comes along and starts trumping him, sniffing out corpses baking in the sun or half-dead migrants coiled under any bit of shelter like snakes. What was the Spanish word for it? Bruja. Spooky shit, as Mason would say.

And now Lara Quesada was Pastor Talbot’s new pet and he himself had been relegated to second banana. That shit just wasn’t gonna play, not after how much he’d given to the cause. Mason wasn’t far off the mark; there was something downright spooky about that chica.

With Lambert Auto pulling their funding, the rescue mission was crippled. The pastor would be lucky to keep half the team employed and his position on it was jeopardized by the pastor’s new pet. Lara had to go and that was all there was to it.

~

“The pastor looks tired. You see those bags under his eyes?” said Mason between bites of his Danish.

Lara loaded gear into the back of the truck. “He’s keeping a brave face on it. Doesn’t want to rattle the troops. Do we need to gas up before we go?”

“I filled it on the way in this morning,” Mason said. He looked out to the horizon, where clouds were clustering in a dark mass. “That sky looks nasty. Headed our way too.”

Lara glanced up at the big sky over the land of enchantment. “Let’s get on the road. Maybe we can get through most of this before the weather hits.”

“Looks like a storm’s coming.”

Lara and Mason turned to see Pastor Talbot marching towards them. Smiling, he patted Lara on the shoulder. Mason caught her flinching briefly as he did so. “Lara, I just wanted to thank you for yesterday. You outdid yourself again, finding that little girl.”

“Wasn’t just me.” She nodded to Mason. “Team effort.”

The pastor smiled again. He knew that his newest team member hated being singled out or fussed over in any way. Humility was a trait that he held in esteem and Lara had it in spades. “Well, I’m proud of both of you.”

“Is there anything we can do for the girl?” Lara asked. “She’s all alone in that hospital. And soon as she’s better, they’ll just run her through the system and bus her back across.”

“There might be someone I can talk to about it. A special provision, given her age. We’ll see.”

Mason brushed the crumbs from his lap. “That’s a shitty deal about Lambert pulling out. How long do you think we can get by without them?”

“Not long. I need to start knocking on doors again, hat in hand. Until then, we’ll have to scale back and watch every penny. I hate the thought of having to let anyone go.”

“Is there a door in this town you haven’t knocked on?” Lara asked.

“Not many. I’ll just have to amp up the charm.” The pastor’s smile drained a little at the prospect. Lara didn’t envy him the task ahead. “The real problem,” he continued, “is simply finding the time. The administrative side of the mission is eating up more and more of it.”

“Maybe we can help with that,” Trumbo said as he joined the group by the truck. He nodded curtly to Lara and Mason before turning to the pastor. “I’m gonna stay behind today and take care of the paperwork. That way, you can have the day to find some more donors.”

Pastor Talbot’s smiled sprang back. “That would be extremely helpful, Derek. But what about your field duties?”

Trumbo looked at Lara. “Can you guys check station eight and nine for me? I can get Diaz and Johnson to take the other spots on my route today.”

“We can do that,” Lara said.

Mason’s brow arced with skepticism. “I thought you hated paperwork.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures,” Trumbo said. “We can save the cost of having another truck on the road too.”

The pastor patted Trumbo’s meaty shoulder. “Thank you, Derek. It’s nice to see everyone pull together on this. Let’s get started, shall we? Before that storm hits.”

Talbot and Trumbo walked back inside as Lara closed up the tailgate. Mason watched the pair pass through the door and then looked at Lara. “What do you suppose that was all about?”

“Like the pastor said. Everybody’s pulling together.”

They climbed into the cab but Mason kept looking back to the roll-up door in the loading dock. “Trumbo volunteering for admin duties? Dude’s up to something.”

Lara shrugged and turned the ignition. She could not care less what Trumbo was doing.

With the crews gone, the pastor put on his jacket and headed out the door. Alone in the offices of Luna County Rescue, Trumbo sat down at the main desk and looked over the stack of paper waiting to be sorted. He pushed it aside, pulled in the keyboard and logged into the system. The personnel files popped onscreen. He scrolled down the names of every team member until his cursor stopped at one. Quesada, Lara.

There were plenty of things about Lara Quesada that Trumbo didn’t like. One of them was her secrecy. Whenever the conversation turned to the topics of hometowns or family or previous careers, Lara offered nada to the conversation. She would deflect any personal questions before subtly changing the subject. Trumbo hadn’t thought much of it until this morning, stewing over the dark cloud that now hung over Luna County Rescue.

Every individual recruited by the organization was required to undergo a background check. Standard procedure. Clicking through Lara’s file, he hoped he might find something here he could use against her if needed. There had to be a reason she was so cagey about her past and he expected to find jail time or a child taken away by family services.

What he didn’t expect was to find nothing at all. No history, no details. There was no background check at all filed under the name Lara Quesada.

6

THERE WERE TIMES WHEN Amy hated her best friend. Only friend these days, she reminded herself. Back before the world went to hell, she had lots of friends. Old friends she’d known since the sixth grade, other friends bonded with during high school and other girls whom she played basketball with. They were all gone now. Driven off by her grief and morose withdrawal as if she was contagious, the friends had scattered before the dark pall around Amy could infect themselves. She recalled learning about the brutal caste system in India, about a whole subset of society who were considered untouchable. It couldn’t hold a candle to the complicated and cruel social strata of a high school pecking order. Amy found herself invisible to her former friends, cast off and set adrift as a pariah among her former peers and allies.

She shrugged it off and let it slide. There wasn’t any other option. She had neither the stomach nor the heart to give a rat’s ass if she was untouchable now.

The only friend who hadn’t abandoned her was Gabby. Outspoken, clumsy and a magnet for trouble, Gabby was a mess of a girl who invoked chaos the way other people yawned. Even in Amy’s most depressive, toxic state, Gabby had remained loyal and constant and available. She knew when to back off and give space and she knew when to reach in even when Amy lied about wanting to be alone. Despite Gabby’s knack for hell-raising, she was mature beyond her years and Amy would have suffered a complete breakdown without her.

Still, there were times when Amy despised her best-slash-only friend and her pant-seat flying ways. Like now. With the torture of school over for the day, all Amy had wanted to do was to go somewhere quiet and be alone. Cemeteries, she’d found, were exquisite locations for her sombre turns. But no, Gabby sensed trouble and insisted they follow a group of losers out to the ‘clubhouse’ under the bridge of a nearby overpass. High school refugees passed around bottles of Colt 45 while gliding on longboards. Others smoked weed and nodded their chins to inner beats only they could hear. And there was Gabby, right in the thick of it; trawling past Amy’s knees on somebody’s board with a jug of malt liquor in her fist.

Perched on a concrete lip on the far side of the overpass, all Amy could do was sit and resent her BFF for dragging her along to this hellhole of teenage clichés pulling ollies. She despised them all for going about their lives as if nothing had happened, for their smug pretensions and carefree lives. How could they just roll around and laugh like that, oblivious to the fact that monsters were coiled up behind every dark corner waiting to tear them to fucking pieces?

Gabby rolled up, kicked the board into her hand and dropped down beside her on the curb. “You’re about to rabbit on me, aren’t you?”

“Thinking about it.”

“Don’t,” Gabby said. “Try and have some fun.”

“This is fun?” Amy took the bottle from her friend’s hand and sipped.

Gabby shrugged. “Best I can do right now. Time to break out of your bubble, Ames. Engage.”

“I’d settle for being numb.” Amy took another gulp. It was a moment before she spoke again. “Mom wants to sell the house.”

“Your dad’s house?”

“I told her to go hell.”

Gabby took the jug back and stood it between her feet. They watched the other kids roll back and forth around them. One boy tumbled and the others laughed at him.

“Maybe your mom’s got a point.”

“She just wants to get it off her hands.”

“Maybe,” Gabby shrugged. “Or maybe it’s just time to move on.”

“You’re taking her side?”

“It’s just stuff. It’s not your dad. He’s somewhere else, you know?” Gabby scuffed the heel of her shoe against the dirt. “You have to do it sooner or later. And if you keep putting it off, someone else is gonna do it. Do you want that?”

Amy scowled and took up the bottle again. “I hate you sometimes.”

“Join the club.” Gabby nodded at the boy who had crashed his board. “You should go talk to Chris. I think he likes you. Why, God only knows.”

The last time Amy let her friend play match-maker, the results were disastrous. Now, Amy simply didn’t care about boys. They all acted so arrogant and thick, as if proud of their ignorance of anything important. She gave up on them altogether. Amy stood up and brushed her hands. “I gotta go.”

“Why? You’re just gonna go brood somewhere. Stay here.”

“I’m too wound up.” She handed the bottle back to Gabby. “I need to do something. Take the edge off.”

“You want to get high? Kyle’s holding.”

“No. I need something stronger than that.” Amy gave a limp wave goodbye and climbed back up the incline to the hole in the fence.

~

The blast of gunfire dulled to muted popping sounds as she slid the muffs over her ears. Amy took up the loaded magazine and snapped it into place. Raising the piece up with both hands, she lined up the forward and rear sights onto a paper silhouette target at the far end of the gallery. Drawing a bead on the center of the torso mass, she squeezed the trigger and let off seven consecutive rounds without a pause. Lowering the barrel, she peered down at the target to check her marks then inspected the gun in her hand. The Sig Sauer was old and the bluing was worn away in parts but it fired cleanly and felt good in her hand. It seemed a better fit than her dad’s Glock that she hid under her pillow every night.

Amy took a breath and raised the barrel with stiff arms and spent the magazine without stopping again. The barrel was barely warm and she wondered if Tony, the gun’s owner, would be willing to trade out this old Sig for her Glock.

Tony was the owner of the firing range and an old friend of her dad’s. She’d met him last October when her father first brought her to the firing range to learn how to shoot. Before the incident, she and her dad used to shoot hoops in the crooked net above the garage. After the incident, they shot guns instead. She had played along, learning to like firearms but considered it another sign of his instability and paranoia. She knew now that he was teaching her to fight back, to defend against the evil that slinked along the periphery of this world, waiting for a chance to snatch you away. Two days before Christmas, she got the chance to turn all that gun-training to practical use when a monster in the form of a gigantic wolf charged at her with its jaws agape. The monster wanted to eat her alive. She blasted a silver-capped fifty caliber round down its throat and watched its head explode.

The evil of fairy tales existed and monsters really did stalk travelers on lonely roads.

Amy decocked the hammer and slid the magazine out, laying the piece on the bench before her. Hitting a button on her right brought the perforated target swinging up to her. The majority of the shots centered around the torso of the silhouette but four rounds landed in the white outside of the target completely. She frowned at the wide shots. She hadn’t visited the firing range in three weeks and her aim was getting rusty.

A voice rumbled up behind her. “You’re drifting to the left again.”

Amy pulled the muffs from her ears. Tony leaned into the narrow space, studying the blown target before them. Tony was a grizzly of a man whose long beard and tattoos masked a warm smile and wry humor. “We missed you around here, Amy. You been alright?”

“Yeah. Just busy, you know.” She nodded at the target. “What am I doing wrong here?”

He took up the piece and, closing one eye, checked the sight alignment. “Not sure. You focusing on your front sight, not the target?”

Amy bit her lip. “I might be.”

“Try dry-firing it a couple times and see. Don’t focus on the target, focus on the front sight. The rear sight and the target ought to be blurry.”

She loaded the empty magazine into the handle. “How have you been, Tony?”

“Busy. Willie quit on me the other day, another dude just disappeared. Haven’t had a day off in two weeks.” He snapped his fingers, as if he’d just thought of something. “You looking for a job, Amy?”

“Maybe. School’s almost done, I’ll be needing something then. You hiring?”

“I need somebody I can depend on. Your dad used to go on and on about how his little girl worked all through high school while every other kid had it easy. Proud as a popgun, the man was.”

“He was?”

“Yup.” Tony watched the girl raise up the empty gun and squint down the sight. “Watch your stance too. Get your feet lined up so you don’t drift. Your old man used to do the same thing.”

Amy snapped the trigger, the hammer falling on the empty chamber. Tony watched her correct her sight. “Is that better?”

“Yeah. I think so.”

“Good. Here, try it on the big gun.” He laid a hardshell case on the bench and flipped it open. Fitted inside was the Desert Eagle. A nickel-plated mammoth of a gun. The magazine seated in a separate compartment, stacked with fifty caliber rounds. Tony let her store it here on the premises. “I cleaned it for you.”

“Thanks, Tony. Oiled?”

“Of course. Let’s hear it rip.”

She slapped in the mag and took her stance, the gun heavy in her hands. Lining up the sights, she kept the focus on the foresight and let the target haze over into a blur. The report of the gun was sharp and the recoil hard. Amy took a quick breath and blasted off another three rounds.

“See. You’re not drifting so much, even on that monster.” Tony bopped her shoulder with his knuckles and started away. “We’ll talk more about the job, okay?”

“Okay.” She smiled at him but he was already gone. She looked down at the massive gun in her small hands. The kick from the fifty cal was hard and it jarred her shoulders but it felt good. Felt right. Its sense of control and power might be illusory she knew but firing it was one of the few things that quelled the terror and quieted the paranoia. Blasting off a magazine wouldn’t stop the nightmares but it quieted the noise inside her. She ruminated over the danger of bringing it home to tuck under her pillow instead of the nine millimeter. Was it worth the risk? Probably not.

Her hands felt numb when the loads were spent but when she brought the target up she was pleased to see that all had tagged the silhouette of the cartoon bad guy. Not one puncture mark in the void of white space.

Bring on the monsters, she mused, so they could say hello to her little friend.

She field-stripped the gun like her dad had taught her and laid the pieces onto the bench. A twang of remorse echoed like a piano chord when she thought about him back then, knowing what he knew, trying to teach her while keeping the awful truth of it to himself. And here she was repeating history, an apple falling under the shadow of the tree.

Gabby’s words flitted back to her and she rued the fact that her crazy friend may be right after all. It was time to move on. Do something other than deteriorate into a shell of reclusive paranoia. Cheryl, she was loath to admit, was right too. It was far past time to deal with the house and the thought of someone else doing it made her seethe with propriety. It would hurt like hell walking back into that house but so what? Pain was nothing new and maybe, just maybe, it would alleviate some of the terrors. Like exorcising old ghosts.

She thumbed fresh rounds into the spent loader. One more magazine of fiddy cal destruction, then she would face the long task of dealing with the past.

Bang, bang.

7

THE DAY’S ROUTE TURNED out to be uneventful, no lost migrants wandering among the yucca, no bodies bloating under the punishing sun. Lara and Mason checked water stations seven and eight and then logged a few more hours checking number nine. No signs that anyone had passed through or accessed the water. The skies to the north darkened with ominous-looking clouds but no storm came, just heavy winds that pumiced the truck with high velocity grit.

A ho-hum routine day and for that, Lara was grateful. The excitement of yesterday’s work may have been gratifying in the sense that they actually helped someone but the stress of it rattled her nerves too much. The spike of adrenalin and the quickening of her heart were dangerous. If she was careless, it could trigger a reaction that would awaken the slumbering thing locked away in that secret chamber of her heart. For a time after the incident in the wilderness north of the border, she thought she had earned a grip on her condition and life had normalized to a small extent. New methods of keeping the wolf locked up and new ways of maintaining calm in bad situations had granted a sense of security.

She had begun to think of her situation as a disease. She had simply learned to manage the symptoms and the disease had gone into remission. Bolstered by this, she had set out to slowly, carefully build some kind of life for herself. No more hiding in the forest like some criminal on the run, no more self-imposed exile from the human race. She had found a place to live close to her sister in Albuquerque, found a job in nearby Las Cruces. She had even made friends with a few of her neighbors. They would do delightfully mundane things like Sunday barbecues or trips to Home Depot. After three months of hiding away from the world like some hobo-refugee, Lara relished every moment of the normal, the boring and the everyday.

When it came to managing the symptoms of her condition, silver was crucial. Something about its touch stilled her blood when the wolf threatened to uncoil itself. She used to cut herself with a silver blade, to get the purifying metal to contact the blood but it was Amy who had suggested using a piercing. A silver bolt driven through her navel kept the metal in contact with her skin at all times and proved the most effective. The only downside to this was that the pierced flesh eventually healed over and she would have to get a new puncture in a different spot. The woman at the tattoo parlor where she had this done must have thought she was flighty, returning every month or so to have the piece redone in a different spot.

The silver, however, was losing its efficacy. Over the last few weeks, she found her pulse quickening in that deadly way when triggered by a threat or stress. The sleeping monster stirred and threatened to wake. The piercing alone wasn’t enough to quell it and she had to resort to the old method of cutting into her flesh to lull the wolf back into its slumber. Like any treatment, her body was building up immunity to the silver and Lara shuddered at the thought of it turning impotent. Looking out the window at the flat scrubland as she jostled along in the truck, she wondered if there was anything left to turn to, some method she’d yet to think of. Managing the symptoms was the best she could hope for. She had given up on the idea of a cure a long time ago.

The man who had infected her with this curse in the first place thought he knew the cure. Ivan Prall, a murder suspect she had tracked down in her old life as a homicide detective, believed that he could cure himself by killing the wolf that had infected him. He was wrong. Like cancer, there was no cure for lycanthropy. Lara had bought herself some time by managing it but she knew the remission period was temporary. Eventually it would come back.

The sun was setting over the western rim when she wheeled back into the loading dock of the Luna Rescue office. Mason yawned as he slid out of the cab. “Qittin’ time, muchacha. You wanna hit Larry’s Hideaway for a beer?”

“Tempting.” Lara stretched her back, trying to shake off the cramp of all those road miles. “But I think I’ll pass.”

“Oh?” He looked a little crestfallen. “Got plans tonight?”

“I want to stop by the hospital, check on the girl. Then I’m going home.”

Mason stopped and waited for her to do the same. “She’s not your responsibility, Lara. You know that right?”

“Doesn’t mean I have to forget about her.”

“You saved her bacon but that don’t make you responsible for her. Her mom or dad took her into the desert. That was their mistake, not yours.”

Lara nodded as if conceding the point but she simply didn’t want to discuss it any further. She held the door open for him and he passed through with a mock flourish.

The offices behind the ministry were empty save for Trumbo, who sat at a workstation with his boots propped up on the desk. That was the first indicator that sent a twinge down Lara’s spine. This late on a Friday, the only one left behind was Pastor Talbot, waist-deep in work to keep the operation afloat and functional. Trumbo was notorious for cutting out early every Friday afternoon. Why was he still here?

“Last team back,” Trumbo said, dropping his feet to the floor with a thud. “As usual. Did you guys have any fun out there? Any more survivors?”

Mason dropped a bag of gear on the long table. “Nope. Just a routine day.”

“Where’s the pastor?” Lara asked, looking over the empty office space as if she’d missed him on her first sweep of the room.

Trumbo rose to his feet and sighed. “He’s at the hospital. Guys, I got some bad news.”

The twinge in Lara’s spine plucked twice as hard. She took a breath, already calming her lungs. “It’s not the girl, is it? Tell me she’s okay.”

Trumbo looked at the floor. “I’m sorry. The pastor called about two hours ago. He’d gone to the hospital earlier, hoping to be there when she woke. She didn’t make it.”

Lara teetered on her heels, vaguely aware of the sudden vertigo spinning her head around. She felt a grip on her elbow as Mason pulled up the nearest chair and made her sit down. “What happened?”

“Talbot didn’t say.” Trumbo shrugged. “My guess is she’d been out there too long.”

“Shit,” Mason said. His chin dropped to his clavicle. “I’m sorry, Lara.”

“Me too.”

“Come have that drink with me. You need it,” he said.

“I’m fine. I just want to go home.” Lara touched his arm and gave it a tiny squeeze. “You go on.”

Mason didn’t want to leave her but she assured him he was fine, shooing him out the door. She was gathering her things when Trumbo spoke up. “Hold up, Lara. I need to talk to you before you go.”

The taut piano cord in her backbone twinged again. She put her bag down and looked at him. “Yeah?”

“I’ve been helping out the pastor,” he said, nodding at the computer screen before him. “All this administration shit. Help lighten his load, ya know?”

Lara smelled a rat but let it slide. “I’m sure he appreciates that. The man works too hard.”

“Yes, he does. But I’m plowing through this backlog of paperwork for him and I came across something funny. Weird funny, not ha-ha funny.”

“And?” Lara harrumphed, too tired to play games at this late hour.

“I found this.” Tumbo clicked the mouse and the screen flickered to a blank white screen. Some text at the top of the page. Her name. “This is the background check on Lara Quesada. The mandatory check. It’s blank.”

“And?” Lara repeated. “The data was never inputted? A glitch?”

“That’s what I thought at first too. But then I started digging. Not that there was a lot to dig into. A phone number and an address. The social security number is registered to a Lara Quesada who’s been dead for ten years. And there’s fuck-all else info here about you.”

Something awful fluttered up in Lara’s heart. Like a murmur with a deep kick. She bit it down. “An oversight, like I said.”

Trumbo waved his hand, dismissing her protests. “Stop. We both know what this is. You gave Talbot a bullshit ID and he never looked it up. Now, I don’t know what kinda hold you got on our good pastor or if you’re fucking him on the sly to keep him quiet but—no more.”

Lara retrieved her bag and turned towards the exit. “Goodnight, Trumbo.”

“What’s the big secret, Lara? Trouble with the law?” He rose up and blocked her path to the door. “My guess is you’re an illegal, which would explain why you’re so good at sniffing out lost migrants in the desert.”

“Take it up with the pastor, Trumbo. I don’t have time for your bullshit.”

“I will, Lara. I will. See, this is just a courtesy I’m extending to you. With money tight, the pastor’s got to cut some bodies from the team. The man’s a softie and he’s gonna agonize over who to let go. You’re gonna make it easy for him by walking away. Tonight.”

Lara stepped to her left to march around her colleague but Trumbo blocked her again. She squared him with a look. “Get out of the way.”

“Do you understand what I’m saying? You can quit now or I can make a phone call to immigration. That’s gonna be messy and it’s gonna look bad on the pastor’s mission. Do you want that?”

She took another deep breath to slow the uptick in her pulse. Her heart was banging dangerously hard. Stupidly, Trumbo pressed in on her, glaring down at her with an intimidating stare. He stood a foot taller and outweighed her by fifty pounds but none of that mattered when the wolf was roused. Her hand shot out and shoved him away. Trumbo caterwauled into a desk.

She didn’t look back to see the walleyed expression on his face. “Don’t ever get in my way, Trumbo.”

Trumbo sputtered a threat as he shot to his feet but Lara was already gone.

~

The Jeep Cherokee was parked at the end of the lot, the last vehicle left as the sun went down. Lara climbed under the wheel and leaned back in the seat, needing to ride out the jolt to her system. Her hands were trembling bad so she folded her arms to still them. She hated losing control like that, giving in to the instinct to strike out in anger. She could have seriously hurt Trumbo.

Why did he hate her so much? Enough to root around the personnel files for something to leverage her out of the team? The past two months had been the longest bout of normalcy in so long and she didn’t want to lose it now. It was a job that she liked, one that had purpose and meaning and one where she could sometimes apply the awful curse she carried into something good.

And now it was all gone, thanks to one petty man’s ego.

Sitting up, Lara slotted the key into the ignition but let her hand drop away without starting the engine. A hot flash of anger had her consider going back inside to confront Trumbo but she brushed it aside. Too dangerous. Just get out of here.

She turned the key and the old Cherokee rumbled to life. She pulled out of the lot and rolled east down 2nd Avenue. Elvis dangled from the rearview mirror, a plastic toy that shook and swiveled with every bump in the road. It had come with the truck, the ornament hung there by its former owner, John Gallagher. She’d meant to get rid of the silly thing because it reminded her of Gallagher and she missed him terribly. Although they had gotten off to a shaky start as partners in the homicide detail back in Portland, Gallagher had proved to be the one person she could count on when her whole world went to hell. Alone among her old colleagues, Gallagher had never given up looking for her. He knew the truth about her and had brought her home, tried to help her. But he was gone now and she couldn’t turn to him anymore, despite how often she thought of him. That left only one other person in the world who knew of her secret and that was Gallagher’s teenage daughter, Amy.

She needed to call Amy, if only to check in with her. It had been a month since they’d spoken but the girl didn’t sound well, despite her protests to the contrary. It was understandable. Grieving the loss of her father was one thing but the girl had been there with them, forced to confront a primordial evil that had no right to exist outside of folktales. The last time they had spoken, Lara had the impression that her call dredged up everything for Amy, opening the wounds again. Not wanting to hurt the girl any further, she’d decided to wait until Amy called her. That had yet to happen.

She’d call her tomorrow, just to check on her. Lara glanced at the fuel gauge and then steered for home.

8

THE HOUSE LOOKED SAD and hollow. Standing on the curb with cold feet, Amy looked up at her father’s house and chewed her lip. Her earlier resolve to face the awful task of dealing with dad’s house dissipated like smoke as she hovered on the sidewalk, scolding herself for being scared while her feet itched to bolt.

Trudging up the street she had avoided for months, she had thought that seeing her old home would be, if not heartbreaking, at least bittersweet. It wasn’t. With the front entrance boarded-over with cheap plywood and the garage door crumpled inwards and tagged by graffiti, the craftsman looked alien and pathetic. Like the other empty houses that haunted the block after the crash, their exteriors fading in the sun from neglect while the realtor’s signs went ignored in their parched front lawns. This wasn’t home, she thought. It’s just another empty husk of wood and shingle. Someone else’s home, someone else’s life.

Don’t be chickenshit, she growled. Get it done. Do it for dad. The house keys, unused for months, dangled from a chain in her hand.

The mangled garage door rolled up halfway and then stopped. She ducked under, squinting in the gloom until she located the side-door. Her shoes crunched over a mess of pennynails and woodscrews littered over the concrete floor, remnant trails of disaster from the catastrophe that had destroyed the garage. A flashback image of monstrous teeth snapped through her mind, a beast’s snout smashing through the aluminum panels of the roll-up door. Earlier she had thought about bringing the gun hidden under her bed but dismissed the notion. She regretted that now. Shaking it off, she unlocked the side-door and passed through into the hallway.

The stillness inside was unnerving and popping the light on did nothing to smooth the gooseflesh pimpling her arms. Without thinking, she called out to the empty hallway before her.

“Hello?”

Had she expected a reply? It was more of a warning than a hail, to chase off anything or anyone that might be squatting inside the house. When nothing answered back, the fear itching her spine receded and she ventured further in. Entering the kitchen, the fear was gone completely but the grief came on so fast it snatched her breath away and knocked Amy to her knees. It was the smell of the place that punched the hardest. The smell of home, the smell of him, bringing everything back faster than she could deal with it. She remained on the floor until the hiccuping sobs throttled back enough to breathe.

A metal bowl sat on the floor to her left, moldering kibble spilled from it onto the dirty linoleum. She blinked at it like she didn’t know what it was for. She had almost forgotten about their dog, the dog that had never been given a name.

Pushing herself up, she wiped her eyes and reached for the tissue box on the hutch. Same place it always was. Like everything else in the kitchen, nothing had changed or been moved. Dirty coffee mugs sat in the sink waiting for a wash that would never come. It was almost like it used to be. Her dad would come clomping around the corner any second now, asking her what she wanted for dinner. The husky would linger near the door, whining to be let out.

She shook it off. Pretending was useless. The house was stale and no figure would emerge from the other room like nothing had happened. She marveled at her own capacity for delusion. “Do what you gotta do,” she muttered to the empty kitchen. “Then get the hell out.”

Shuffling back into the garage, she scrounged up two cardboard boxes and started in the living room. Collecting framed pictures and few nick-knacks (like a silver candle snuffer that had belonged to her grandmother), she decided to pack up the things she wanted and leave the rest. What was she going to do with all this furniture? If they couldn’t sell the house ‘as-is’ then she’d call a charity to come take everything away. She made the mistake of lingering over the first framed photograph of herself and her dad taken when she was twelve. Both of them with fishing poles, beaming at the camera over a tiny perch she had caught. Seeing it stung so she put it in the box and collected the rest of the pictures without looking at any of them. She would sort through them later.

Moving on to the kitchen, she found even less to hold onto. A few snapshots stuck to the fridge with fruit-shaped magnets. Dad’s favorite mug; a joke gift she had given him ages ago. The words ‘World’s Greatest Deadbeat Dad’ emblazoned on the side in a cartoonish font. He’d used it every morning for the past six years. A notepad on the chipped counter, the one they’d used to write grocery lists or jot notes to each other when their schedules clashed. A scribble in his pen, asking her to walk the dog because he had to work late. As fresh and mundane as if it was left yesterday. Was there a photo of the dog? She didn’t think so. A shame. She tossed the notepad into the box and moved on, working fast to outrun the tears.

Halfway up the stairs, a chill passed through her bones and a noise broke from below. She froze to still the creaking steps under her feet to listen for another sound but it was gone. She called out again but nothing sounded in the house. Her imagination, she decided.

Her bedroom seemed old and foreign after all this time. The posters and trophies from basketball and track seemed like they belonged to some other girl’s life. Most of her clothes had been cleared out months ago by her mom. She rifled the closet and checked the drawers of her desk but found nothing to keep, nothing to hang onto. There was no connection to the girl who used to live here. Of the books stacked neatly on the shelf, she took only the battered Penguin of Jane Eyre and a water-damaged paperback of True Grit.

Nothing else held a wisp of interest so she left the remnant pieces of this other girl’s like to the dust and moved on to her dad’s room. Opening the closet, she tried to block out the smell of him wafting from his hanging clothes and reached up to the shelf above. Slipping her hand under the stack of sweaters he’d received as gifts over the years but had never worn, her fingers latched onto a shoebox. Lifting it down onto the bed, she flipped the lid to reveal stacks of old letters. Missives from family members she’d met only once or old love letters from her mom. These she tossed aside, digging for something until she upended the box onto the coverlet. The gun wasn’t here. An old Glock that had been her dad’s first service issue on the job, one that he had used with deadly force against a junkie back during his days as a beat uniform. A bad shooting is how he had described it, after which he had shelved the piece for good and purchased a new firearm out of his own pocket. The thing had remained in this old shoebox of reminisces since then but it was gone now. He must have gotten rid of it without telling her. Disappointing to say the least. She’d hoped to add it to her arsenal.

Picking through the scattered mess on his dresser top, she took an old Timex with a broken snap band and his old wedding ring. She scrounged around for his police badge before remembering it was in his office.

The office was a spare room next to the mud room at the back of the house. A small desk and two filing cabinets. Commendations and citations framed under glass hung on the wall. Amy gathered a few more snapshots pinned to the corkboard and searched the desktop for her dad’s badge but it wasn’t on the desk nor hidden in a drawer. She wondered if he’d had it on him when he died. Gallagher had been alone in the house when a suspect named Edgar Grissom broke in and attacked him. Grissom, Amy would later learn, was a lycanthrope and he wanted Lara Mendes. He abducted her dad and fled up north to the wilderness across the border, knowing Lara would go after him. They had both gone, along with the nameless husky, to save her dad. In the end, she and Lara were the only ones to come back alive. It was more than likely that her dad’s police badge was in his pocket when the explosion went off.

Unsurprisingly, the filing cabinets held only files, paperwork from cases her dad had worked on. She wondered why he kept these at home. Amy had no use for them but balked at the idea of trashing it all into the recycling bin. Maybe her dad’s last partner, detective Rueben Wade, would know what do with them. She rifled through the debris on the desktop for Wade’s cell number when her hand bumped the mouse and the creaky old computer whirred and warmed to life. Amy watched the screen pop up, groaning at the thought of going through the old PC before getting rid of it. Two buttons on the screen flashed on and off, alerts of some kind demanding attention.

Clicking the first popped a new window onto the screen. A list of information scrolled down with locations and dates. It was a news alert program that was still running on her dad’s computer, even after months of dormancy. A catalog of information that held little interest until her eye snagged a phrase in the list.

Wolf attack.

Clicking the line in the scroll down list popped a new window with more details. The mutilated remains of a hiker were discovered in the forests of British Columbia. Authorities determined the deceased had been attacked by wolves.

A sliver of ice crackled up Amy’s spine. She clicked the next item in the news alert and these details chilled her blood another degree down the scale. A similar incident described as a wolf attack in roughly the same area. A body found dismembered on a hiking trail deep in the forest. Wildlife authorities in the area stated that the animal involved must have been abnormally large and powerful to inflict the amount of damage to the victim.

Loud as bombs, the alarm bells started ringing. Opening another window, she typed the location into a Google map and held her breath. When the results popped up, her stomach dropped. The last reported attack occurred in the Kootenay mountain range, north of the border. Not far from the remote ghost town where her father had died, where she had last encountered a pack of grisly werewolves.

9

THE SUN HAD GONE down by the time she rolled into Albuquerque. Pulling off the 85, Lara wheeled the Cherokee through a sparse neighborhood of low slung homes and dusty streets before turning into the driveway of a weathered ranch home with faded stucco. The gravel yard was potted with yucca and a small blue bicycle lay on its side near the front stoop. Lara slid out from the cab and stretched, her spine stiff after the drive from Las Cruces.

Looking up at the sun-bleached facade of her sister’s house, she was glad to be away from that blowhard Trumbo. The anger over his threats had cooled with every mile left in the rearview mirror, replaced by a melancholic acceptance of the end of her tenure with the rescue mission. The pastor didn’t care about her spotty bonafides but Trumbo wouldn’t let up if he thought his own neck was on the line. It was just unfair. Her whole life she had felt like an outsider, never fitting in anywhere. Even in her old job, it had taken a long time to settle in and feel wanted, accepted. But the wolf had taken that from her and now this petty coworker of hers had taken this from her. Was there nowhere for her to fit in? The bile rose up quick and she took a deep breath to shake it off. She didn’t want to drag the bitterness into Marisol’s house.

The screen door banged open and a little boy appeared on the stoop, peering out at the dark vehicle on the parking pad. “Tia?” he said, a note of caution in his voice.

Lara beamed up at him. “Hola little man. Isn’t it past someone’s bedtime?”

Jackson Sparks scurried down the steps and slammed into his tia’s knees. Five years old with a shock of dark hair and a smear of dinner still on his chin. He flashed his aunt with big, bright eyes. “It’s Friday. I get to stay up until you get home.”

“Is that the rule?” Lara bent down to his level and scooped him up in a tight bear-hug. She felt his little arms hug her back and all the bitter anger blew off like chaff in a strong wind. “I missed you, little man. You been good?”

“Yup,” Jackson said. “We had pizza.”

“Did you save me a slice?”

“Two.”

“Thank you.” She kissed his cheek and leaned back to get a better look at him. “¿Como tu madre?”

“She’s good.”

“En espanõl.”

“Bien.”

“Mejor. Entremos.” She took his outstretched hand and let the boy lead her up the steps.

Jackson dragged his aunt through the small living room where the television flickered with the sound muted. In its place, Cumbia drifted out from another room, filling the house with a lulling beat. “Mama!” Jackson shouted. “Tia’s here!”

Marisol Sparks stepped out of the kitchen with a smile and a tight embrace. The family resemblance was minimal beyond the hair and eyes. Marisol was shorter than Lara but had a bigger smile, punctuated with dimples and near perfect teeth. “I was starting to wonder where you were. Did you work late?”

“Just some office nonsense.” Lara lifted her nephew’s hand into the air. “Why is this little man still awake?”

“Friday.” Marisol shrugged, like she had no say in the matter. “Tia gets to take him to bed and read him a story.”

Lara looked down at Jackson. “No, no. That’s not the deal. You’re gonna read me a story, right?”

“No,” he said, twisting his face into a corkscrew. “You read, silly monkey.”

Marisol palmed the crown of her son’s head. “Okay, tia’s home now so go put your jammies on.”

The boy sprinted away in a peculiar trot. Marisol nodded at her sister to take a seat. “He gets stranger by the day.”

“He’s amazing.” Lara settled into the small kitchen table where a single place setting was waiting for her. “Did he go through a growth spurt?”

“I can’t tell.”

“He looks taller.” Lara watched her sister fix a plate of salad and pizza and bring it to the table. “You okay? You look tired.”

Marisol slunk into a seat opposite her sister. “Busy week. It always hits me on a Friday. Do you want some chili peppers for that? I think I put them back in the cupboard.”

“I’m good. Sit.” Lara waved at her to stay put then tucked into her plate. “Are they still screwing with your schedule at work?”

Marisol rolled her eyes. “We had another transfer, so we’re short-staffed again. It’s killing everybody but what can we do? Bide our time until they staff up again. What about you? How’s the rescue team?”

Lara attacked her meal, mulling over whether or not to tell her sister that she’s about to lose her job. Marisol had enough on her plate without worrying about her big sister too. “We found a survivor in the desert two nights ago. Little girl, curled up under a rock. She was barely breathing.”

“God. Is she all right?”

“She didn’t make it.” Lara lowered her fork. “It was awful, Mar. She was nine.”

Marisol visibly shuddered. “I don’t know how people can do that. Drag your kid through the desert in the middle of the night? Jesus Maria.”

“I guess if you’re desperate enough, you’ll try anything.” Lara sat up and glanced through into the living room. “Where’s Sean?”

“In the backyard. Where he always is.”

Marisol’s husband had rotated back Stateside after serving in Afghanistan. Sean was a sergeant with the 25th Infantry, stationed in the hotspot of the Kunar province. He’d been home for three weeks now, after months of Marisol and Jackson praying for his safe return. The yellow ribbon was taken down off the pinon tree in the front yard but something other than gratitude had crept into Marisol’s countenance. A dimness to her eyes that Lara picked out despite the forced cheer and bright smile. Sean had come back to them physically unscathed but not exactly whole.

Lara took up her water glass. “Has he said anything yet? About his tour?”

“He says there’s nothing to talk about,” Marisol said, eyes on the floor.

“Mmm. Has he gone to the VA services?”

“Says he’s fine. Doesn’t need it.”

Lara reached out and covered her sister’s hand with her own. “Give him time. He’ll come around.”

“I know. It’s just—” Marisol’s voice hitched and she took a breath to compose herself. “It’s like living with a ghost sometimes. He’s gone whole days without saying a single word. Not even to Jackson.”

“Tia!” Jackson came bounding around the corner dressed in Spiderman pajamas, mask included. “All done.”

Lara pulled the boy in for a hug. “Hey, it’s our friendly neighborhood Jackson! Can you see in that thing?”

“Yup.”

“Did you brush your teeth?”

Spiderman said nothing. Lara tugged the mask off, riffling the boy’s hair into a tussled mess. Jackson smiled thinly.

“Even superheroes have to brush their teeth,” Marisol said, rising from her chair. “Let’s go.”

Lara motioned for her to stay put. “I got this. Come on, Spidey.”

“You sure?”

“Yup. I get to do story-time, right?” Lara took the boy’s hand and let him lead her down the hallway to the bathroom.

If it was up to Jackson, they would have read every book on his shelf. Lara lay next to him on the bed, her head tucked against his as she turned the pages of the oversized storybooks. She made up funny voices for the characters and he interrupted every story to tell her knock-knock jokes. After the seventh story, she closed the book and kissed the top of his head and said it was time to go to sleep.

Jackson groaned then looked at her. “Are you staying over tonight, tia?”

“Yeah. That okay with you?”

“You can sleep in my bed. I’ll squish over.” He wiggled to the edge of his bed to show how her how much room he could accommodate.

“Oh thanks, honey, but I’ll stay in the guestroom. I snore.”

“I don’t care,” the boy said, meaning every word. “Stay with me.”

She sat up and tucked the blankets up to his chin. A flash image of the little girl curled up in the desert streaked through her mind as she smoothed the blanket over his tiny shoulders. She had to push the image away. “I’ll be down the hall, okay? Will you wake me up in the morning?”

“Okay.”

She smoothed the hair from his brow. “Must be nice to have your dad back after all this time, huh?” The boy nodded but didn’t elaborate. Lara watched him burrow into the pillow. “Do you guys have fun together? Playing Spiderman or reading stories and stuff?”

“Yeah,” he said quickly, almost defensively. “Well, we don’t play a lot. Not like before. Daddy’s tired. He worked really hard over there.”

A sharp tug and Lara suddenly found her heart in her throat. The boy was five years old but already sticking up for his papa. She gave him another kiss. “He sure did. Goodnight, little man.”

She left the boy’s bedroom door open by an inch and went out to the living room. Marisol sat with her feet propped up and a book cradled against her chest. The TV was still on but her eyes were closed. Lara took the remote, lowered the volume by a few degrees and placed the remote back next to her sister. Turning to the window, she tried to peer into the backyard but couldn’t see past the reflection of the living room.

If asked, Lara would have to admit that she had never been close to her brother-in-law but they got along well enough. A few common interests and a little shared history had translated into relaxed family visits. Not anymore. Sean Sparks was withdrawn and sullen since returning home. God only knew what he had been put through overseas but he wasn’t the same man.

Lara stepped out to the backyard, easing the screen door home so it would bang against the frame. Sean sat in a patio chair, staring out at the night sky. He was a big man, a linebacker on his high school football team but he had lost a lot of weight during his last tour. Most of it in his eyes.

Lara drew up to the patio table. Empty beer bottles stood at attention on the tabletop, along with an ashtray and the rag end of a joint. Sean didn’t move, made no indication that he was aware of her at all. “Nice night,” she said.

He nodded slowly without looking her way.

Lara dropped into the stiff patio chair and stretched her legs out. Bone tired, she had little strength left to prop up a one-sided conversation about the weather. “I just put Jackson to bed but he’s probably still awake if you want to say goodnight.”

“I’ll give him a kiss later.” Sean’s words were slow and drawled, as if each one was difficult to spit out.

A dog was barking somewhere down the street. Lara shifted in her chair. “You doing okay?”

“Never better.”

The silence crept back and Lara felt herself sinking into the chair. She was too tired to dance around any issues so she put the hammer to the nail. “Marisol’s worried about you, Sean. So am I. You should go to the VA hospital and talk to someone.”

“There’s nobody there I wanna talk to.”

“I know. I can’t begin to understand what you’ve been through but I know that keeping it inside doesn’t help. I used to see some nasty stuff in my old job and I used to think I had to keep it to myself. Be tough like the other guys. But that didn’t work. That stuff festers, comes out in weird ways. The only thing that helped was talking it through with somebody. Flushing it out. There’s people at the VA who can help. Veterans who’ve been there too.”

“Like I said, I don’t want to talk to them.” He sipped his beer and set the bottle onto the table. “I want to talk to Marisol about it.”

Lara brightened at that, surprised. “Well good. That’s good you want to talk to her.”

“It’s hard,” he said.

“I know. Take it slow. Baby steps.”

“It’s hard because you’re always here, Lara. It’s hard to sit her down to talk because she’s always got you now to talk to. I can’t compete.” He shook his head. “Words are hard. Some days I can’t even form a complete sentence.”

Lara watched the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench, saw the effort it took for him to say even this much. She had no idea she was standing in the way. Aside from needing the comfort of her sister and nephew, Lara thought she was being supportive to the family. Not the case. Sean needed room to heal and maybe Marisol, without realizing it, needed some space too. To put back the pieces of her family.

Lara brushed a fleck of lint from her knee then stood. “Okay. I’ll give you some space. But promise me you’ll talk to Marisol. She needs comfort too.”

“Thank you.”

Lara turned to go, then stopped. “Jackson’s expecting me to be here in the morning. Will you tell him I had to go back?”

“I will.”

She crossed back into the house. Marisol hadn’t moved but the book had fallen from her hands onto the floor. Lara picked it up and tried to judge by the crease in the pages where she had left off and slipped the bookmark in. She looked at the cover then left the paperback on the coffee table and went out the front door.

Back behind the wheel, the sensation of being lost was almost tactile. First the pastor’s team and now her own family. She’d been lost and isolated before but that had been of her own choosing. This felt different. Shunned and ostracized. The sting of it burned hotter with each mile and she knew she had to shut it down before it triggered something unwanted.

When the next exit came up, Lara pulled off the highway and drove west, looking for a road that would deliver her into the scrubland of the New Mexican desert.

10

PAROXYSM. FOUR MONTHS AGO it had only been a word. Now it was something Amy knew through experience. A sudden onset and intensification of a pathological symptom. In her case it was a mental shutdown followed by uncontrollable trembling coupled with physical paralysis. The trigger was always the same. Fear, followed hard by panic.

She had leapt back from the words onscreen as if jolted by an electrical shock.

Animal attack.

Werewolf attack.

Same difference.

Amy breathed through the shock, trying to logic her way out of it. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe a misreport of the details. There were no more monsters, she told herself. They had destroyed them all. Her father had blown the damn things to pieces and left them burning in the snow. She herself had killed the last one. Grissom, writhing in torment on the snow, caught in some horrific morphing between human and wolf. She had leveled the barrel of the big .50 caliber at his eyes and blown his skull to pulp. There were no more monsters.

It took a full six minutes before she uncurled and crawled back to the screen. She needed to read it again. Check the facts and verify her theory. A simple task. Get all the info and then determine the truth. But the text hadn’t changed, the details no less alarming. Two separate deaths, both mutilations consistent with an animal attack. Possibly a grizzly but more akin to a wolf attack. Both incidents not far from the very spot where her father had died. The awful truth settled down on her like radioactive ash.

They hadn’t destroyed them all. One or possibly two werewolves had survived the explosion and the gunfire and the flames. Grissom had been the alpha, the pack leader. Without him, these surviving lobos were lost and running wild. Unchecked, they would kill again. Worse, they could infect any soul unlucky enough to survive an attack. The implications were numbing.

Despite the tremors in her limbs, Amy shot out of the small office and tested the bolt on the backdoor. Still locked. The front door was boarded up and secure so she sprinted past it to the garage and slammed the roll-up door down, hammering the slide bolt home. Then she hurried back to the little office room, wary of every shadow and dark corner.

She read through the two reports again, hoping that a sober second look might dispel her suspicions but the details remained stubbornly unmoved. The dates of the incident reports were even more troubling. The first occurred the previous month, the last was filed four days ago.

Lara needed to know. Lara would know what to do. Digging her phone out, she dialed Lara’s cell and listened to it ring. No answer. She hung up and texted her a simple message telling her there was trouble and to call her immediately.

A noise from upstairs sounded through the walls. Amy froze to listen for more but there was nothing. It was an old house, she told herself. It could be anything. Raccoons crawling through the attic. Or rabid lycanthropes slithering in through a second-story window.

Time to go. She forwarded the details from the news feed to her own inbox before shutting down the machine. The two boxes of collected items were left by the front door as she hurried down her old street, tempted to sprint all the way home.

~

“Some days, I could just shoot these people,” Cheryl said. Dropping her bag onto the table, she hauled up onto a stool in the kitchen and propped her elbows on the countertop. “These newbie homebuyers, they expect every place to be a turn-key dream home. It’s like dealing with spoiled children.”

For the most part, Cheryl enjoyed being a realtor. Something about imagining the potential in an old home prepped for market or the thrill of seeing a couple fall in love with a house never failed to goose her spirits. Other times the clients, both buyers and sellers, could drive her around the bend with pretentious standards and impossible demands. “These people expect miracles every day.”

Norm unpacked the groceries from the bags. “Bad day, huh?”

“This one woman, I thought I was going to strangle her. After showing her four houses today, she burst into tears and told me I wasn’t fulfilling her needs.”

“You punched your timecard for today. Put it away.” Norm opened a bottle of wine, poured a small glass and pushed it across the counter towards her. “Tomorrow will be better.”

“Thank you,” Cheryl sighed. She forced a smile. “How was your day?”

The clatter at the front door had them both craning their necks to see Amy bursting in. They watched her slide the bolt lock in place then march past them towards the back door.

“Hi honey,” Cheryl said.

“Hi,” Amy said without slowing down. She disappeared down the hall.

Norm looked at Cheryl with a raised eyebrow and they both listened to the sound of locks turning and bolts sliding home. “Someone else is having a rough day,” he said.

When Amy returned to the kitchen, she spotted the sliding glass doors to the back deck. Norm had opened them to get some air into the house. Amy slid the door closed and turned the lock.

Cheryl watched her daughter batten down the hatches. She’d seen this routine before. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”

“I’m fine,” Amy said.

“You’re having another episode, honey.” Cheryl nodded to the locked door. “What was it this time?”

Amy stomped a hasty retreat towards the stairs. “I just feel better with the doors locked.”

“Slow down. Come sit.” Norm nodded to the stool beside her mother. “You hungry?”

“I’m fine,” she repeated.

“You’re not fine,” Cheryl said. “You’re pale as a ghost and you’re eyes are all buggy. What happened?”

Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking so she jammed them in her pockets. “I went to the house.”

“Oh.” Cheryl leaned back, cautious now. “Are you okay?”

“I went through it. There’s two boxes near the front door. Just the stuff I wanted. The rest can stay or go to charity.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? I could have gone with you.”

“It’s fine. You can put it on the market.”

Her mother’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. It’s just a house.” Amy turned and took the stairs two at a time.

Norm opened the bottle again and splashed a little for himself. “Well, what do you know?”

Cheryl held her gaze on the stairwell long after her daughter had disappeared. “After all that fuss earlier? Something isn’t right.”

With the door to her bedroom closed, Amy dug out her phone and scrolled through her contact list. Lara was listed in her phone under the alias Lara Quesada. Amy didn’t want to invite disaster if anyone searched her cell. Lara Mendes, former homicide detective, was wanted under an outstanding arrest warrant.

When she dialed, all she got was a beep followed by an automated voice telling her the number she was trying to reach was unavailable. No message option, no other prompts. Had Lara changed numbers without telling her? That seemed unlikely. Had something happened to her? She tried the number again, only to get the same results.

Opening her laptop, she scrolled down her email for their last correspondence. Almost a month ago, a simple catch-up message. She said she was liking her new job but was having a hard time working on a team again. A few co-workers were duds or blowhards. There was nothing in the email trail to signal trouble of any kind. If anything, Lara Mendes had sounded content, almost happy. She hadn’t sounded happy in a very long time.

So where was she? Amy stared at her phone, chewing a fingernail. She needed to tell Lara about what she had found, about the very real possibility that one of the wolves had survived.

Maybe Lara’s sister knew where she was. Amy scrolled the list again until she found the name Marisol. No surname. She dialed and waited. It picked up on the third ring. The voice on the other end sounded tired.

“Marisol? It’s me, Amy. Lara’s friend?”

“Amy. How are you?” A moment, then Marisol’s voice crinkled with concern. “What is it, honey? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Listen, I’m trying to get ahold of Lara but her phone doesn’t seem to be working. Did she change her number again?”

“She might have. Sometimes she forgets to tell everybody when she does. Or sometimes she just leaves it off for days. Hang on a second, I’ll see what number I have.”

Amy stopped pacing and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Dark lines scored under her eyes, the complexion pale. A ghost version of herself. When Marisol came back on the line and read a number to her, she checked it against the one in her contact list. “That’s the number I got. Marisol, is Lara okay?”

“Yes. Why?”

There was a tiny pause before Marisol had answered and Amy picked up on it. “What is it? Is she in trouble? You can tell me, Marisol.”

“It’s nothing. I’m sure she’s just overworked.”

Knowing Lara, Amy mused, that was probably true. But there was something else in the woman’s tone. “Come on, Mar. It’s me. If Lara’s in trouble, I need to know.”

“I don’t know, Amy. She’s not herself these days. I’m sure it’s nothing or there’s some boring old reason why she’s different. But...”

“But what?”

“That’s just it,” Marisol said. “It’s nothing I can put my finger on. She just seems more tense lately. Quick to anger, distant sometimes. Moody.”

“Moody? Maybe she’s preggers.”

“Don’t even joke about that, mijo.”

A rustling sound came over the line and Amy could picture Marisol quickly making the sign of the cross. “Sorry. You don’t think she’s in trouble, do you?”

“No. But something isn’t right. Last night, she up and disappeared on me.”

“Disappeared?”

“She was supposed to spend the weekend but she left in the middle of the night without saying goodbye or leaving a note. Odd stuff like that, you know? It’s got me worried.”

“Right. I’m sure it’s nothing.” Amy floundered, finding herself in the awkward position of assuaging the woman’s fears. “When you hear from her, will you ask her to call me. It’s kind of important.”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

“No. Just want to catch-up. It’s been too long.” Amy tilted her neck to work out a kink. “Is there any other place I could try calling?”

“You could try her work. Let me find the number.” Amy waited through another pause but this time she refused to look at her reflection. Marisol came back on the line and Amy jotted down the number she dictated. “Are going to come visit us again soon?” Marisol asked. “Jackson asks about you. He wants to know when tia’s friend is coming.”

“Really? How big is he now?”

“Big. Growing like a weed. Don’t wait too long to come visit, okay Amy?”

Amy assured she would and felt a little crack in her heart when Marisol said ‘te amo’ before hanging up. That, coupled with the fact that her son had asked about her drew a butterfly or two around her stomach. She barely knew these people, having seen them for a week back in February but their warmth and affection tugged hard on her.

She checked the number she had written down and punched it in, trying to remember the name of the place where Lara worked. She should have asked Marisol. Three rings before someone picked up. A man’s voice. “Luna County Rescue.”

“Hi, I’m trying to reach Lara Me—uh, Quesada.” Amy momentarily gapped at the alias Lara was using. “Is she working today?”

“Lara doesn’t work here anymore,” the voice on the other end said.

“Oh.” Amy stalled, not expecting that. “Did she take a different job? When did this happen?”

A pause on the other end. Amy could hear the man breathing. Then he spoke. “Who is this?”

“My name’s Amy. I’m a friend of hers.” Tiny alarm bells started ringing in Amy’s ear. “Do you know where I could reach her? It’s kind of important.”

“Amy who?” The voice took on a hostile tone. “How do you know Lara?”

Something wasn’t right. Amy could smell it through the phone. “Can you tell me where she’s working now or no? I need to get in touch with her.”

“Tell you what, Amy. Leave me your full name and your number and I’ll get in touch with you if Lara turns up. Okay?”

Amy ended the call and tossed the phone onto the bed. What was that all about? The man on the other end sounded personally offended. And creepy. None of it sounded right. What kind of trouble was Lara in? Did it have anything to do with the recent animal attacks in BC?

Going back to the laptop, she dug out the scrap of paper where she had jotted down the addresses of the news feeds still running on her dad’s PC. Maybe there was more info there.

There was a fresh ping in the feed and she clicked on it. A garble of data but not an incident report. The terms ‘monster’ and ‘attack’ jumbled up in the scramble of words. She picked out a URL buried in the scramble and copied and pasted it into a new window.

The website it pulled up had a banner that read ‘Paranormal Trackers’. Amy scanned through the details of what appeared to be a group of dedicated ‘ghost hunters’. The core of the site was an internet show of the same name, with a list of previous broadcast episodes listed in the margin. The current broadcast was centered in the page, headlined in scaled font that read: Monster stalks BC wilderness. Amy hit the play button.

Establishing shots of a vast pine forest and mountains played with a voice-over. “Two suspicious deaths in less than a month. Both victims torn apart by something vicious in the remote wilderness of northern British Columbia. Authorities remain tight-lipped about the cause of death in both cases.”

The next shot framed a young man against a backdrop of lush evergreen. The unsteady hand-held camera work gave the piece a sense of amateurish urgency. The young man was lean and collegiate-looking but he spoke with a slight manic energy, as if agitated. “The wilderness of northern Canada is no stranger to unexplained phenomena,” he said. “From the reported hauntings at a number of abandoned ghost towns to numerous reports of strange creatures, the rainforests of British Columbia hold untold tales of the paranormal. The most recent incident involves something that kills.”

Here the video changed to frames of a small rural town. Muddy pickup trucks and men in ball caps, local townspeople chatting in parking lots. “Three weeks ago, Jacob Murty went hiking in the foothills near the small town of Newcastle and was never seen again. His body was discovered three days later, torn to pieces and scattered about the forest floor. Authorities claimed it was an accidental death, the body interfered with by wildlife. But last week another death occurred, one not so easily explained.”

The image shifted again to still shots of a young couple in their twenties on a white sand beach. The narration went on. “Carol Weeks and Duncan Gantry were camping in the same area when something attacked them. Carol was severely injured while her boyfriend Duncan was killed when something tore into their camp. Duncan was dragged away, his body was found the next day. His remains were mutilated, some of it still missing. This time, authorities claimed it was a rare Grizzly attack. But others aren’t convinced this is the case.”

Another shaky hand-held shot of the host approaching two police officers. One officer reaches out for the camera, blacking out the screen with his hand. A series of shots showed local townspeople loading hunting rifles or stacking rifles into the rear window rack of their trucks. The scene shifted again to an old man with a long beard, his arm propped up on a fence post as he addresses the camera. “I saw the body of that poor kid. That ain’t no grizzly bear. Not even a Kodiak does that kind of damage. Something else is out there.”

“What do you think it is?” asked a voice offscreen.

The old man shrugged. “I don’t know. But it’s big and it’s vicious and I sure as shit don’t want to come face-to-face with it.”

The image shifted back to the host standing on a dirt road hemmed on both sides by dense forest. “Reports of strange animal sightings have come in from all over this area in the last two months. Some claim it was a grizzly, others claim to have seen a giant timberwolf. More than a few have claimed that what they saw was Bigfoot.”

The angle reframed into a tight close-up. The young man became deadly serious. “My name is Griffin Blair. As a kid, I was tormented by paranormal phenomena. Since then, I have dedicated my life to uncovering unexplained phenomena and proving the existence of the paranormal. I formed a team of experts to investigate the paranormal and bring our findings to the world. This time, we’re onto something that could be our most explosive report yet.” Here, the host, Griffin, nodded to the vast forest behind him. “Something is stalking this vast forest, something that kills. Paranormal Trackers is here to find whatever it is that’s stalking these woods.” The promo spot ended with a flash of the logo swallowed by a ghostly skull before fading to black.

Amy leaned back, her inner ear clanging with alarm bells. There were plenty of these paranormal reality TV shows out there. She used to be an avid watcher of some of them, getting a kick out of these encounters with the other side. She didn’t care if they were fake or staged, they were solid entertainment. But that was before the incident. After her brush with the terrifying reality of humans morphing into supernatural beasts, she’d lost all appetite for this kind of entertainment.

She zeroed in on the date of this last posting. The time stamp was three hours old, which meant that these Paranormal Trackers were on their way there now. If her fears about what had caused the deaths in that area were true, then these fools were walking right into the middle of the monster’s feeding grounds. It would be like ringing the dinner bell for the damned thing.

She considered trying Lara again but then dismissed the idea and tossed the phone back onto the bed. And yet sitting here alone in her bedroom was making her skin crawl in impotent frustration. Springing to her feet, she threw open her closet door and reached way into the back behind the tangle of off-season attire. Clothes spilled onto the floor as she plucked out the big backpack. Throwing it onto the bed, she rifled her dresser drawers for clothes to pack. She retrieved the shoebox from under the bed, took out the gun and tossed it into the empty backpack.

11

“NO. YOU ARE NOT GOING anywhere. That’s all there is to it.” Cheryl planted her feet and folded her arms. As if daring her daughter to cross an imaginary line in the sand.

“Don’t go all dramatic, mom.” Amy slid the backpack from her shoulder, momentarily blocked by her mother’s stance. Domestic drama threatened to break out but she had neither the time nor the temperament to indulge. “I got to go. End of story.”

“Why?” Cheryl fumed. “Who is this friend? And what’s the emergency?”

“She’s just a friend.” Amy glanced over at Norm, standing at the sidelines. When the fights were bad, he knew when to stay out of it. “And she needs help right now.”

“So you’re going to get on a bus and travel six hours? There’s no one in Albuquerque who can help her?” Cheryl shook her head and cast her eyes heavenward, as if imploring the Almighty for help. “Jesus, Amy.”

“Mom, relax. It’ll just be a couple days.”

“What about school? You can’t afford to miss anymore days.”

There was a time when Amy would relish a good fight with her mom but not anymore. She couldn’t explain why she had to go and bickering was exhausting. She hoisted the backpack up to her shoulder. “I have a bus to catch. Everything will be fine and I’ll be back before you know it. See ya.”

Cheryl seethed, watching her daughter march out the front door. She spun around towards Norman. “Do something!”

“Amy!” Norm hollered out. “Hang on. I’ll drive you to the bus station.”

Cheryl’s jaw fell. “That’s not what I meant!”

They said little as Norm cruised down Burnside towards the river. Amy watched the streets pass by, waiting for a lecture that never came. When they pulled up before the bus station. Amy said thanks and reached for the door handle.

“Hold on,” Norm said.

Amy deflated. Here it comes.

“Your mom’s worried sick about you, Amy.” Norm surveyed the street outside the windshield. “I don’t think you should go.”

“She worries about everything. You know that.”

“She has reason to worry. Your behavior has been erratic, irrational and downright frightening at times. So maybe you can give an inch here and try to get better. Do something to show her that you’re not spiraling down a bad road.”

Amy clenched her teeth. He wasn’t wrong but she had no way to explain it to him so she bit her tongue. “I still have to go.”

“I’m not going to stop you. I just need you to understand what you’re putting your mom through. It isn’t always about you.”

“Okay.” Amy pushed the door open and swung out.

“Hold on.” He reached into his pocket and peeled off a bill. Held it out to her. “Take this.”

“I have money.”

“Emergency money, in case you need it.” He waved the bill, insisting it be taken. “If you don’t have an emergency, bring it back. Okay?”

She took it. “Thanks, Norm. Take care of mom for me.”

“I always do. Be careful.”

Passing through the doorway, she remembered how much she despised bus stations. These grim purgatories of bored souls. Checking the schedule board, her stomach curdled at the prospect of a twenty hour bus trip.

~

The Cherokee trundled and bumped over the rough dirt road after turning off the Arroy Vista Boulevard. There were no lights out here in the scrub and the headlights were two dim pinpricks against all that darkness.

Two hours earlier she had been perched on a barstool in a grimy watering hole in South Valley. The music twanged and Lara manned her stool like a castoff refugee in some honky-tonk cliché. It had been a red letter day for ostracism, even for someone well acquainted with exile. The loss of her job because of Trumbo followed closely with being shunned by her brother-in-law. Dulling it all with bourbon was not the healthiest approach but it was the easiest. It even quelled the wolf deep inside that was threatening to wake. And yet, as with most plans, there was a snag because it is a truth universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a barstool is simply begging to be hit upon. And on they came, one hapless loser after another, wanting to chat her up. An easy mark in their eyes but all were rebuffed, some politely and some not so. One Romeo wouldn’t take no and when he pressed up against her Lara snapped, dropping the man like a broken puppet. Needless to say she was asked to leave and as she walked away, a woman with big hair pounced on her still warm barstool. The Romeos liked her much better.

Once disturbed, the wolf would not be still. It had tasted adrenalin and wanted more. Desperate to shut it down, she dug out the silver blade from the glove box and sliced a thin line into her forearm. The wolf dulled but not completely. Neither did her anger. She tossed the silver away, fired the engine and rolled out of the parking lot, heading for the hills.

Which brought her here, rattling the old truck over a downed cattle guard into the foothills of the high lonesome mesa. An hour’s trek from here led to the petroglyph scratching of a people long gone, etched into the volcanic rock of the low mountains.

Killing the headlights, the darkness became total. The old truck ticked as it cooled and Lara idled a dangerous thought about letting the wolf run loose. Holding it in check was like keeping a muscle clenched at all times and it was exhausting. After a crappy day like she’d had, it would be such a relief to let go, to unclench her heart and let slip the wolf.

The risk was too great, even out here on the empty plain. Giving in to the lobo was a dangerous game of degrees and one she couldn’t afford to lose. Shaking it off, Lara stepped out of the cab to let the cool air chill some sobriety back into her veins.

~

Amy desperately wanted a shower. The bus ride was its own particular kind of hell that left her mind foggy and her skin grubby. Waiting on the platform to collect her bag, she looked out over the people in the station but saw no familiar face. The last time she was here, Lara had been waiting for her and the thrill of reunion had mitigated the effects of the awful bus ride. Not this time. She slung her pack over her shoulder and quit the station, hiking up to Central Avenue to catch a city bus. Before leaving Portland, she had written down the bus routes she would need to get to Lara’s and Marisol’s house respectively but the thought of another bus ride made her stomach turn.

Lara’s house was a small Sante Fe on a worn down street south of Iron Avenue. There was no answer when she knocked at the door so Amy dropped her backpack and sat on the stoop and waited. An old man came out of the house next door and stood in the yard. His eyebrows went up at the sight of the girl on the front stoop.

“Hi,” Amy said, waving to the man. “You’re Hector, right?”

“Yes,” the man said. His brow furrowed, trying to remember something. “You are Lara’s friend, no?”

“Yeah. Amy. Have you seen Lara?”

“Not for days. She has a sister nearby but I don’t know the address. Have you tried there?”

“That’s my next stop.” Amy got to her feet and hoisted the pack back onto her shoulder. “Can I ask you something, Hector? Has Lara seemed okay to you?”

He shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. Sad or depressed or different?”

“I couldn’t say. She’s never home these days. Her job. It keeps her busy.”

“Okay.” Amy trudged back to the sidewalk. “If you see her, will you tell her I’m looking for her? She has my number.”

“Of course. Do you know where her sister’s house is?” When Amy nodded and waved a folded piece of paper with the address on it, he stepped towards her. “Is it far? I can drive you, if you want.”

Amy smiled but kept walking. “Nah. I need to stretch my legs. But thanks anyway. Bye Hector.”

Hector waved goodbye and watched the girl march up the street until he couldn’t see her anymore.

~

The look in Marisol’s eyes went quickly from surprise to delight upon seeing Amy on her doorstep. Amy was squeezed in a warm bearhug and ushered inside. Taking the heavy backpack from the girl, Marisol said “Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?”

“Spur of the moment thing. Then my phone died on the bus.”

“Come in, come in. Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” Amy said, pulled towards the kitchen.

A pot of sopa de lima sat simmering on the stove and after plugging in her phone to recharge, Amy was situated at the table, dipping hunks of bread into the thick broth while she caught up with Lara’s sister. She was a little disappointed to have missed Jackson, who was at preschool already. After updates about one another’s family, Amy came around to the reason for her surprise visit.

“You haven’t heard from her at all?” Amy asked.

“Two days now. Lara never goes that long without a phone call or a pop-in. Something.”

Amy mopped up the last of the soup with another piece of bread. “Did anything happen? You two didn’t fight or anything?”

“God no. Nothing like that.” Marisol folded her hands together. “But she’s different. Like there’s something going on but she won’t tell me.”

“Different how?”

“She just seems withdrawn, quiet. More than usual, I mean. But whenever I try to pry it out of her, she said it was just grief. I didn’t want to push it.”

Amy nodded, seeing no small echo of her own recent behavior. Consumed in her own misery, she had never considered the subsequent effects of it on those around her. She could see it now, loud and clear in the concern stitched in Marisol’s voice. Amy drained the last of her water. “Have you called her work?”

“She asked me not to call there. Too many questions, you know.”

“I called. The person I spoke to said she doesn’t work there anymore. Then they got all suspicious about who I was, how I knew Lara.”

Naked shock registered in Marisol’s eyes. “But she loves that job. And she’s good at it. They wouldn’t fire her.”

Marisol rose and got on the phone. One call to the Luna County Rescue, only to get the answering service. When Marisol came back to the kitchen table, the worry lines on her brow had deepened. She looked at Amy. “I don’t know where else to call. Where could she be?”

“There is one place.” Amy gathered up her cell and checked to see if the battery had recharged yet. Halfway. “But it’s out of the way. Can I borrow your car?”

12

SHE HAD PRINTED OFF a map of the route before leaving Portland but Amy still had trouble finding the turn-off and had to double back. The road was a path of packed dirt winding through the low hills, nothing marked. The turn-off wasn’t even a road, just a dusty track through the scrubgrass. Marisol’s car dipped in the wallows and Amy slowed down, praying she wouldn’t damage the borrowed Subaru.

Amy had planned to come here with or without Lara, hence the directions and map. Despite the number of photos she had snapped the first time, it was nothing compared to seeing it in person. You just couldn’t get the scale of the horizon or the sheer scope of that immense sky from a photograph. The incline let up where the track leveled off and she wound the Subaru around a shale outcropping and then braked hard at what she saw before.

Her dad’s truck, parked alone on the rock shelf.

Nosing up behind the Cherokee, she killed the engine and climbed out. The interior of the Jeep was empty and judging from the layer of grit dusted over its exterior, it had been here for a while. How many days, Amy couldn’t tell.

Amy took the horizon in a sweep and then hollered out Lara’s name.

The wind blew grit into her eyes. Nothing more.

The driver’s door was unlocked. She leaned into the cab, its familiar smell conjuring a flood of memories. The keys were still in the ignition. Elvis hung from the rearview mirror, its wobbly legs still and lifeless. On the backseat was a gym bag of clothes, a toothbrush in a plastic baggie.

Amy shut the door. Walking around the vehicle, she saw nothing on the ground, not even footprints. So where was Lara? How long had the truck been here? It looked as if she had parked the truck and simply vanished into the desert. Cutting north to where the plateau ended, the rocky bench of rock dropped at a sheer cliff. Before the plunge was a small berm of stones piled high around a wooden gravemarker. The epitaph had been carved by hand, the hands of the old man Hector who lived next to Lara. Simple and Spartan, like the man himself, the engraving read: JOHN WILLIAM GALLAGHER; Father, Friend, Lawman.

There had been nothing left to bury in that godforsaken patch of pine forest where John Gallagher had met his end but Lara had hired her neighbor to create the headstone and she herself had planted it here against this reverent scenery.

She traced a fingertip through the contours of the engraved letters. An almost urgent need to say something, to speak to him, tightened her windpipe but when she tried she didn’t know what to say. What could she possibly say that she hadn’t said to herself a million times over since the incident? Her voice cracked, tripping over the first word.

Dad.

“Amy?”

She must have jumped ten feet, scrambling away in the dust as if jolted by jumper cables. Amy spun around, her heart clanging in her ears, and zeroed in on the figure stalking up the rocky draw.

Lara Mendes strode forward, squinting as if she didn’t believe her eyes. Her dark hair was windblown around her face and her chest heaved as if she’d been running a great distance. Sweat beaded her skin despite the chill wind, dampening the thin tank top. Lara squinted, as if disbelieving what her eyes took in. “Amy? Is that you?”

Amy suddenly understood what heart failure meant, unable to slow the banging of her own. She stumbled forward and almost tackled the woman in a tight embrace. “Lara. Thank God you’re okay.”

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Lara wrapped her arms around the girl, felt her ribs squeezed tight as the girl held on. “What are you doing here? Is anything wrong?”

“No. I mean, yeah. I’m fine.” Amy pulled back a little to look at her friend but didn’t let go. “I got worried when I couldn’t get a hold of you. Where have you been?”

“Just taking some time. I didn’t mean to worry you.” Lara leaned back to get a better look at the girl. “You look thin, kiddo. You all right?”

“We need to talk.” Amy glanced down at the gravemarker. “But not here. And you should call Marisol. She’s a little worried. Which is my fault. Sorry.”

“Okay. We’ll go.” Lara’s eyes swept to the headstone and then back to Amy. “Do you want a minute?”

“Yeah. I do.”

They drove down out of the foothills, Amy following in Marisol’s Subaru. Marisol insisted they stay for dinner but Amy noticed a strange unease from Lara. Her eyes kept scanning the house, as if expecting something to happen while she explained her absence to her sister. Amy’s ears pricked up when Lara told Marisol that she’d been feeling under the weather but she kept her mouth shut at the contradiction. They said goodbye but not before Marisol pressed a platter of lasagna into their hands, claiming she had made too much and insisted they take it home. Amy thanked her and then she and Lara climbed back into the Cherokee and drove away.

“The place looks nice,” Amy said as she hauled her backpack into Lara’s small house. In truth, it looked exactly the same as it had the last time she was here. Some basic furniture, none of which matched, and few decorations. Almost military in its austerity. The only adornment was a slim vase of drooping bluebonnets on the kitchen table that needed watering.

“I keep meaning to get some nicer furniture. Look at this, I can’t even keep flowers.” Lara scooped up the fallen petals and dropped them in the trash. “Are you hungry? We can eat now, if you want.”

“Do you mind if I take a quick shower? I got twenty-hour bus stink on me.”

“Go ahead. There’s clean towels in the hall closet.” Lara unpacked the bag of food her sister had forced on her, secretly grateful her sister consistently made too much food at almost every meal. “I’ll warm this up. We’ll eat when you’re done.”

When Amy reappeared in the kitchen with clean clothes and her damp hair swept to one side, Lara noted much older the girl seemed. The pensive eyes and locked set of her mouth had piled a few years onto Amy’s eighteen. Lara wondered if the grief had caused it or the horror the girl had faced last Christmas. Did it matter?

“Now I’m starving,” Amy said when she saw the table setting.

“Sit down. Dig in.” Lara ladled a generous helping onto Amy’s plate and watched the girl attack it. It reminded her of Gallagher and she considered mentioning it but thought better of bringing it up. Keep things light until she could gauge the girl’s mood. The reason for her sudden appearance. “So,” Lara said, tucking into her own plate. “How have you been? Coping okay?”

“Sure.” Amy wiped a napkin over her chin. “Well, no. I’m not coping.”

Lara’s eyes went up, taken aback at the candor. “How so?”

“P.T.S.D.”

“I see.” Lara lowered her fork, sensing a fraught moment. “Did a doctor tell you that?” When the girl shook her head, Lara asked “Then how do you know it’s post traumatic stress?”

“Easy enough to recognize. Paranoia, nightmares, nerves shot to hell. I haven’t slept a full night in months.” Amy cut into another wedge of pasta, voice drifting low. “I watched Dad go through the same thing. I know the symptoms.”

“You should talk to someone about it. A doctor or counselor. A friend, even.”

“And tell them what? I was almost killed by a monster and I’m kinda freaked now?”

“You don’t have to give all the details, do you?”

“I think that’s how it works,” Amy said. “They get you to talk through the whole experience, every detail, over and over again. Dissect all the minutiae. That would land me in the crazy ward.”

“Of course,” Lara conceded. “You can always talk to me. You know that, right?”

“I know but you have your own stuff to deal with. Don’t you have any, I dunno, after-effects of that whole thing?”

“Claro. But I guess I just deal with it differently.”

“How?”

Now it was Lara’s turn to shrug. “By burying myself in work. Keeping busy so I don’t have to deal with it too often.”

“Yeah. That’s healthy.” Amy rolled her eyes. “Did you get a new job? I called the rescue place, some dude said you didn’t work there anymore.”

“Wine,” said Lara.

“What?”

“That’s what’s missing with the lasagna.” Lara stood and fetched a bottle from counter. It was a screwtop and she shrugged as if to apologize for it. She poured a healthy splash into one glass and then two fingers into another for Amy. She slid the stingy glass forward to her guest and said “I lost my job.”

“How?”

Lara looked into her glass before taking a sip. “Cutbacks. Some insecure asshole at work looked into my shady background file, called me on it. All so he could be a big fish in a smaller pond.”

“But that isn’t fair.” Amy straightened in her chair, as if willing to march out and confront said asshole. “He can’t just get you fired.”

“He didn’t. He just blackmailed me into leaving. That’s what happens when you live under an alias.”

Amy ceded the point. She took a sip, then twisted her lips at the bitterness. She’d yet to develop a taste for the stuff. “Cheryl wants to sell dad’s house. I had to go through it, see what I wanted, what could go. I hadn’t been there since the incident.”

“That must have been hard.” Lara scratched her chin, thinking. “Can’t you rent it out? Keep the house but put it to some use?”

“I dunno. I hadn’t thought of that.” Amy raised her glass in a toast. “You’re a genius.”

“I try.” Lara returned the cheers. “That house belongs to you. You should keep it, no matter what it takes.”

Amy poked her fork through the remains of her plate. She looked up at Lara. “Dad still had some programs running on his computer. News feeds and pings from police sites. They kicked up some new results. I think we have a problem, Lara.”

“What do you mean?”

Amy took a breath and just went with the facts.“Two deaths in the last month, both in British Columbia. Listed as animal attacks. Both about a stone’s throw from where Dad died.”

Lara laid her fork down slowly. “What kind of animal was it?”

“Unconfirmed, in both cases. Wolves. Possibly a grizzly.”

“These are police reports?”

Amy nodded. “And the Fishing and Game authorities in the area.”

Propping her elbows on the table, Lara steepled her hands together. “What do you think it is?”

“You know what it is,” Amy said. Lara’s coolness surprised her. She hadn’t expected this skepticism. From her of all people.

“Spell it out for me, Amy. I want to be clear about what you’re saying.”

“It’s a wolf, Lara. A werewolf.” Amy leaned in. The woman’s aloofness got her back up. “We thought we killed them all when that ghost town went up in flames. We were wrong. One of them got away.”

Lara shook her head. “We saw them burn. We killed Grissom. You put a bullet through his head. It’s a coincidence. A grizzly, like the report says.”

“No,” Amy said, her tone cut with steel. “One of them survived. And now it’s running loose and killing people.”

The chair squeaked against the floor as Lara got to her feet and stepped away from the table. She turned to the sink, feeling a sudden need to wash the dishes. A murmur in her heart, as if it had missed a beat.

“You okay?”

Lara turned around. “Can you show me these reports?”

“Where’s your laptop?”

“In the living room.”

While Amy scurried to the other room, Lara drained her glass and quickly poured another. Her hand quaked slightly and she hid it when Amy returned and set the laptop on the table. Leaning over the girl’s shoulder, Lara scrutinized the reports, looking for some detail that would dispel the girl’s fears. There weren’t any. Reading it a second time, she sank into the nearest chair with all the weight of someone who had received a terminal diagnosis. A Spanish prayer whispered from her lips.

Amy watched the woman’s shoulders droop. “I know. I didn’t want to believe it either.”

“Can you show me those incidents on a map?”

Amy brought up a map of the area and marked two spots. A vast stretch of wilderness and mountains with nary a road, let alone a town. Amy drew another dot on the map, south by southwest of the first two coordinates. “That’s the ghost town we were at. Less than two miles from the first body.”

Lara’s face remained cold and blank.

“It gets worse.” Amy tapped the keys, bringing up the Paranormal Trackers site. She played the clip of the ghost hunters chasing phantoms in the forest and watched for Lara’s reaction.

Lara’s eyes went a degree colder. “Who are these idiots?”

“Ghost hunters. This clip was posted two days ago. They might already be there by now, chasing this thing.”

Lara stared at the screen as if there was something more to learn. “We can call the authorities. Warn them that what they’re facing is worse than a grizzly.”

“Like they’ll believe that?” Amy said. “Even if they did, it’s not enough.”

“What are you saying?”

Amy closed the laptop. “We have to do it. We have to go up there and find this thing. And we have to kill it.”

“No.” Lara stepped back quickly, as if she’d touched something hot.

“If not us, then who?” Amy watched the woman recoil but pressed on. “This thing is just going to keep killing. Anyone it doesn’t kill, anyone who survives an attack, is going to be infected. And then there’s more of them.”

“No. We went through enough. We did our duty.”

When Amy replied, her tone was calm and carefully enunciated. “I think it’s just one wolf. But without a pack or an alpha, it’s gone crazy. And it’s going to kill again. How soon before it infects a bunch of other people? How soon before it creates its own pack?”

The faucet dripped into the sink. Amy went on. “If we leave now, we can be up there in two days. You can find this thing. We hunt it down and we destroy it. Chances are, this thing will find you if it gets a whiff of you.”

“Stop.” Lara’s eyes flashed hot. “What do you know about it? About these things? Do you know what you’re asking?”

“I’m sorry. But we don’t have a choice here. We have to stop it. What would dad do?”

That was playing dirty. “Your dad would forbid you from going, that’s what he’d do.”

Amy held her tongue, knowing it was true. Silence crept across the room. It was broken by a sudden and urgent pounding on the door that startled them both.

Lara rose. “Who the hell?”

A muffled voice barked from outside the front door. “Open up! Police!”

13

TRUMBO.

Had to be. Who else would send cops to her door? A backhanded way to get her out of the picture. What Trumbo hadn’t foreseen was that the woman he knew as Lara Quesada used to be a cop as well. One that had worked numerous entries and knew by rote what was about to happen next.

Amy stood rooted to the spot with a confused look in her eyes. Why wouldn’t she? She had no reason to fear the police. Lara barked at her to get down just as the front door exploded inwards, popped off of its hinges by a black metal battering ram. Amy hit the floor and scrambled away in mindless panic at the startling sound of splintering wood. The stress disorder kicking in with a nasty bite, reducing the girl into a quaking mass on the poorly tiled floor.

Dark figures stormed through the door, an assault team decked out in armor and visors and AR 15s in their mitts. Lara dove for the panel box in the pantry and slapped the breaker down, plunging the entire house into darkness. When properly motivated, such as having an assault team storm her residence, she could move faster than humanly possible and appeared as no more than a wisp to the invaders. A moment’s confusion and a fumble for the flashlights bought enough time for Lara to snatch Amy from the floor and propel her down the hallway to the exit. The backdoor exploded inwards as two members of the assault team burst in, rifles shouldered and barrels up. Lara released the girl and surged forward like a freight train, plowing the two armed agents back into the wall. Fighting cops was something she never anticipated doing but she couldn’t allow herself or Amy to be caught. Her knee cracked the helmet of one officer and her elbow connected hard with the midsection of the other one, knocking the wind out of him in spite of the body armor. They sprawled at her feet and she hauled Amy forward, dragging her over the groaning officers.

A shot rang out and splinters flew from the trestle hanging over the back yard. A third officer swept his rifle crosswise, trying to draw a bead on the blur of a figure. He didn’t see the kick nor the heel that punched his thigh so hard it almost snapped the femur.

At the initial implosion of the front door, Amy thought it was the wolves. They had tracked them both down and laid siege to the house to destroy them after all. It wasn’t until she saw Lara catapult through the air to plant a devastating kick to a man in black armor that she realized it wasn’t the wolves at all. Assault cops, armed to the teeth. Lara stood over the downed officer, as if exultant, and when Amy saw a fourth agent level his rifle for a shot, she tackled Lara to the ground. The shot cracked over their heads, exploding a clay pot on the shelf above. Again she felt herself hauled forward and propelled away by strong hands, her feet barely skimming the ground.

They ran headlong into the darkness, Amy trying to keep up as Lara tugged her hand, pulling down an alley and hopping the fence into another yard. North, east, then south. Amy lost all sense of direction and let Lara drag her onwards at a sprinter’s pace.

They came to a hard stop and Lara pulled her down behind a slat fence. Heart slamming, Amy gulped the air down. “Jesus. The cops found you all the way down here?”

“No.” Lara looked back the way they came. “Immigration.”

Amy watched Lara’s nostrils flare, as if testing the wind for scent of more invaders. “Immigration? Why are they after you?”

“Amy, we need to run.” Lara clasped the girl by the chin. “Hold my hand and just sprint. Can you do that?”

Amy jerked her chin away. “What about the Cherokee? Can we get to it?”

“I don’t know. Hang on tight and keep up.”

They were off, Amy tugged along by Lara’s hand down a breezeway to an alley. Down one street and into another dark alleyway, Amy panting hard to keep up with a woman twice her age. Police sirens wailed two blocks over and they hunkered down into a dark recess behind a garage.

They headed east, putting distance between them and the police. When the houses gave way to an industrial span, Lara slipped through a fence into an empty lot near the rail yards. Cutting around to the back of a building of corrugated steel, she stopped before a row of metal crates. Fitting a key into the padlock of one, she pulled open the door. Amy winced as the hinges squealed back on dry hinges. “What is this?”

“Plan B.” Lara slipped into the recess. A low grinding sound echoed from within and then pale blue light lit up the crate’s interior. “Get in,” she said. “Close the door behind you.”

Amy stepped in as Lara worked a hand-cranked lantern, charging its battery. She looked over what appeared to be a storage shed. Clothes and coats hung from pegs, boxes lined up on the floor. Lara tugged a backpack from a peg and held it out to her. “Take this. Start packing clothes.”

The clothes had been hung and covered with plastic to protect them from dust. Amy tossed them into the bag. “Are you gonna tell me why immigration raided your place?”

“Remember the petty moron I mentioned at work? He must have called the cops, told them an illegal lived there.”

“Great. So now the police are looking for you.” Amy froze as a thought occurred to her. “What about Marisol? Won’t the police look for you there?”

“No. There’s no connection between Lara Quesada and Marisol. Not on paper anyway.” Lara slid a metal toolbox out from under a pile of clothes and flipped the lid open. She lifted out a wallet and fanned her thumb over the bills folded within. “We need to find a payphone, call Marisol and tell her what’s going on.”

Amy watched Lara dig through the tool box. “Why did you put all this stuff here?”

“In case I ever had to bug out again,” Lara lifted out a handgun sheathed in a holster and handed it up to Amy. “I knew it would catch up with me sooner or later. Pack this.”

Amy stuffed the gun into the backpack, along with a box of cartridges. “My stuff is still at your place.”

“Anything important in it?”

“My gun. The rest is just clothes and stuff.”

“What gun?”

“The Glock.” She watched Lara unzip a duffel bag. The long barrel of a shotgun was visible under a folded sweater. “So what now?”

“We leave.”

“And go where?”

Lara dug out a long handled flashlight and tested the batteries. “Back to Portland for now. Get you home.”

“God,” Amy groaned. “Another bus ride.”

“If it’s safe, we’ll go back for the truck.”

“Won’t they take it?”

“It’s not registered in my name. It’s still got the phantom tags on it, the ones you’re dad had.” Lara zipped up the duffel and slung it over her shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.”

They waited for three hours, cooling their heels in a darkened alleyway and watching the house. The Cherokee remained undisturbed, parked three houses north on the street. The last prowl car on the scene finally started up and rumbled away. They waited another ten minutes before venturing out into the open to slip inside the Cherokee and roll away from the house that Lara knew she would never see again. Amy wanted to run inside and grab her backpack but Lara said no.

Three hours later they passed through Farmington and barreled further down the 550 and crossed the state line into Colorado.

They swapped out at a gas station near Monticello, Amy climbing behind the wheel while Lara stretched out in the backseat to sleep. Five hour shifts driving and sleeping, a non-stop express all the way to Oregon. They barely spoke, both numbed by the marathon drive. Thirty miles outside of Boise, Amy lay in the backseat with her heels on the arm rest. Too exhausted to sleep, she stared up at the dome light. “Do you ever think about that night?”

Lara tilted her ear in the girl’s direction. “What night?”

“The night Dad died.”

“I try not to.” Lara checked the rearview mirror but with the girl lying flat there was nothing to see but the highway peeling away behind them. “Do you think about it?”

“All the time.”

“What about it?”

Amy arched her back, crimping out the stiffness in her muscles. “I go over it again and again. Playing out the chain of events.”

“Why?”

Amy shrugged. “I can’t help thinking it could have gone differently. Or I could have done something differently. So that it didn’t have to end that way. You know?”

“Don’t do that,” Lara said. “Nothing could have been done differently, Amy. Don’t make yourself crazy over it.”

“I can’t help it.” Lying in the backseat of her father’s Cherokee didn’t help. How many times had she stretched out like this in the past, napping while she and her dad took a road trip? Vehicles were like smells, they triggered memories.

Lara tilted the rearview mirror to get a glimpse but all she could see were the girl’s knees. “Did your dad ever talk to you about hitting an Ahab? Or finding a white whale?”

“A what?”

“An Ahab is every homicide cop’s worst nightmare. The one case you can’t crack and the one you can’t let go of. It becomes an obsession. Kills careers, marriages, families.”

Amy closed her eyes. “You think that’s what I’m doing? Making an Ahab out of that night?”

“You’re on your way. Listen to me, Amy. There was nothing to be done differently. And you can’t change the past no matter how much you overthink it. Accept it and push the guilt off your shoulders. Or it will drag you down with it.”

“Who said anything about guilt?” Amy huffed.

“You did.”

The odometer clicked over another mile. Wind whistled through a crack in the window.

Amy turned onto her side. “Do you remember the dog?”

“The husky?”

“Yeah,” Amy said. “I miss him too.”

14

DUSK WAS SETTLING when the road met the Columbia River and by the time they hit the city proper, night had fallen over Portland. Lara had hoped she would be too numb from driving to feel any wistful longing for her old home but the sight of streetlights haloed in a light rainfall bit hard and bit deep. At times like these, she was grateful her tear ducts no longer worked.

Amy leaned forward in the passenger bucket. “You okay? We can swap out if you want to take a break.”

“I just need to get out of this truck,” Lara said, surprised that the girl had picked up on her mood. She swung off the Banfield Expressway and onto Halsey. “I’ll drop you home, then find somewhere to park and crash in the back.”

“What? No.” Amy said. “We’ll crash at Dad’s house tonight.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Don’t argue with me, Lara. Hang a left.”

~

The garage door was too mangled to roll up all the way but it opened enough for them to squeeze the Cherokee inside and roll it back down. Seeing John Gallagher’s old truck parked in the driveway might startle the neighbors and bring them round knocking.

Lara climbed out and winced. Even with the stink of exhaust tainting the garage, the smells of the house were flooding back through her preternaturally acute nose, tripping memories like little bombs in her gut. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“Come on,” Amy said, sensing Lara’s reluctance. She opened the side door. “The power’s still on but we should keep the lights off for now.”

The scents in the place loomed strong as Lara stepped inside, Gallagher’s most of all. She stood in the hallway for a moment, letting it all wash over her while Amy dragged one of the backpacks into the kitchen. It was as if the house was haunted, ghosts everywhere. She wouldn’t get much sleep in this house tonight. Still, it was better than curling up in the backseat of the truck.

Amy opened the refrigerator even though she knew its shelves held nothing but a crumpled box of baking soda. “Are you hungry? I can run down to the Kwiki-Mart on the corner. We can picnic on beef jerky or something.”

“I’m fine.” Lara folded her arms over her head to stretch out her spine. “Must be hard for you to be here.”

“Yeah. I don’t want to give the place up. Which is silly because I don’t think I could ever live in this house again.”

“It’s home.”

“It’s not just that.” Amy lingered in the light of the open refrigerator. “It feels wrong to let it go. Like I’d be betraying Dad or something.”

“Your dad wasn’t sentimental. He wouldn’t want you to hang on to it for those reasons. He’d want you to make the most of it. Sell it, save the money for your future.”

Amy let the fridge door swing shut. “Right. The future.”

Lara suddenly realized that she had yet to ask the most basic, banal question asked of anyone under twenty. “How’s school?”

“A complete washout. I’ll be lucky if I pass.”

“I’m sorry. You’ve had a terrible year.”

“Yeah, well. Who hasn’t?” Amy tilted a glass under the tap and filled it up. “I’m gonna get some sleep. We’ll sort the rest in the morning. You can crash in Dad’s room or take the couch.”

The thought of sleeping in Gallagher’s bed was out of the question. Too many ghosts. “The couch is fine.”

Lara stared up at the living room ceiling, listening to the tiny sounds of the old house. Her watch was splayed on the coffee table but she refused to check the time again. She thought of Gallagher and of her old job. How, after working so hard to make the homicide detail, she had been forced to partner up with Gallagher. And that first awful case, the dismembered woman on the river bank, devoured alive. First case, only case. Her entire world had turned into a nightmare after that.

She reminisced about the city and how much she missed it. About the friends that she never had a chance to say goodbye to, friends who thought she was dead. And there were the friends she had been forced to lie to, to betray, the last time she had set foot in Portland. All of it was painful to the touch and bitter on the tongue. Had it been worth it, all this sacrifice and hurt?

When the monstrous wolf charged at her that first time, she wondered if it would have been better if she hadn’t fought back and let the creature kill her. Could it possibly worse than enduring all of this? Had it been worth Gallagher’s life?

She finally gave in and checked the time on her watch. Annoyed, she forced her eyes closed, sick to death of her own looping rhetoric.

~

The map was stretched out over the kitchen table and smoothed flat. Hovering over it with a pencil, Lara drew a circle in an empty swath of green. “The ghost town where we encountered the wolves is around here.”

Amy leaned in for a closer look and yawned. Both hands wrapped around a mug of coffee. “How long have you been up?”

“A couple hours.” Lara took up her own mug but the java had gone cold.

“That couch isn’t very comfortable. Did it kill your back?”

“It’s fine. I just don’t sleep much anymore.”

Lara stepped away to dump the dregs of her coffee down the sink. Amy studied the map, squinting at two other dots marked in pencil. “These other two marks you made here. Are these the animal attacks?”

“Best as I could pinpoint them.”

Amy traced a finger over the coordinates. There wasn’t a lot of detail to the map. Swaths of green punctuated by lakes and rivers. A few roads spiderwebbed through empty realms of green space. “That’s a big patch of nothing. How hard will it be to find this thing?”

“I should be able to track it down once I’m there.”

“You can do that?”

Lara nodded. “As long as it’s still around. If it’s moved on, then it’s a different story.”

Amy measured the distance on the map; her thumb in Oregon, her index finger in Canada. “Another killer drive. How long did it take us last time?”

“About nine hours.” Lara leaned her hip against the counter and folded her arms. “You don’t have to worry about it. I’m going on alone from here.”

Amy squared the woman with a cold look. “Don’t even start with that.”

“Your dad almost took my head off for dragging you into danger last time. And he was right to. I won’t do that again.”

“You’re not going alone, Lara. That’s all there is to it. We took on what, six of them last time? This is just one wolf. Lost and confused without a pack.”

Lara rubbed a thumb against her lip, thinking it through. “I don’t think you’re in any shape to do this, Amy. You told me yourself you’re barely coping.”

“You can’t tell me you’re in any better shape to confront this. We watch each other’s back, end of story.” Amy took another hit from her mug and pushed away from the table. “Let’s hustle. There’s gear here we can pack. I need to go home to get more clothes. Then the hard part.”

“Hard part?” Lara asked.

“Telling Cheryl that I’m taking off again.”

~

Apoplectic was one of Amy’s favorite words. She liked the way it popped in its pronunciation but there were few opportunities to use it in everyday conversation. It pretty much summed up Cheryl’s reaction upon hearing that her daughter had not only suddenly returned from her mystery trip to New Mexico but was now leaving again for the hinterlands of Canada. Amy had considered lying to her mom about where she was going but she didn’t have the strength to formulate some elaborate smokescreen. At this point, did it really matter?

Lara had parked on the street and Amy ran into the house with an empty duffel bag. Minor mercies, no one was home so she scurried to her room to pack clothes for herself and more for Lara. Her skin itched for a hot shower and change of clothes before hitting the road again but there was no time. Zipping the bag closed, she heard the front door open, footsteps on the main floor. The rents were home.

As expected, Cheryl forbade her to leave, going so far as to block Amy’s path to the front door. Norm tried to referee, pleading with Amy to be reasonable. All Amy could do was shrug and say that she had to go. And no, for the final time, she couldn’t tell them why. Pushed beyond her patience, Cheryl had thrown up her hands in capitulation and declared she didn’t care anymore.

Norman stepped in as Cheryl stomped away. “Why do you have to torment her like this? What could be so important?”

During most fights with mom, Norman was the rational one, trying to understand Amy’s side of the issue to mitigate the severity of the fallout. Not this time. There was real anger in his tone. She wanted to just walk away but remembered where she was going and for what purpose. There was a very real possibility that she may never come back and this would be a terrible way to leave things. Dropping the bag from her shoulder, she crossed the floor to where her mother stood with her back turned. She kissed her cheek. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, okay? Then everything will be okay. Love you.”

She felt her mother bristle so Amy turned around and scooped up the bag on her way out. Waving a curt goodbye to Norm, she went out the door.

Cheryl remained stone for a full minute before spinning around and marching out the door. Amy was gone but she caught sight of a dusty blue Jeep Cherokee pulling away from the curb. The sight of the old vehicle confused her but she shrugged it off as coincidence. Still, she thought stepping back into the house, what were the chances that Amy’s friend drove the same make and model that her late ex-husband did?

~

Traveling east on the 84, Lara mused about leaving Portland after so short a stay. Was there no place for her, nowhere to plant stakes and hunker down for the long haul? The easy lull of self-pity was cloying so she shook it off and turned to Amy in the passenger seat. “How bad was it?”

“Coulda been worse.” Amy kicked her shoes off and propped her bare feet up onto the dashboard. Something she had done since she was twelve. “Do you wanna take turns driving?”

“I’m fine. Get some sleep. I’ll wake you when we hit the border.”

Amy protested that she was fine but Lara watched the girl slouch further down the faded leather seat. Glancing up into the rearview, she watched the city of roses grow smaller and smaller in the distance behind them.

15

THE PINE TREES FLANKING the road grew taller as they wound their way up the spine of the cordillera. The mountains in the distance loomed higher and the skies darkened, threatening rain. The fierceness of the terrain transfixed the eyes of driver and passenger alike, dampening conversation to nods and one word remarks. It was beautiful and humbling to behold and Amy had to tear her gaze from it to focus on the map spread over her knees. “Did we miss the sign?”

“We haven’t passed one in a while.”

“Well there’s nothing else here,” Amy said, consulting the map again. After crossing the border near Grand Forks, they stopped at a tourist booth to find a more detailed map of the area. Triangulating between the two reported deaths and the ghost town, Lara asked the bored-looking teenager in the information booth about the small town of Newcastle. It was a fishing destination, ample camping spots and cabin rentals. They climbed back into the truck and followed the map into the mountains. The houses thinned out and other vehicles became scarce. Rounding a bend in the road, a sign rose up from the weeds of the gravel shoulder, welcoming them to the town of Newcastle.

Quaint houses popped up along both sides of the road as the highway delivered them into the center of a small town. A grocery store and post office stood kitty-corner to the fire hall and two taverns. A sign in the window of the sporting goods store read: cabins for rent. Lara pulled into the parking lot next to it.

The man behind the counter was polite but wary, instantly tagging the pair as outsiders. He seemed almost reluctant to give them any information about accommodations in the area. Amy thought it odd for someone whose business catered to tourists but she smiled warmly and let Lara do the talking. The summer tourist season had yet to begin so the options for renting a cabin were limited to two different locations in the area. He showed them a map and Lara chose the one further from town, a campsite on a small body of water called Sauble Lake.

Amy thanked the man and then asked about the recent tragedy that had occurred in the area, the death of a hiker not far from here. The store owner replied that she must have her information wrong, stating that he had no knowledge of any such misfortune.

“That was weird,” Amy said as they walked back to the truck. “How could he not know about that?”

“Maybe he just didn’t want to talk about it. Bad for business.”

“Bizarre.” Amy reached for the driver’s side door. “Can I drive?”

The cabin was a rustic shambles overlooking a small lake. The summer season had yet to start so the owner drove out with them to turn on the water and the power. He offered to sweep out the cobwebs that had grown over winter but Lara said they would manage and thanked him for accommodating them. The cabin was remote, perched at the end of a long winding logging road and would serve as a base to operate from. It was also cheap. If they had come during the busy summer months, the costs would have forced them to pitch a tent somewhere.

“It’s cute.” Amy looked over the mismatched furniture and linoleum floor. The smell of old cedar seeped into everything. A mounted stag’s head hung over a cobblestone fireplace and cobwebs stretched over every right angle. “In a creepy cabin-in-the-woods kinda way.”

“It’s perfect.” Lara dropped the duffel bag onto the lumpy sofa and watched the dust roil up in the sunlight. “Let’s sweep it out before we unpack.”

They swept out the cobwebs and ran the faucets to flush the pipes. Amy opened the windows to air out the musty winter smell. Housekeeping done, they unloaded their gear and went over the weapons. Lara still had the shotgun, a former Marine Mossberg. She laid it across the table and piled two bricks of shells next to it. Amy looked over the Sig Sauer from Lara’s emergency cache. Along with it was a spare magazine and a box of rounds. The massive Desert Eagle clunked down beside it. Amy unpacked a box of cartridges and one extra magazine.

“Is this enough?” Amy looked over the weapons before them. Considering what they were hunting, it didn’t look like it was enough. A bazooka wouldn’t seem adequate.

Lara picked up the .50 caliber handgun and slid the magazine out. “It’s enough. Your dad had silver tipped rounds for this. Are there any left?”

Amy took the spare magazine and thumbed the cartridges out one by one. The heavy rounds clattered to the table. “Three.”

The fifty caliber rounds in question had been specially made by Amy’s father, capped with solid silver. Hollow points, meant to fragment on impact for maximum destruction. No room for error with only three rounds, not for what they were gunning for. If, Amy reminded herself, there was only one of the monsters out there. She didn’t want to think about the alternative. “We’ll have to be careful with these. Can’t afford any wasted shots.”

“Then you better carry it.” Amy nodded at the open bag. “Do we have anything else?”

“A flashbang. Two knives.”

The flashbang was a small grenade meant to stun someone with a blinding flash and an ear-splitting wail. One of the knives was a lethal looking Kabar, a matched set with the shotgun. The other knife had a long blade of pewter, the slim handle reinforced with hockey tape to form a solid grip. Amy picked up the second blade. The tip of the blade had been snapped off at some interval and then filed down to form a nasty point but she still recognized the piece. She held the knife aloft. “Did Dad give you this?”

Lara nodded. “It’s silver.”

“It belonged to my grandmother.”

Lara knew that. She considered adding that the blade had been used to gut the first werewolf she had encountered, the psychotic Ivan Prall. And how it had also cleaved the throats of two other lobos the last time they were in these woods. “I know.”

Amy stretched her neck and stifled a yawn. “Okay. So, next steps?”

“Tomorrow we go back to the ghost town.”

“Let’s go now.” Amy cocked her chin towards the sunlight streaming in through the dusty panes of the west-facing window. “While we still got daylight.”

“No. We’re both tired from the drive. We get some sleep, start fresh tomorrow. Early.”

As small as the cabin was, it held two bedrooms, each one cramped with twin bunks. With sundown, the true darkness of the deep woods unnerved Amy. When she suggested they sleep in the same room, she was relieved when Lara agreed without comment. Whether the older woman also felt the unease of isolation or she was simply accommodating her fears, Amy didn’t know. She didn’t care either, once the lights were out and the darkness outside the cabin walls flooded inside.

The overcast sky must have cleared at some point because when Amy jerked awake from another nightmare, she opened her eyes to moonlight coming in through the window. It cast a ghostly blue haze over the room. And the other bed looked empty.

Amy reached over and pushed through the tangle of blankets on the other bunk, as if Lara was hiding within them. The sheets were cool to the touch, meaning it had been empty for a while.

Stumbling out of the bedroom, Amy found the kitchen empty, ditto the bathroom and sofa. The front door stood open, letting the bugs in.

Traipsing out of the cabin with the flashlight, her spine iced up as she stepped into that greater void of darkness. She regretted not flipping on the lights within the cabin because when she looked back, it had been swallowed by the night. She called out Lara’s name but nothing sounded back. A loon sounded far off on the lake with its eerie call. Frozen to the spot, she ran back inside for a moment and reemerged with the Sig Sauer in her free hand, thumb on the safety.

Ten minutes of stumbling before the shaky beam of the Maglite picked out Lara among the darkened tree trunks. Lara sat on the flat stump of a lumbered tree but didn’t respond or even stir when her name rang out through the trees. Amy ran up, splashing the flashlight full into the woman’s face. “Lara? Are you all right?”

The woman didn’t respond at all. Her pupils didn’t even shrink under the full bore of the light in her face. Her lips were moving but no sound spilled out, the way the devout will silently mouth the words to a prayer.

Amy touched her shoulder. “Lara, snap out of it.”

Lara blinked, confusion flooding over her face as she cast her eyes at the trees around them. She folded her arms and started to shiver. “Amy?”

“Are you okay? What happened?”

Lara looked down at her feet, as if she’d done something wrong.

“You must have been sleepwalking.” Amy took her arm and eased Lara back to the cabin. “Come on, before you catch a cold out here.”

Back in bed, Amy pulled the blanket up to her chin to dispel the dewy chill. Lara crawled back into bed and turned her face to the wall without another word. Amy stared at her in the darkened bedroom. What had come over Lara? Had it been an innocent bout of sleepwalking or something more? The vacant stare in the woman’s eyes was unsettling to see. As if something else had taken over.

Maybe traveling out to the deep dark woods wasn’t such a good idea after all. Sometimes Amy forgot what Lara suffered, about the secret she kept. She hadn’t foreseen the notion that maybe all this black primal forest could awaken that awful thing inside Lara Mendes.

~

They left at sunup, following the map up another desolate road with the green of the jackpines closing in on all sides. Finding the cut-off to the old logging trail that lead to the ghost town was difficult as the vegetation had crept back up to conceal it. They had been forced to pull over and tread the shoulder on foot before locating it.

The trail was little more than two rutted tracks in the weeds and the old Jeep dipped and thudded over the potholes. They didn’t get far before the way was blocked by a felled tree, a giant hemlock bisecting the road with its roots torn up and exposed. Unloading the gear, they continued on foot. The branches of the trees stretched across the road, as if wanting to keep them out and they marched uphill in silence. Cresting the rise of the hill, they came down the other side to the sight of the old ghost town.

There was little left to mark the existence of the abandoned mining town. The fire had razed all but a few of the buildings and these last few ramshackle houses looked as if they would collapse against a soft breeze. The surrounding forest had burned down, leaving only blackened tree stumps and sloughs of mud, giving the terrain the scarred look of a forgotten battlefield.

Marching past charred stumps and sooty stone foundations, Amy felt the flesh on her arms goose. Her hand slipped around the grip of the handgun in her pocket. They were exposed and vulnerable in this wide open wasteland and she glanced back over her shoulder again and again. “Do you feel that?”

Lara kicked through a tangle of carbonized wood at her feet, the shotgun tight in her hand. “Feel what?”

“Like we’re being watched.”

At that, Lara looked up and surveyed the area around them, as if expecting someone to pop out of the brush. She clocked the fear in Amy’s eyes but pressed on. “Let’s keep moving.”

The ground was puddled and muddy and they picked their way along trying to keep their boots dry. A little further on, Lara stopped and Amy followed her gaze downhill to where something dark loomed up out of the weeds. The wreckage of a vehicle, twisted up and peeled back like some grotesque fruit. The source of the explosion that had started the fire and had taken Gallagher’s life. Amy moved forward but felt Lara snatch her arm.

“Don’t.”

Amy looked at her. “Why not? I want to see it.”

“It’s just metal. There’s nothing to see.”

Amy regarded the wreckage from where they stood and then looked back up the way they came. “Is there anything here? Any trace of it?”

Lara scowled as she turned her nose upwind. “I can’t tell. Everything smells like ash.”

“Let’s keep looking,” Amy said but she didn’t want to continue on. The unsettling sensation of being watched hadn’t let up and all she really wanted to do was march back to the truck and get the hell out of here. Back in the safety of Portland, she had wanted to do this, to hunt down this last beast but being out here now, Amy’s resolve withered quickly.

They continued on as silent as pilgrims until the road before them winnowed to almost nothing, as if the forest itself had swallowed it up. Lara led the way, treading through the ferns, when she stopped and squatted down on her knees.

Amy followed suit. “What is it?”

Lara didn’t respond, her head bowed as if in prayer. “It was here.”

The gun came out of Amy’s pocket and she gripped it in both hands. “Where?”

“Here,” Lara nodded to the wall of pine trees before them. “It skirted around the town. But it wouldn’t come any closer.”

“Are you sure it’s one of them?” Amy held out half a hope that her friend had picked up on the scent of a bear or a coyote. “How long ago?”

“A day or two.” Lara marched for the treeline. “Stay here.”

“Where are you going?”

“I’m just going to look around a bit. Stay here in the open.”

Amy said that she didn’t like that idea but Lara kept moving until she disappeared into the dark rainforest. Minutes ticked by and the cold sensation creeping up Amy’s spine worsened. Then a snap, sharp and loud from the trees, but not in the direction that Lara had gone.

The sound came from behind her. And there it was again. Something big, trampling through the underbrush.

16

THE URGE TO RUN was primal and immediate and Amy felt her limbs freeze up as fast as her heart rate spiked. The thing from her nightmares, the monster that had ripped her life apart was here and so too her chance to kill it. To blast its head open and spray its brains against the trees. That cathartic moment she’d secretly dreamed of every night after the night terror jerked her awake.

And all she wanted to do was run.

Gone was the roaring desire for revenge, the galling need for retribution. The hunger to utterly erase the monster from existence dissipated faster than smoke in a breeze. Did she really think she could do this? Face down this abomination and kill it? And now she couldn’t even run, her joints locked tight in paralysis. She had come all this way just to die on the first pass.

Where the hell was Lara?

It sounded again, the heavy rustling in the trees. Something clicked insider her and she bolted for the treeline, hunkering down behind the trunk of a cedar. She cocked an ear to listen but couldn’t hear anything beyond the clanging in her chest. When she caught it again, the sound was further off, as if the thing was moving away.

She’d be damned if she was going to let the thing get away now. She scurried from the tree, loping towards the direction of the noise. The crunch of twigs and needles under her heel was impossibly loud and the scraping brambles tore at her clothes. It was as if the forest itself was trying to give her away. She ran on in short bursts from tree to tree, stopping to listen between sprints.

The noise grew louder. A clumsy sound, no attempt to hide its movements. And it was moving towards her. There was still no sign of Lara. Shouldn’t she have picked up on this already? If Amy could hear this with her plain old normal ears, surely Lara heard it with her supernatural hearing.

She raised the barrel straight in her hands and curled her finger over the trigger piece. Sweep away the panic in your belly, she thought. When it shows, take time to aim and then blow it away.

The brush rustled. Three figures emerged from the dipping branches and stopped cold at seeing the gun aimed at them. Two men and a woman, Amy gauging their ages to be in the twenties. The man carrying a videocamera sported a beard and a beer gut. The other man held up a hand as if pleading Amy to slow down. The woman was clad in black, tilting a boom microphone off one shoulder.

“Whoa,” said the leaner man, raising both palms to show that he was unarmed. Something about his sandy hair and fierce eyes tugged at Amy’s memory. “Put down the gun. We’re not armed or anything.”

Amy lowered the barrel but her heart kept pounding. “What are you doing out here?”

The trio exchanged uneasy glances, wary of this young woman with a gun in her hand. “Just doing some research,” the familiar-looking man said. He nodded at the weapon. “Please, could you put that thing away?”

Amy thumbed the safety on and slid the gun back into her pocket. An awkward sense of embarrassment washed over her for almost gunning down three strangers in the woods.

The woman took a step forward now that the weapon was tucked away. Her clotted mascara was the same shade of black as her clothes. “Why are you running around with a gun?”

This time Amy was taken aback, having no ready answer for why she was out here with a loaded gun. She blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “Hunting.”

“Hunting what?” asked the one with the videocamera.

“Assholes with a lot of questions.”

“Easy,” said the lean man. He took a step forward, his hand extended to shake. “I’m Griffin. That’s Jay and this is Tasha.”

Amy hesitated then shook his hand quickly before stepping back. Scrutinizing the trio, she remembered how deceptive appearances could be. She’d met Edgar Grissom once, the deranged lycanthrope who had lured them here last winter. He was easy on the eyes and had charm in spades. And of course there was Lara. Was it possible these three were wolves in lamb’s clothing? She zeroed back to the one named Griffin and repeated her question. “What are you doing out here?”

“Tracking Bigfoot,” said the man named Jay, patting the heavy gauge videocamera on his shoulder. “You seen any big hairy monsters around here?”

“That’s real funny,” Amy said.

“Jay’s goofing,” Griffin said. His eyes crinkled in a boyish way. Free of malice and not without a certain charm. “But basically that’s what we’re doing. There’s something in these woods. And we’re trying to find it.”

And like that, it clicked. She realized why Griffin looked so familiar. He was the one on that internet TV show she had seen, the paranormal something-or-other. The other two made up a skeleton film crew. Jay with his camera and the spooky woman identified as Tasha held what Amy now recognized as a boom mic. Fools chasing monsters in the woods. Wolf fodder. Amy wagged her chin at the camera. “Any luck?”

“Nothing so far. We found a deer kill back up the hill but it was inconclusive.”

“Deer kill?”

“A carcass,” Jay added. “Ripped to shit. But anything could have taken it down.”

“Where?” Amy asked.

Griffin cocked a thumb towards the way they had come. “Back that way, maybe a hundred yards or so.”

The woman in black waved the mosquitoes from her face. Her eyes bored into Amy’s. “She’s hunting it too.”

Both men gaped in surprise, then Griffin turned to Amy. “Is that what the gun is for?”

“Just being safe. Lots of nasty things out here.” Amy let go a flimsy shrug. She wished the woman named Tasha would stop staring, her eyes were oddly unnerving.

Tasha slipped a pack of Marlboro reds from a pocket, shook one out and lit it. Never once letting her gaze drift from Amy. “There’s more to it than that,” she said to Griffin.

“Like what?”

Smoke blowing from her lips, Tasha shrugged. “I can’t tell.”

Smoking disgusted Amy. “I doubt you’ll get close to anything puffing smoke like that.”

Tasha’s eyes narrowed, studying Amy. “You lost someone recently.”

“Excuse me?”

“Family, I think.” Tasha took another haul and then wagged a finger at her. “Your dad.”

Amy felt the hair on the back of her neck raise up. Who was this chick with the spooky look? And how did she know?

Cognizant of Amy’s discomfort, Griffin moved closer with another disarming smile. “Don’t get freaked out. She does that all the time.” He turned on the spooky woman. “Tash, you gotta warn people first. Not everyone’s cool with it.”

“Old habit,” Tasha said. Her demeanor softened. “Sorry for your loss.”

If she seemed spooky before, the woman seemed downright creepy now. Seeing the confusion on Amy’s face, Griffin added “Tasha’s a sensitive. She picks up on stuff like that.”

“More than a sensitive,” Jay added. “Class A psychic. Like, superhero level.”

Tasha stiffened awkwardly at the attention swung her way. She flicked the ash from her cigarette, as if embarrassed at what her colleague had said. She seemed restless and impatient, as if late for something. “Can we get out of here?”

Griffin perked up. “Is it the thing? Is it close?”

Tasha shook her head. “No. Its the others. Too many of them. Too noisy here.”

Amy wasn’t sure what to make of the woman. Aside from the trill of a few birds, there wasn’t any noise anywhere. The air was still and serene. “I don’t hear anything,” she said.

The woman nodded in the direction Amy had come, towards the ghost town. “Dead folks. From that burned out town back there. There’s a lot of them.” Her discomfort washed over her face as she looked at her companions. “They’re all yelling at me now. It’s too much.”

The two men moved closer to Tasha, as if closing ranks. Griffin waved at Amy as they trudged back towards the trees. “See ya.”

“Hold on.” Amy stomped after them, still in disbelief but wanting to know more. “Are you kidding me? Do you really see dead people?”

“Yep.” There was no boasting in the woman’s tone. If anything, it cut more towards resigned regret than anything.

“For real?” Amy moved closer, curiosity outweighing her skepticism. “Do they just pop up and say hi?”

Tasha didn’t respond, shifting impatiently on her feet. Griffin took the boom microphone from her and glanced up at Amy. “It’s not that simple. Sometimes she sees them, sometimes she just feels them come close.”

“Or they just reach out and touch her,” Jay added. He put a hand on Tasha’s arm, as if to shield her from something as they walked away.

Tasha stopped. “They’re gone now.”

“They backed off?” Jay said, looking around for something he couldn’t see.

“Not exactly. They ran. Something spooked them.”

Amy’s skepticism roared back. The idea of ghosts being spooked seemed ridiculous. “What would scare a ghost?”

“I don’t know. But it’s coming this way.”

Griffin bristled. “What is it?”

“The thing.” Tasha dropped the cigarette and crushed it into the dirt. “Bigfoot.”

“Shit.” Jay swung the camera back onto his shoulder. “Which way?”

Amy strained her ears but there was no sound beyond the birds in the branches. Then a noise broke but not the kind she expected. The boom of a shotgun blast cracked through the pines around them.

~

Lara lost her bearings. Kneeling over a mossy slope of rock, she cleared her mind to focus. The rich smells of the forest were overwhelming and confusing. The tracks of so many different animals crisscrossed all over the loamy forest floor and overtop it all lingered the smoky stench of the burnt town behind her. It was as if the stink of ash had sunk into the skein of everything, poisoning the ecosystem itself and tainting the green shoots of spring with death and horror.

The stench of the monsters lingered too. Although months had passed since they had skulked these grounds, she could still pick out their musk among the sour tang of rotting leaves. And over it all was the bright nosing of another lobo, its scent powerful and pulsing. She followed its trail over the deadfall of timbered trees and mossy rock. Then it vanished as if the wolf had been swallowed by the earth. There was no trace of it anywhere.

Had the wolf shifted back into human on this spot, thus vaporizing its wolf musk? Even so, it would leave a mark. The change was never easy and it always brought out sweat and spit. Sometimes blood.

Narrowing her concentration down to her acute sense of smell, Lara almost missed the sound when it echoed around her. The unmistakable and unearthly growl of a werewolf, rumbling through the black spruce on her port side.

Clever trick.

The wolf hadn’t changed back, it simply knew how to mask its scent. That’s when she noticed the muddy ditch ahead. Brown leaves floating in standing water. It reeked of decay and rot and she could see now where the lobo had rolled through it like a swine in the mud.

Clever lobo.

The muddy coating would only mask its hide for so long but it might be long enough for the wolf to slip away. She held her breath to listen and when her ears picked up the sound, she bolted after it.

~

“The hell was that?” Jay let the camera dip off his shoulder as he scanned the treeline.

“Gunshots,” Griffin said.

The three of them turned to look at Amy as if she was responsible for the racket.

“I’m so not in the mood to get blown away by some redneck Charlie,” Jay huffed.

The gun sounded again and everyone dropped. Amy felt the terror flood back with a vengeance. Gunshots meant Lara had found it and taken a shot. Had she hit it? She looked at the three newcomers, darting their eyes all around them in fear. They were vulnerable out here in the trees but there was no shelter to gain. Getting strafed with twelve gauge buckshot was a very real possibility, to say nothing of the monster that Lara was firing at.

“You need to get out of these trees,” Amy hollered at Griffin. “This way, back to the clearing.”

Jay scowled at her, suspicion writ plain across his face. “What do you know about it?”

“That’s a shotgun blast. Not exactly accurate. Do you want to get strafed?”

“She’s right. Move.” Griffin waved his crew back towards the clearing. “Tasha, is that thing still coming?”

“It’s close.” Tasha needed no convincing, already running for the break in the trees in boots not meant for hiking.

The Paranormal Trackers looked up warily when Amy brought the gun out again. She kept the barrel trained at the ground and barked at them to move faster. They were dawdling and Amy could already hear something pounding through the brush.

Then a large mass broke from the trees and the wolf charged in at a dead run.

17

THE FILM CREW BOLTED. One of them was screaming but Amy couldn’t tell which from the shrill terror in their voice. Every muscle in her body wanted to join them and run like hell, the instinct primal. But she hadn’t come all this way to turn tail and rabbit. She pushed the panic down and brought the barrel up.

She had seen these monsters before but still the sight of the thing was too much to comprehend. It was enormous, more like a Kodiak bear in size than that of a timberwolf. Its hackles raised the fur into razor points along the dorsal and the beast’s maw gaped open to reveal rows of destructive teeth. A nightmare in scope and power.

Amy leveled the barrel as it charged her and tapped off three quick rounds, each one on target. Blood spattered across the wolf’s snout and chest but it didn’t slow. The nine millimeter rounds no match for its tough hide and mindless rage. She kept firing, aiming for the snout. Something connected, a tooth exploded in its maw but the monster’s momentum carried it on and Amy felt her lights punched out as the thing trampled over her.

She could hear the others screaming but the pain in her gut was so deep she feared she would vomit. Her eyes wheeled up, trying to find the monster in the dizzy chaos.

The lobo thundered over the ground at the three people running for their lives. Griffin ducked behind a cedar and barked at his cameraman. “Jay, get the shot! Get the shot!”

Jay crashed through the weeds with his cheeks blowing red. Without breaking stride, he swung the camera backwards on his shoulder, punched the record button and just kept running.

Despite Griffin’s hollering and waving his arms over his head to distract the monster, it was Tasha who was in real trouble. Never much of an athlete at any age, the pack-a-day smoker had neither the lungs nor the legs to run much further. She could almost feel its breath hot on her neck and in that moment she knew she was going to die.

The boom of the shotgun rattled the valley and sent birds flushing from trees. The impact punched the wolf’s flank and toppled it over, sending it crashing through the brambles. Tasha went down too at the report of the gun, convinced it was the sound of her own skull popping in the teeth of that awful thing.

The lobo rolled to its heavy paws and pounded for the darkness of the brush. By the time Amy got to her feet the beast was gone, leaving a trail of dark blood in the dry leaves. Lara was at her side in a heartbeat, smoke whispering from the shotgun barrel.

“Are you hurt?” Lara said, looking the girl over for any sign of injury.

“I’m okay.” Amy said, unsure if that was really the case. Her clothes were muddied from the impact of the wolf but nothing looked torn or clawed or bit. She could smell the heavy musk of the creature on her, smeared into her clothes from the collision. The stench curdled her stomach. “Where did it go?”

“It bolted. Can you run? I need to follow it.” Lara looked off in the direction the thing had fled. Every second wasted put more distance between them and the lobo.

Griffin stumbled out from behind the tree, his eyes bugged wide in fear and disbelief. “Did you see that thing? Holy shit!”

Lara stiffened at the sight of the young man. She spoke low to Amy. “Who is this?”

“You’re not gonna believe it,” Amy said. “Remember the UFO chasers? This is them.”

“You got to be kidding me,” Lara spat.

Griffin hollered for his crew. Jay rose up from where he’d dropped to his knees. His face was red and his chest heaved. Unable to speak, he waved his hand to indicate he was okay. “Tasha!” Griffin yelled over the clearing.

The girl lay still on the ground, face down in the loam.

They all ran to her. Jay got there first and rolled the woman over. Tasha looked up at the faces hovering over her. She coughed. “I really need to get in shape.”

The men took the woman by the hands and hauled her up. Griffin snatched Jay’s arm. “Tell me you got the shot.”

“I have no fucking idea, man. I was too busy trying not to die.”

“Check the camera.”

“I think it’s broken,” Jay said, turning the camera over in his hands.

“We don’t have time for this.” Lara’s contempt for the trio was plain to see. She pulled Amy aside. “How many shots did you sink into it?”

“All of them. Six or seven rounds. Didn’t slow it down.”

“But it’s wounded. Maybe we can catch it. Can you keep up?”

Amy’s face set into a grim mask. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

They ran off, loping through the weeds into the treeline, following the trail of blood on the ground.

Jay straightened up, watching the two women vanish into the dark of the forest. “Where the hell are they going?”

Griffin spat onto the ground and wiped his chin. “They’ve gone after it. Come on, we gotta follow them.”

“Are you fucking crazy?” Jay shook his head. “We almost got eaten by that thing.”

Griffin ignored him and turned to Tasha. “Can you run?”

She already had a cigarette in her teeth but her hands were to shaky to light it. “Go. I’ll be right here when you get back. Don’t get eaten.”

The two men ran off, following the two women. The lighter flicked and flicked in Tasha’s hand until the flame stayed and set the tobacco glowing. She exhaled smoke in a long sigh and then said, to absolutely no one, “I gotta get a real job.”

~

Despite Amy’s promise, she could not keep with Lara. Lungs blowing hard and barreling through the brush, the woman kept pulling ahead and leaving Amy in the dust. It was crazy. She was eighteen, in shape and a damn good forward in basketball and she couldn’t keep up with a woman twice her age. Of course, she was no ordinary woman and when Lara stopped to let Amy catch up, there was a fierce look in her eyes that troubled Amy. She knew that Lara could draw on the wolf when she needed to but that ran a risk for Lara. The slippery slope of a Faustian bargain. Draw too much and she risked letting slip the wolf too far off the leash and, like any wild animal, it would turn on her. It would demand its pound of flesh and take her over. Adios Lara Mendes.

“Hustle!” Lara hoarsed at Amy, waving her onward in frustration. “We’re losing it.”

“Don’t wait for me!” Amy shouted back, pushing herself harder. She watched in dismay as Lara bolted headlong under the forest canopy, bounding over fallen trees and rocks with an almost unearthly grace. Maybe, Amy mused as she stumbled to one knee and pushed herself back up, being half-wolf wasn’t so bad.

It didn’t take long before she had lost sight of the woman completely. Amy huffed along heedless, guessing at the direction Lara had fled. Sunlight broke through the trunks as the forest thinned and she staggered out of the trees into a clearing.

The ground sloped away into a cleared field of a farmland, the soil recently turned and tilled into neat rows. The vista below fell gently, past the field to what appeared to be a settlement in the distance. A hamlet of small houses, chimneys smoking.

Bounding the perimeter of the tilled field was an archaic fence of gray pickets and tilting posts. Quaint and old but odd in its construction, with every third post sporting a large iron cross fixed to the top. And beyond the fence stood Lara, feet planted between rows of the wet tilled earth. “Lara? Which way did it go?”

Lara didn’t respond. Amy leaned against the timbers of the fence. “Lara? Are you okay?”

Lara glanced back quickly over her shoulder before turning her gaze back to the vista below. “I lost it,” she said.

“Can’t you pick up the trail?” Amy scissored her legs over the fence and dropped to the other side.

“It vanished. The wolf, the scent, the trail. It’s just gone.”

“I don’t understand.” Amy drew alongside the woman. “How could it just disappear?”

“I don’t know.” Lara brandished a hand at the pickets behind them. “Its scent was strong and easy to follow until then. Here, it just vanishes.”

“Maybe it deked you out.” Amy cocked a thumb back at the fence. “Maybe it wanted you to think it continued past the fence when it ran a different way.”

“No. I can still smell its scent on the other side. It leapt the fence but the scent’s gone. Like it was never here.” Lara snapped her head between the fence to the field before them, fuming through a clenched jaw.

Noise broke and they saw the Jay and Griffin clambering over the fence.

“I thought we lost these idiots,” Lara said.

“They’re persistent.”

Griffin scanned the landscape. “Where did it go?”

“It’s gone,” Amy replied. She startled when Lara snapped a harsh look at her, as if she’d said something wrong.

“That was some insane shit back there,” Jay sputtered. “Did you guys get a good look at that thing? What was it?”

Lara turned on him. “What do you want?”

“Same as you,” Griffin said, nodding at the path they had all taken. “The find of the century. Certifiable proof of the supernatural. An honest-to-God real life werewolf.”

Lara walked away. “Go home, boys. Before you get yourselves hurt.”

“Come on,” Griffin said. “You guys are after that thing too. The real question is why. What do you know about it?”

“I gotta go,” Amy said, following after Lara.

Griffin went after her. “Don’t run off. I just want to know about this thing. Where did it come from? How did you find it? Why are you hunting it?”

“Amy!” Lara called out, one foot on the railing of the wooden fence. “Time to go.”

A cacophony of voices drifted up from the village below. Three men were running uphill towards them, clutching pitchforks and hoes in their hands. All three were clad in dark outdated suits and wide-brimmed hats, full beards with no moustache. Armed with their quaint farm tools, they looked like refugees from some forgotten dustbowl era of agrarian past. Clambering up the hill, the bearded men hollered in a language that none of them understood but their intent was clear. They were hostile and, judging by the way they brandished their tools, violent.

Jay gulped. “That doesn’t look good.”

“What did we do?” Griffin backed up as the mob drew near.

Lara glanced back at the span of broken fence they had all passed through. “We’re trespassing.”

The men roared at them, cursing them in a tongue none of the intruders understood. Lara and Amy retreated back across the fence but Griffin stayed where he was, trying to speak to the farmers. Hands up in a gesture of surrender, he apologized for trespassing and asked if anyone spoke English.

A big man in shirtsleeves and suspenders roared at him, spittle flying from his teeth and catching in his beard. He shoved the young man so hard Griffin almost fell. Lara stopped in her tracks, worried the mob would turn violent with their hoes and axes but the farmers, although clearly outraged, stayed their tools and hollered their anger. Jay dragged his friend away and the four intruders retreated back across the old wooden perimeter.

The hostility defused. The men turned their backs to them and set about fixing the broken length of fence.

“That’s weird.” Amy turned to Lara. “It’s like we don’t exist now.”

Lara watched the men work. Quick and without fuss, they restored the wooden rails. “They just wanted us off their land. What language are they speaking?”

“It’s German,” Griffin said. “They’re some kind of Amish.”

“Weird. Maybe we can use this. Pickup footage.” Jay hoisted the camera back onto his shoulder and started filming the men. One of the farmers looked up and started hollering again when he saw the camera and soon they were all yelling at Jay. The big man in suspenders snatched up a rock and hurled it.

“Put the camera down,” Amy snapped at Jay. “They don’t want to be filmed.”

“Okay, okay!” Jay dropped the camera but by then all of the village men had taken up stones to throw, a hateful glint of murder in their eyes.

The four of them retreated quickly back into the trees and out of range of being stoned.

~

By the time she was on her second cigarette, Tasha wished the ghosts would just bugger off. She wasn’t in the mood and her hands hurt, the palms scraped raw from trying to break her fall. Feeling the damp ground underneath her, she had retreated to higher ground for somewhere dry to sit. Perched cross-legged on a rock, she watched the dead drift in through the trees, all of them coming from the direction of the abandoned town.

As in life, ghosts came in all kinds of temperaments. Some were furious or outraged, others lost and confused. The one thing they all had in common was the need to be heard. They bristled when someone like Tasha was near, someone who could see them. Now they were all after her, shambling towards Tasha on her perch, all eager to spit out their own peculiar story of woe and loss. They all needed to be heard and they would all get louder and louder the longer she stayed.

“Go away,” Tasha said to them. She blew smoke at the phantoms. “I don’t want to hear your story now.”

One ventured closer than the others, gesturing to her. He wore a dark suit and half of his face had been torn away, hanging loose in a wet flap of tissue. Demanding to be heard, he shouted his grievances in a voice that only Tasha heard.

“Fuck off,” Tasha blew smoke at his gruesome face. She was relieved to hear the trampling approach of the others as they returned to the clearing. The plaintive ghosts around her receded back into the trees or sank into the earth. She leapt down off the tree stump and stretched, watching her friends return with the two other women. “Did you find it?”

“It got away,” Griffin said.

“But we almost got killed by some crazy Amish dudes,” Jay added.

Tasha’s eyes lit up. “What?” She watched as the two women marched past her. The older one didn’t even look her way but the younger woman glanced up at her. Her eyes wary but curious. She gave a tiny wave goodbye.

“Hold on. You two know what that thing was.” Griffin chased after them. “You can’t just walk away. Not after what we saw.”

Lara turned around. “Whatever you three are playing at, I suggest you give it up. Before you get hurt.” Lara marched on at a smart clip. Amy shrugged at them, as if it was out of her hands and ran to catch up.

18

THE VIDEO CAMERA BUZZED with a sickly whine, the toplight flashing a warning signal before it shut down altogether. Jay hung his head in defeat. “I think it’s screwed.”

“Don’t tell me that,” Griffin said. “Keep trying.”

Jay sighed and went back to work trying to get the camera to operate while Griffin plunked down on the bed inside the small motel room. After their narrow escape from some mysterious thing in the woods and the bizarre encounter with the hostile Amish folks, the Paranormal Trackers had returned to town shaken and exhausted. Base camp was a small motel just off the main road called Shady Acres Motor Court. The motel room was small but it was all the travel budget allowed for. Tasha had groused about sharing a room with smelly boys but Griffin reminded them both that their show, although gaining in popularity, was still stitched together on a shoestring and spit. Tasha, being the team’s treasurer, was well aware of the fact but still needed to vent her objections.

Paranormal Trackers was a tight ship and all three members did double-duty in the operations. Besides being the team’s psychic medium, Tasha ran the budget and kept the books but also was the sound crew, operating the boom mic when she wasn’t in front of the camera. When she was being filmed, Griffin took over sound duty while she worked her skills as a psychic and Jay filmed. As show creator and host, Griffin was also head writer, researcher, grip, driver and pretty much any other job that was required. Jay was the cameraman and gearhead.

At this moment however, Griffin fumed that Jay wasn’t earning his keep. The camera had gotten knocked around during their action-packed afternoon and the high-pitched whine coming from it did not bode well. The playback refused to cooperate and the whole thing buzzed angrily before crashing. Jay threw up his hands, admitting he didn’t know what was wrong with the stupid thing.

“This isn’t happening,” Griffin chafed. “We’re sitting on the find of the century and you can’t get the stupid thing to work.”

“You wanna give it a shot asshole, be my guest,” Jay shot back.

“Easy boys.” Tasha leaned back against the headboard with a laptop open. “Just take a breath and give it another shot. Griff, weren’t you going to talk to someone at the library?”

Griffin bit his tongue. All he wanted was to see the footage. They must have captured something of whatever it was that attacked them. If they did, it would be huge. Tangible, incontrovertible proof of something that he had pursued his whole life: the existence of the paranormal. It would also put Paranormal Trackers on the map. Now it all hinged on whether or not Jay could get the camera to work.

“Get going then,” Tasha said. “Then we’ll get something to eat.”

Griffin rose reluctantly. He didn’t want to leave but watching Jay fuss with the damn thing would just make him crazy. He snatched up his bag and went out the door.

Free of the unrelenting pestering, Jay visibly relaxed. “Thank you.”

“I just bought you some time. Get that thing fixed or he’ll kill you.” Tasha patted her pockets until she found her cigarettes. “He’ll kill us both, purely out of spite.”

He frowned at her. “Dude, don’t smoke in here.”

“God. You guys are such killjoys.” Tasha rose from the bed and crossed to the door. She was halfway out the door when Jay let out a belt of hallelujah. “What is it?”

“Fixed,” Jay said as the camera whirred to life. “Now some playback.”

“Should we call Griffin?”

“Nah. Let me see if we got anything first.” He toggled through the footage on the small flip-out screen, then slowed and played the feed at normal speed.

Tasha leaned over his shoulder, her face bathed in the light of the screen as she watched the playback.

“Holy shit.”

~

The platter of wings the waitress slid onto the table were dripping in sauce and steaming. Amy attacked them with vigor and when she came up for breath, her lips and chin were splattered red.

“Hungry?” Lara said, smirking at her dinner companion’s face.

“These are effing good. You want some?”

Lara hoisted the burger she was annihilating. “I’m good.”

After the debacle with the goofy ghost-hunting kids and even stranger Luddite people, Lara and Amy had returned to their little cabin on the lake harried and famished. They had few provisions for food. When Lara said they needed to drive into town to pick up groceries, Amy vetoed the notion by suggesting they just hit the local tavern and tuck into some pub fare. Lara wanted to avoid any crowds but Amy pointed out that grocery shopping on an empty stomach was a bad idea. Eat first, then hit the grocer’s.

Steelhead Tavern was the only dive in town and it was as ugly on the inside as it was on the outside. Classic rock spilled out over a faux-hunting lodge interior that reeked of deep fried food and stale draft. Surly Canuckleheads filled the tables and more than a few sets of eyes ogled them as they settled into a booth near the back pool table. Neither seemed thrilled at the menu offerings but when the plates arrived, they attacked their meals and Lara ordered two pints of some locally made beer with a twee sounding name.

While Amy swooned under a high of tobasco and MSG, Lara excused herself and stepped up to the bar. When the bartender leaned forward, she ordered another round and searched the bartop for toothpicks.

The bartender stole glances at her as he pulled the pints. “You’re not from around here.”

“Passing through.”

“You should stay awhile.” He smiled at her as he set the glasses down. “This town needs more pretty women.”

“Who me?” Lara made a goofy display of batting her eyes but it felt all wrong. Flirting was never easy but she wanted the barkeep to drop his guard into talking to a stranger. There a few questions she hoped to find answers to. “This is a beautiful spot. The mountains and forest and all. I went for a nice hike today.”

“God’s country.” His smile widened. “Have you seen Weeping Falls? It’s breathtaking.”

“Sounds nice. I found the Amish village. That was cool, but man, are they unfriendly.”

“Dutch Narrows? They’re not Amish. Some kinda Mennonites or some-such.” His expression fell from breezy to serious. “You didn’t go on their land, did you?”

“Yeah. They weren’t too happy about it.”

“They hate outsiders. I’m surprised they didn’t stone you to death.”

“They tried. Why is that?”

He shrugged. “Simple. We’re all evil and spawns of the devil. If you or me stumble on their sacred ground, we taint the Plain Folk with our sins.”

“Plain folk?”

“That’s what they call themselves. Everyone else beyond their borders, they call the English.”

Lara couldn’t help but smirk. “Well, I certainly wouldn’t want to infect the Plain Folk with my wickedness.”

“No, you don’t.” The barkeep leaned in further and whispered in a conspiratorial tone. “Back in the day they used to burn people for being witches. Their own kind. So my advice, stay the hell away.”

“Duly noted,” she said.

“Now the place you want to see is Weeping Falls. Beautiful spot. You want I can take you up there, show you the sights.” He straightened up and offered his hand to shake. “Where you from?”

~

Wiping the sticky mess from her hands with the lemon-scented towelette that came with the platter, Amy looked up to find herself surrounded by ghost hunters. Griffin and the young woman in black hovered over the table.

“Howdy,” Griffin smiled as he slid uninvited into the booth.

Amy bristled as the women followed suit and settled in across the table. “What do you want?”

“Food, same as you.” Griffin waved at a passing waitress. “We built up an appetite chasing you through the trees today.”

Tasha leaned over the platter of decimated chicken bones. “The wings any good?”

“Listen guys, find somewhere else to sit, huh?” Amy sighed. “I’m not in the mood.”

Jay appeared at the table clutching a pitcher and three glasses. “Beer ‘o clock. Scooch over, Tasha.”

The other two shimmied further to let Jay slide in. Amy found herself hemmed in on both sides. Pouring the glasses, Griffin looked over the room. “Where’s your friend?”

“At the bar. She’s not gonna be happy to see you guys so you better scram.”

“Aw, come on. We’re all on the same side here.” Griffin raised his glass in a toast. “Here’s to hunting monsters.”

Three glasses clinked. Amy kept hers on the table, declining the salutation. More out of fatigue than rudeness. She honestly didn’t mind these three stooges of the paranormal world. They seemed fun and welcoming. Geeks gone bad. But it wouldn’t go over well with Lara.

Tasha drained half her glass on the first slug. “We’re not the enemy, Amy. We’re just looking for answers. Like you.”

Presumption never sat well with Amy. “Is that what I’m after?”

“She’s psychic, remember,” Griffin said. “Hard to hide things from Tasha.”

“So you can read my mind?”

“Minds, no. It’s more emotion than anything.” Tasha tilted her head a fraction of an inch, like a dog listening for a strange pitch. “But you’re right. You’re not looking for answers. There’s a lot of anger rumbling around inside you. There’s something else you’re after.”

“And what would that be?”

Everyone looked up. Lara stood over the table, shooting a displeased glance at Amy.

“They were just leaving,” Amy said sheepishly.

“Come on, there’s room for everyone.” Griffin slid over to make room. “We were just telling Amy here that we’re all on the same side. There’s no reason for hostilities.”

“Not on my time.” Lara wagged her chin towards the exit. “Get lost.”

Tasha snapped her fingers then pointed a finger at Amy. “Revenge. That’s what you’re after.”

“Is the magic show over?” Amy bristled but tried to cover with an eye-roll. It didn’t pass muster as she felt Lara’s eyes pierce her.

Griffin’s brow arced in surprise. “Revenge? Is that why you’re hunting this thing?”

“That would explain the firepower,” Jay belched.

Lara let her impatience cut her tone. “Seriously people, cut the nonsense. Take your little carny show somewhere else.”

“I agree completely. Let’s cut the bullshit.” Griffin beamed, enjoying the antagonism. “We all saw that thing today. You two have some kind of agenda here, so let’s clear the air. What was that thing?”

Lara and Amy both went stony. Griffin just smiled as if he’d expected that, then he went on. “It wasn’t Bigfoot and it wasn’t El Chupacabra. So in the realm of paranormal furry monsters, where does that leave us?”

“Jesus, Griff. Just get to the fucking point already,” Jay groaned. “It was a werewolf.”

Amy felt the collective scrutiny of the trio on her, watching for a reaction, a tell. Bluffing had never come easy so she went for nonplussed apathy, hoping to dismiss the whole idea. “Wow. Sounds like a great story for the new episode. Paranormal Trackers strike again.”

Griffin beamed. “It’s gonna be a fantastic episode. World exclusive. Incontrovertible videotaped evidence of the existence of an actual sapien lycanthropus. Wolf-man to the lay person.”

Amy straightened up, blowing any bluff she might have had. She had forgotten about the videocamera that Jay had earlier. She felt Lara touch her arm to calm her and then Lara spoke. “You caught it on film?”

“Yup. Find of the century.” The grin on Griffin’s face widened as he turned to Jay. “Show them.”

Jay produced a small tablet from his pocket and tapped at the screen. He laid the tablet down, spun it around and pushed it across the table towards the two women. “Hit play.”

Lara didn’t move, as if reluctant to touch the thing. Amy tapped the triangular play button on the screen. The footage unspooled, a handheld shot that bounced and shook with a nauseating effect, blurring the shot of a clearing of tall weeds and trees in the distance. Amy guessed that this was taken when Jay was running for his life, shooting backwards as he ran. A dark image blurred on the screen, bounding through the weeds. Massive and powerful but indistinct because of the jostling lens. Thundering forward with breathtaking speed, it chased the camera and leapt. The outsized teeth blurred, seeming to swallow the camera as the image spun erratically. A close-up of weeds and dirt before the screen cut to black.

No one spoke. Griffin and his crew held their breath.

“That could be anything,” Lara said.

“It’s blurry, I’ll grant you that. But it’s clear what this is.” Griffin ran a finger over the slide bar, toggling back through the footage to freeze-frame on the shot of massive teeth. “A werewolf.”

An odd sense of relief slipped from Amy’s shoulders. Like any supposed alleged footage of the paranormal, it was blurry and easy to dismiss but everyone around the table knew what it was. Here were three people besides Lara who knew the truth and she desperately wanted to talk about it. Maybe these three crazy ghost-chasers could help? What was the harm now? But she knew, even before Lara spoke, that her friend would never allow it.

Lara’s tone was aloof. “Good luck with it.”

“Lara—” Amy jerked but catching the harsh look in the woman's eye shut down her protest and she said no more.

Jay slammed his glass onto the table, turning to Griffin. “Tell her what you found.”

“This isn't the first time this area's seen wolf trouble,” Griffin said. His fingers drummed the table, eager to spill what he knew. “There's a bizarre history of wolf attacks and deaths in this part of the country going back over a hundred years. All kinds of people have died from so-called random attacks from wolves. The earliest settlers of this area, then the gold-panners, the miners, the railroad teams. All of them were subject to brutal and unprecedented attacks by wolves.”

Amy's eyes widened. She couldn’t help it. “Is that true? How come it isn't news? Or more known about.”

“The locals cover it up. Every incident has been dismissed as accidental or, if you go back far enough, an act of God. Swept under the rug. No one wanted to cause a stink and keep people away. Whether it was the settlers or prospectors or Chinese laborers on the railroads, the incidents were hushed up to keep industries or settlements expanding.”

The look of disdain was potent in Lara’s posture. “And where did you learn this?”

“Local historian,” replied Griffin.

“And he backed this up with documentation, did he?”

“No. Nothing tangible, anyway.”

“Hmm. Well that fits right into your formula, doesn't it? Wild speculation with no verifiable proof.”

“It raises a lot of questions.” Griffin took up the pitcher and refilled his glass. “This seems to be a hotspot for wolf activity. Translate those reports of wolf attacks to werewolf incidents and you got something much bigger and weirder going on.

“And this isn't all ancient, unverifiable proof either. There was another incident last winter. Couple head of cattle were eaten up by something. Three local guys went out hunting whatever it was that was killing the livestock. One of them ended up torn to pieces by something that the other two described as a giant wolf.”

“Again, great stuff for your show.” Lara turned to Amy. “You ready to go?”

Lara clearly wanted to scram but Amy didn't see the point in denial. What was to be gained? “Maybe there's something here to talk about.”

Lara glared at the girl.

Tasha slid forward, sprawling her arms across the table. “Why don't you just come clean. Both of you know way more than you're letting on. Cut the mystery and be straight with us.”

Lara slid out of the booth. When she spoke, it was to Amy and Amy alone. “I'm going to the bar to settle our tab. Then we're leaving.” She walked away, leaving Amy alone at the table under the scrutiny of the paranormal trackers.

Tasha watched the woman walk away. “There's something different about your friend.”

“She can be a little curt sometimes,” apologized Amy.

“No, not that.” Tasha squinted her eyes as if to see better. “There's something downright spooky about her.”

19

LARA LAID OUT A FEW bills on the bar to cover their tab. The bartender who'd been friendly earlier could only offer a smile to her as the bar filled up. Annoyed with Amy for fraternizing with the ridiculous ghost chasers, she reminded herself that Amy was still a kid herself and was simply drawn to people her own age. Given what the girl had gone through, Lara sometimes forgot that she was still in her teens.

Then, apropos of nothing, the hair on the back of her neck tingled and straightened. Lara turned and scanned the now crowded barroom. The lobo was here.

She could smell him in the room and the shock hit so hard she felt the change rumble deep in her bones. She had to bite it down for fear of morphing right here in front of everyone in the bar.

But which one was he? The smell of the crowd and the stink of the bar prevented her from pinpointing the lobo's location. She scanned the faces of everyone around her but nothing stood out, no fevered set of eyes stared back at her. If she could smell him (and it was without a doubt a man, of that she was sure) then he could detect her.

Her hand dropped to her jacket pocket but the gun wasn't there, left behind in the Cherokee. She glanced over at Amy. The girl remained at the booth, fraternizing with the UFO chasers and oblivious to the danger in the room.

Pushing off the bar she walked slowly through the crush of patrons, eyes scanning left and right over the faces in the room. Laughing, drinking and hollering, nothing rang any alarm bells. And then the tangle of bodies parted before her and there he was. Sitting alone at a table near the wall, shoulders hunched over an empty glass. His eyes, although shaded in the dim light, were on her and her alone. Waiting.

Lara didn't even have her knife on her and there was nothing within reach that could be improvised into a weapon. There was glassware. She could smash the lip from a pint glass and dig the sharp end into his eye. She moved forward through the carousers and stood before his table, as if waiting for an invitation to sit.

The man hunched over the empty shot glass was ragged and disheveled, as if he'd been dragged through the mud and planted at this little table. His hands were dirty, the fingernails crusted with grime. More grime was caked into the creases of his face and his eyes looked haunted and crazed. Bloodshot, as if drunk but she could tell by his scent that he hadn’t been drinking. Blasted and insane, maybe even rabid, yes. But drunk? No.

“What did I do to you?”

The stranger's voice was hoarse, as if unused to speaking and there was a drawl to it that Lara couldn't place.

Lara studied his features but found nothing familiar in them. “Where did you come from?”

The man's mouth opened as if to speak but no reply came. His canine teeth, she noted, were still elongated and sharp, as if he was unable to shift back to human all the way.

She took a half-step closer. “Were you one of Grissom's pack?”

“Grissom's dead,” he uttered.

“I know. I killed him.” Lara steeled herself for some kind of reaction but the stranger didn't stir. A string of drool threaded between his gaped lips. She ventured another question. “What about the rest of the pack? Is there anyone else besides you?”

“All dead.” He scratched his cheek and his fingers left a sooty stain on his face. “Gone. Left me all alone.”

Amy’s assumption was right. This ragged fugitive was the last of Grissom's pack and, judging from his eyes, had been driven mad from being alone. Despite cultural myths, there was no such thing as a lone wolf. Lone wolves do not survive.

She weighed her options. Attacking the stranger here in this crowded bar was dangerous. He would morph into the wolf and kill anyone in his way. He had to have counted on that when he tracked her down. She needed to keep him talking until she decided how to play this. “What's your name?”

“Name?” He jerked out of a reverie.

“Your name. What is it?”

His eyes swam up to meet hers. “Why do you want to kill your own kind?”

“I'm not like you.”

He leered with a perverted grin, as if privvy to some joke they shared. “No. Not yet.”

“What do you want? Grissom's gone. Why stay around?”

“I don't remember. I want to run north, where the true wolves are. Be like them.” His head bowed and he gazed at his filthy hands as if they offended him. “I can't stand this mongrel state anymore.”

Any twitch of empathy she may have held out for this fugitive was quashed by his facade of contrition and remorse. A bad liar. “But you're still here. Running rabid and killing people.”

“We wolves...”His voice died off before finishing his thought. Then his eyes lit up, as if waking from some trance. “Something keeps pulling me back here. Not me but the wolf. It wants something and keeps sniffing around for a way in.”

Lara's eyes narrowed. Was the man simply driven insane from his predicament or was there something more to what he was gibbering on about? “What does the wolf want?”

“There's a place not far from here. It's there but I can't get near it.”

“What do you mean you can't get near it?”

“There's a fence. Not big. The wolf could span it easily, or run it down. It's just wood. But something stops me. Something burns inside when the wolf tries to cross it.”

He wasn't making any sense but Lara was only half-listening, her eyes distracted on a table nearby. The two men seated there had ordered steak and among the cutlery was an oversized steak knife, its serrated edge ending in a sharp point. Lethal enough to slit the stranger's throat if she was fast enough.

Too slow. The stranger followed her gaze, clocked the knife and swung his gaze back to her. “You still want to kill me. But are you fast enough?”

She lunged for the knife. He lunged for her. Her fingers grazed the knife's handle as something rocketed into her midsection and slammed her into the bar. Sparks popped in her eyes from the impact to her skull. The strange man was on top of her, the change already happening. She heard the cartilage pop and facial bones crack as his features twisted into some obscene mutation of man and wolf. He was uttering something in a hot breath on her face but his jaw had morphed too far to enunciate any kind of language. Not that it mattered, his glowing eyes flashed hot murder.

A tumult rang through the bar as patrons reacted to what they thought was a bar brawl. Her fist pistoned fast in a series of lightning jabs at his twisted face and her legs kicked and bucked to get the bastard off of her. Gaining the upper hand, she felt him withdraw and scrambled to her feet only to feel two clawed hands rip into her and pull with ungodly force. Then she was crashing through tables before sprawling to the wet floor.

The tavern exploded into a bedlam of screams and feet stomping for the exits. Cursing herself for being slow, Lara scrambled to get up when a mob of men dropped atop her in a mad scrum. They pinned her down, breaking up the fight and trying to contain the perceived antagonist to the floor. They barked at her to give up, to be still. Hadn't they seen the stranger? Were they blind to the grotesque half man, half-wolf in their midst?

Their intentions were good, she thought. Too bad.

The lobo locked up in her heart stretched its limbs and she drew on its strength to shake off the men dog-piling onto her. Thrown off like water shaken from a dog’s back, the men tumbled off and fell away. Lara leapt over the tangle of bodies, her eyes pinballing around for the stranger while she bellowed for Amy to come running.

The stranger was gone. Amy appeared in a flash, confusion stitched over her face. “What the hell is going on?”

“He was here,” Lara spat. She could see the path the fugitive had taken. Patrons and tables were bowled over in a direct line towards the door. “We have to go after him.”

“Oh shit…”

Two big men, bouncers Lara guessed, grabbed hold of her arms to keep her still while others crowded in to see who had caused the ruckus. The bouncers were barking questions and Amy withered at the men's aggression. Lara warned the bruisers to get their hands off of her. When they didn't comply, she sent them them tumbling through the tables. Snatching Amy's hand, she bolted for the door. Other patrons yelled at them to stop but no one tried to stop them.

The air was damp as the two women burst out of the tavern and sprinted for the curb where the Cherokee was parked. Amy flung open the back and dug around for the guns. Lara stood in the street, turning her nose to all points of the compass.

“Which way did he go?”

“North,” said Lara, wagging her chin at the road leading out of town.

Amy checked the magazine on the Desert Eagle. “Can we follow him in the truck?”

They didn't have a choice. The crowd inside the bar spilled onto the street, hollering and agitated. To Amy they looked like the mob of angry villagers in every Frankenstein movie she had seen. The only thing missing were the pitchforks and torches in their hands. The mob surged forward, hollering obscenities. Amy wondered if there was a police station in this town.

“Get in,” Lara snapped.

Amy clambered into the passenger bucket and glanced into the sideview mirror. The mob rushed the truck. A figure slammed into the passenger door, slapping a hand to the glass.

It was Griffin. “That was him, wasn't it! He was here!”

“Stay out of it!” Lara barked, putting the Cherokee in gear.

The young man looked desperate and pleading. “Where are you going? Wait for us!”

“We can’t!” Amy saw him stumble back as the Cherokee surged forward and sped away from the crowd.

The old V8 roared as Lara pushed the engine hard. Amy clocked the skyline where the sun was slanting over the trees. Dusk settling in over them. “Sun's going down,” she said. “We won't have much daylight left.”

“Then we better make this quick,” Lara said and gunned the truck harder.

20

LARA STOPPED ONCE to get her bearings, climbing out of the truck to stand in the middle of the road and test the air. Climbing back under the wheel, she said “I know where he's headed.”

“Where?”

“The village we got chased out of.”

Amy gripped the door as the truck bounced over rough pavement. “Why would he go there?”

“He said he was drawn to it. That there was something there.”

“You talked to him?” Amy blurted up in disbelief. “What did he say? Who is he?”

“He wasn't making any sense. His mind is lost. But he was one of Grissom's, like you said.”

Amy paled. “He tracked us down? Right to the bar? How could he do that?”

“Same way I can find him.”

Amy flung into the door as the truck swung a hard left off the main road onto the rough logging trail. Lara steered through the winding path too fast, jostling the old truck hard through the potholes in the packed dirt until the fallen tree that blocked the road flared up in the headlights.

The forest floor was plunged in darkness from the lengthening shadows, broken here and there by the odd patch of sunlight dappling the needle carpeted earth. Opening the back, Lara dug out flashlights and handed one up to Amy. Hooking a small backpack onto her shoulders, she pulled out the shotgun. “Where's the fifty cal?”

Amy took the gun from her pocket. “Here.”

“Are the silver rounds in it?”

“Yeah,” Amy said. Her eyes went from the fifty caliber to the shotgun in Lara's. “Maybe you should carry this. I'll take the shotgun.”

“Keep the Eagle in your pocket. We can't afford to waste a round.” Lara held out the Sig Sauer for Amy to take. “Take this, keep it in your hands and use it if the wolf charges. But wait for the right shot before you use the fifty.”

Amy didn't like that idea, not trusting herself to make the shot with the silver if the opportunity came but she kept mum and closed the back of the truck. Without another word Lara vaulted over the fallen tree and was off running, tracking the wolf. Amy ran to catch up, looking up at the sky and wondering how much light they had left. She didn't want to be out here after dark.

Twenty yards in, Lara cut west off the logging road and straight into the dense brush. Amy cursed and followed, tiny branches swapping at her face. Running blind through the dark trees she lost sight of her friend completely. She could hear Lara's feet trampling the loam up ahead but beyond that, she was lost. She stopped and called out.

There was no response. Even the trampling crash of pounding feet had disappeared. Amy gripped the gun tight and thumbed on the flashlight. Tree trunks flared up in its beam but beyond that was nothing, dark and more dark. She hissed Lara's name, needing to be heard but not wanting to attract the wolf running loose in these woods. Why did Lara have to sprint on ahead like that? She knows no one can keep up with her when she's in that spooky state.

A tiny dot of light bounced through the trees, growing larger as it approached. Lara's Maglite, weaving through the brush. The woman moved fast, making almost no sound as she passed over the loamy ground.

“Goddamnit it, Lara. Don't take off on me like that. I can't keep up.”

“I'm sorry,” Lara said. She hadn't even broken a sweat. “I got caught up in the chase.”

“Is he close?”

“Yeah. But I don't know where. His scent doubles back here and then circles around. Trying to lose me.”

“That or he meant to lure us out here.”

Lara bristled. “What does that mean?”

“Maybe it's no accident he found you at dusk. He gets us to chase him out here right when the sun goes down. Easy pickings.”

“He isn't that clever. Come on, let's keep moving.” Lara pushed on, threading her way through the brambles, following a trail only she could detect.

Amy stomped clumsily through the ferns, her clothes hooked by every clawing branch. She cursed the terrain, feeling like a graceless oaf behind a woman who slipped silently through the brush with nary a snap of a twig to sound her presence. When Lara stopped cold and held up a hand, Amy followed suit and strained her ears. There was nothing to hear beyond her own panting breath. “Where is it?” she hissed.

Lara listened for a moment before nodding to their portside. Amy had to hold her breath to catch it but it was there. Noise filtering through the darkness of the trees. It was close.

Lara spat onto the ground. “Damn it.”

“What's wrong?”

“It's those idiots,” Lara snapped. “They followed us out here.”

When Amy strained her ears she picked out the low rumble of voices and footsteps scuffing gravel up ahead. The paranormal trackers.

Lara's jaw clenched. “How stupid are these people? They're going to get themselves killed.”

“What do we do?”

“Leave them,” Lara said and turned away. “We have work to do.”

Amy snatched Lara's arm. “We can't just leave them out there. What if the wolf goes after them?”

“We don't have time to babysit them.”

“But they're sitting ducks out there. That thing is just gonna mow them down.”

Lara spun at Amy and the girl stepped back, almost frightened at the anger on the woman's face. “We find the wolf and put it down. Then they'll be safe.”

A growl ripped through the trees, obscene in its ferocity. The same godawful sound that ripped through her nightmares ever since the incident. Amy's eyes darted around to pinpoint its source but night had fallen and there was nothing to see but blackness. When it sounded a second time, the noise rumbled to the west, a little north of their location. The same direction that carried the voices of the ghost-hunters.

“We can't just let them die, Lara.” This time it was Amy charging out in front at a dead run, the throw of the flashlight bobbing crazily through the pines. Lara cursed and went after her.

The paranormal trackers were huddled in the middle of the path when Amy bound over the ditch. Griffin aimed a flashlight on her while Jay swung the lens of his videocamera her way, filming whatever was rushing them. Relief broke the terror on their faces when they realized it was Amy.

“Did you hear that thing?” Griffin gushed. “Did you see it?”

“Are you brain-dead?” Amy panted, trying to catch her breath. “That thing is gonna rip you to pieces. Get out of here.”

“Not if you're here to save us,” Jay said, training the camera on her.

“Get that off me.” Amy pushed the lens away. “I'm not here to save your dumb ass. Get out of here.”

Griffin shook his head. “When we're this close? No way.”

Tasha kept her eyes on the trees hemming them in. “Maybe we should listen to her.”

“No! We have a job to do.”

“Then you can be wolf bait.” Lara marched up with the shotgun in hand and contempt in her eyes. “The wolf is already circling you.”

“See?” Jay said, turning the camera lens on Lara. “You're here to save us.”

Lara slapped the camera away, snatched the young man by the collar and shook him. “Point that at me again and I will smash your teeth in.” Lara shoved him away. Jay stumbled and fell, landing hard on his ass on the gravel road. He winced at the impact and called her a bitch.

He didn't have the camera ready when the wolf charged.

It burst from the darkness with the speed of a runaway train. The beams of three lights swung up to flash the open maw of monstrous teeth. A blur of dark fur and mass arcing up as it leapt at them, its trajectory aimed at the girl in black.

The blast from the shotgun knocked it sideways, Lara already pumping another round. The monster overshot the mark with its teeth but its bulk trampled Tasha before crashing and rolling over the ground. Tasha screamed in shock and then screamed anew when Amy snatched her by the collar and pulled her away. The wolf roared at them with a fury that rumbled Amy's molars. Bringing her gunhand up fast, she fired three quick rounds at it before the creature shot away into the darkness.

Seating the shotgun against her shoulder, Lara listened to the crashing noise from the darkness and tried to triangulate the sounds. Leading her aim to allow for its trajectory, she thundered a round of twelve gauge into the darkness. A momentary stumble in the noise but she had no way to confirm the hit. Either way it was still alive, still moving.

Tasha coiled into knot and when Amy knelt over her she could feel the young woman quaking uncontrollably. She found no blood or wounds and cooed to the medium that she was okay. Amy looked up when Lara came round. “Did you hit it?”

“Yes. But it's still moving.” Lara jacked the slide on the Mossberg, spinning out the empty hull. “We have to go after it.”

Amy straightened up but Tasha clung to her, refusing to let go. “Griffin! Tasha needs help.”

Griffin wasn't listening, too busy bickering with Jay about how to activate the night-vision mode on the camera. Barking orders at his camera-man, he seemed possessed and completely oblivious to the peril he was in.

Lara stormed at him, snatched him by the ear and threw him onto the dirt before his companion. “Look after your friend. Stay here.”

Taken aback at the violence, Amy kept mum when Lara ran for the trees and barked at her to follow. She plucked her arm free from Tasha's grip and ran to catch up. Night had fallen and the thick of darkness was total. The flashlight in Amy's hand barely cut through the pitch and she stumbled over rocks and exposed roots trying to keep up. Lara zigzagged through the trees in a crazed serpentine path as if lost. Consumed in the hunt, she seemed to forget all about the girl trailing her and only stopped when Amy called out.

Amy's knees were muddy from stumbling so many times. She brushed the grit from her hands. “Lara, I don't want to get lost out here.”

“Look.” Lara threw the beam of light over the ground. Blood speckled the carpet of dry pine needles, trailing off into the darkness.

Lara had finally broken a sweat, dampening her hair over her brow. She was breathing hard and her eyes had a manic glaze to them. Amy touched her arm. “Hey. Are you okay?”

“I'm fine,” Lara gritted. But she wasn't and they both knew it.

Amy couldn't imagine what it must be like, given the curse that flowed in Lara’s veins. All she knew was what Lara had told her; that she had to keep the monster locked up in her heart. The warning signs were stitched over the woman's face and Amy knew she was struggling to keep the wolf contained. “You don't look so good. Maybe we should get out of here.”

“No. Not when we're this close.”

“Lara,” Amy said, getting the woman's attention. “I don't want to be stuck out here alone with two wolves.”

“You won't.” Lara marched on, waving at her to follow. “Come on. Before we lose it.”

The tangle of forest thinned and they stomped out of the trees into a clearing. Before them spanned the high wooden fence they had seen before, every third post marked with an iron cross. Tracing her flashlight over the ground, Lara followed the trail of blood until it vanished at the fence. Had the wolf leaped over the high wall?

Amy heard a sharp crack as she caught up to Lara.

Coming up behind the woman, Amy heard the sharp crack of wood splitting. She looked up to see wind up and kick down the fence post. It cracked and timbered down, the fence rails tumbling away like dry sticks.

“What are you doing?” Amy snapped.

“Come on.” Lara clambered over the tumble of broken styles, leaping to the other side.

Amy picked her way over the timbers. Her light fell on the post with its peculiar iron cross and she could see an inscription had been carved around the circumference of the post but the words made no sense, scribed in the language of the people who had built the fence. No time to puzzle over it now, she ran on into the field but stopped when she realized Lara wasn't behind her. The woman tarried near the broken rails.

“Lara! What is it?”

Lara paced back and forth, as if unsure of what to do. “Something's wrong.”

“Hurry. Before we lose it.”

The wolf roared as it charged. Appearing out of nowhere on the outer side of the fence, the wolf came tearing through the breach in the perimeter with the force of a bullet. It bounded over the timbers, charging at Lara.

Amy swung the gun up, too late to stop the thing but she blanched when the monstrous thing crashed over Lara and kept moving, as if it had no interest in the woman. It thundered past Amy and tore down the hill.

Lara struggled to get back up, her legs wobbly, as Amy ran to her.

“Are you all right?”

“What happened?”

Amy took Lara’s arm to steady her. “I don’t know. It blew right past you.”

A scream ripped through the night, clarion in the still air. Echoing from up from the village in the valley below. Pinpricks of light flickered in the windows of the little houses. Another cry rang out. A fleeting blur of the wolf as it thundered over the field for the lights of the hamlet.

21

GRIFFIN STARTLED AT THE sound of gunfire crackling through the darkened trees. He hazarded a guess to its general direction, north by northeast. “This way.”

Jay followed on his heels, one pupil in the eyepiece of his camera. He had finally resolved the glitch with the night-vision mode that he had paid so much to upgrade his equipment with. Using it as a guide to traverse the terrain, he kept pace with Griffin. “Do you think they killed it?”

“No way.” Griffin crashed through the thistlewood, praying that the two women hunting the thing hadn't killed it yet. Having spent most of his life chasing the supernatural, he didn't want to be cheated out of the biggest find of his career. “Where’s Tasha?”

“What? Shit.” Jay looked up from his camera and almost smacked into the trunk of poplar tree. In the mad rush of the chase, he had forgotten that their psychic colleague was a chimney who could barely walk fast let alone run. He swung the night-vision lens back behind him but no one appeared in view-finder. Tasha was gone. “Griffin, hold up! We lost her!”

“Where the hell did she go?” Griffin reversed course, drawing alongside his cameraman. They doubled back, calling her name.

They found her leaning against a mossy outcropping, spent and wheezing. Her hand shot up to shield her eyes from the white flare of Griffin's flashlight.

Griffin was furious. “Tasha, come on! We gotta catch up.”

Tasha shook her head. “This is a bad idea.”

“Snap out of it,” Jay admonished. “We're too close to quit now.”

“We need to go back,” she said. “This place is all wrong.”

Griffin marched on her. “How do you know? Do you see something?”

“Just a gut feeling. That thing almost killed us.”

Griffin sputtered. “That thing is why we're here. It's why we do this. You want to quit because it’s hard? No.”

“That thing is gonna kill us all if we keep chasing it.”

“We've never been this close before. Come on.”

The young woman gnawed her lower lip, not wanting to let her team down but, at the same time, wanting nothing more than to run in the opposite direction. She had no tangible way to express what her gut was warning her from.

Sensing her equivocation, Jay palmed her shoulder. “You can do this. The Paranormal Trackers are about to blow the truth wide open. We can't do it without you.”

She took the bait. The cornball all-for-one kind of push worked its magic on this brittle woman who had felt like a freak her entire life. The fact that they needed her was impossible to refuse.

“Okay,” she grunted and shoved off the tree that was propping her upright. “Just don't take off on me again.”

Both men promised they wouldn't and the trio bounded forth hand-in-hand.

~

A bell was ringing madly in the night, its shrill peel clanging an alarm through the village of old farmhouses. Following hard on Lara's heels, Amy saw the source of the alarm, a shuttered bell tower on the steepled roof of a tall house. Townspeople ran onto their porches, woken from their hearths by the bell ringing. The men in their dark suits, pulling on wide brimmed hats, and the women in long dresses and bonnets. Amy watched them look up in horror as she and Lara entered the town square. Two men rushed forward to block their path, waving their arms. Another man picked up a good sized stone to throw.

His aim was spoiled when a dark shape flew from the shadows and tore into him. The big man screamed in pain as the monster shook him and cries of panic rose from the townsfolk bearing witness to the slaughter.

Without breaking pace, Lara brought the shotgun to bear and blasted at the damned thing. She pumped the slide fast and aimed again. Instead of bolting, the wolf charged at her and the impact punched the wind from Lara's lungs. They tumbled and crashed over the ground, woman and wolf locked in a tangle, each furiously going for the other's throat.

The big fifty caliber gun was already in Amy's hand, her eye drawing its bead but there was no shot to take without killing Lara. The two tumbled and fought in close quarters and when Amy saw blood spatter the grass, she couldn't tell whom it belonged to, the wolf or her friend. She reached for her knife, working up the courage to join the close quarters fray when the two separated. Lara kicked free, the monster reeling back and Amy had her shot. Steadying the big gun, she fired and the recoil jarred her molars. It went wide, scorching the wolf's dorsal and blowing a hole in the timberframe house behind it. A kerosene lantern hanging from a peg on the porch exploded from the impact and as the fuel splattered, it ignited. The wooden veranda went up in flames faster than dry October leaves.

Lara rolled up but she stumbled and fell to her knees. Injured, but at this distance, Amy couldn't see how bad it was. And then the lobo swung its head towards Amy and charged.

She swung the gun up again. The magazine held only two more of the precious silver-tipped rounds but if she kept her cool and let the thing come at her, Amy knew she'd have a clear and steady shot. At this range, the impact of the fifty cal would blow the monster's head clean off.

Her shot was aborted when one of the men rushed the monster with a broadaxe. Screaming in a language Amy didn't understand, he buried his axe into the creature's flank. The thing reared and turned on its attacker with brutal ferocity, clamping its prehistoric jaws around the man and shaking him back and forth like a rag doll. The snap of bones rang out and pieces of the man fell to the ground and the great wolf loped away into the darkness with the grisly pieces in its teeth.

Robbed, Amy screamed at the monster in rage. She saw Lara stumbling after it. Then the woman pitched sideways and collapsed to the ground.

The screams of terror rose up as the townsfolk wailed in their foreign tongue. Some stood rooted in horror while others came running with buckets of water to douse the flames of the burning veranda. Amy bolted for Lara, dropping over the prone woman.

“Are you hurt? Look at me.”

The woman's eyes wheeled about crazily until they fixed onto Amy. She brushed the girl away and pushed herself up. “Where is it?”

“It bolted,” Amy said. “Go easy. You got banged up.”

The woman snarled at her to let go. The look in her eyes startled Amy. Vicious and almost alien. An unnatural amber glow lit the iris around the pupils. Amy recoiled. “Lara, stop it. You're changing.”

“Get away from me!”

Not now, Amy thought. She couldn't let Lara change into the pale wolf now. Panicking at what to do, she snatched at the knife on Lara's belt and unsheathed it. Slapping the silver blade to Lara's shoulder, she cut. Not too deep, but enough to draw blood and sink the purifying metal into her flesh. “Bite it down, Lara. Push it back down.”

Lara snapped her head wildly as if waking from some bad dream. When her eyes rose to meet Amy's, the unearthly glow was gone. “Help me up.”

“I'm sorry,” Amy said,

“Don't be. Where did it go?”

As they looked up, more men were bursting from their doors. All of them armed with what appeared to be tools. Axes and hoes and machetes. One man brandished a pitchfork. Ineffective weapons against a monster broken loose from a nightmare. “Doesn't anyone have a gun in this town?”

Further mayhem sounded when the ghost hunters appeared. Griffin led the way, Tasha trailing behind with the boom mic in her hands. Jay was filming as he ran, the camera jostling crazily as he swept the lens over the village, filming the chaos. Spotting the two women, Griffin motioned for his team to follow and ran towards them.

Amy heard Lara curse but an unearthly roar rippled through the night air, cutting her profanity short. The villagers froze in their tracks, weapons gripped tight in their fists. The wolf was coming back.

It burst from behind a barn. Half a ton of muscle and berserk rage, barreling towards the villagers like a shot. Its mangy hide slathered in gore from the earlier kill, its eyes white hot. A few of the men raised their tools to defend themselves, others simply blanched in horror at the monstrosity thundering at them. Six of the men went down as the lobo tore into them with rabid savagery. Some of the men struck back with their weapons, others ran for higher ground.

Lara hissed at the girl. “Take the shot.”

“There's too many people in the way.”

Shrugging the girl off, Lara limped forward. “I'll draw it off. Take the shot but make it count.”

Amy hated the idea but did as she was told, veering to one side of the chaos while Lara limped the other way. With two silver rounds left, the ploy had to work.

The wolf had other plans. It sprang from the bloodied wreckage of another downed villager and shot towards the figure with the camera. Jay had rushed in too close, dropping to one knee to steady the lens for a better shot. He got the shot but the monster suddenly zoomed up fast in the frame and its maw swallowed the camera.

Griffin screamed and Tasha backpedalled away as the monster's jaws locked over the cameraman and shook him violently. Amy swung the big handgun to bear but had no clear shot. Lara, armed with the shotgun that would have sprayed everyone, was in an even worse position. She aimed the twelve gauge at the sky and fired, hoping the boom would startle the lobo. All it did was send the townspeople ducking for cover.

Amy bolted towards the monster. Closer proximity would give her a clear shot. She could put the monster down before it tore Jay to pieces. Bringing the barrel up, one of the villagers rushed the beast, fouling her shot. A young man with sandy hair, no older than herself, swung at the monster with a curved sickle, slicing a red gash into the thing's neck. Jay fell from the wolf's jaws in a bloodied heap as the lobo swung its head and bared its teeth at its attacker. It struck fast, snapping its jaws but the young man feinted and swung again, burying his curved blade into its snout.

The wolf reared back taking the sickle with it. Weaponless, the youth backed away as the monster bore down on him. His fate sealed, the young man cast about for a rock or a stick but there was nothing and his death all but guaranteed until Amy shot forward and put herself between the wolf and the boy. The lobo snapped its teeth and popped its jaws, coming on fast, and Amy leveled the barrel of the big gun and fired. The boom was deafening. Blood sprayed hot as the round tore a massive hole in the beast's underbelly and gore vomited out of the wound. The great wolf faltered in its charge but reared up and came on again, heedless to the pain or destruction it suffered. Mindless in its berserk rage, it lurched at the girl before it.

The silver should have destroyed it, should have put it down but the thing kept coming. The head or the heart, Amy thought. She needed to target either one but now she was down to the last round of silver-tipped ammo. She drew a bead on its massive head as it came up fast and fired. The trigger piece didn't respond.

Misfire.

Amy backed away, colliding into the young man behind her and they both keeled to the ground. The monster dove.

A howl cut the air and a figure flew at the wolf and it tumbled over. It took a heartbeat before Amy realized it was Lara who had tackled the monster to the ground. There was a blade in Lara's hand and its silver flashed in the torchlight as she plunged it again and again into the monster's neck. Its blood gushed hot, painting her with it and as Lara and the wolf tumbled and rolled, Amy caught a flash of the woman's eyes. They glowed, her own lupus breaking free. The lobo swung its head crazily, trying to get at the woman savaging its neck. Its teeth clamped down over Lara's arm and the wolf lunged away blind, crashing through the front window of the nearest house taking Lara with it.

The knife with the silver blade lay in the wet grass, fallen from Lara's grasp.

Amy jacked the slide on the handgun, trying to unseat the jammed piece but it wouldn't budge. The clapboard house thundered and rattled, the sounds of wood shattering and glass breaking.

The slide finally snapped back, ejecting the jammed cartridge from the gun. The last silver round spun through the air and disappeared in the weeds. Amy dove for it, patting down the long grass but it was not there and it was still not there when something exploded through another window. A body pinwheeled through the air, crashing through the porch rails and tumbling to the ground. Lara walloped on her back and didn't move.

The wolf padded out of the darkened house, snapping the doorframe with its girth. Slathered in blood, it limped to the ground. One of its ears was missing and its snout was cut open to the bone with slabs of tissue flapping wet below its jaw. Its iridescent eyes scanned the gathered crowd, as if deciding which one to shred next.

Amy clawed at the earth and weeds in a panic to locate the missing cartridge. It finally scrounged into her fingers from the grass, covered in dirt and slime but when she looked up, the lobo was sklathing for the prone figure of Lara on the lawn.

“Get back.”

A hand gripped her arm and she turned to see the young man who had slashed the wolf with a sickle. Pulling her away, he said “The Watchmen will handle the wolf.”

Five men came running into the square and fanned out into positions around the beast. All were curiously armed. Four of them held medieval pikes with lethal barbs on the end. The fifth one, a lean giant of a man, wielded a broad double-headed axe in his big hands. The piccadores held their ground even as the wolf coiled to spring, as if awaiting orders. The man with the axe barked a command and the pikers rushed in. Lancing the monster in unison, they pinned it down. The lobo bucked and reared, impaled on the four spears. The fifth man strode forward in a quick step, hauling back on the axe and swinging it powerfully over his head in both hands. The blow cleaved the monster's skull with a bone-shattering crack and blood spit from its ears. It spasmed and twitched like a thing possessed and the man swung again and again until geysers of blood splattered the pikemen and the wolf's head was bashed and cleaved to pulp and the grim axeman was slathered with gore to the elbows.

He stepped back, barking at his men again and these Watchmen plucked their lances free. The carcass of the monster twitched and flopped and smoke tendrilled up in wisps from it and when a breeze wafted the smoke away, all that remained were the twisted limbs.

The tall man handed his broad axe to one of the troop and this man went in swinging, hacking the thing to pieces.

Amy turned away from the butchery. The slaughter of the wolf lay all around her as the mauled and torn victims lay moaning or dying in the dewy grass. Their brethren ran to their aid and the men who had tried to douse the fire gave in to the inevitable and watched the tinderbox house go up in flames.

Amy heard the tall man in black issue more orders in a tongue she didn't understand. Then strong hands snatched her from behind and she was thrown to the ground.

22

SILAS HOSTETLER WAS BORN and raised in the small hamlet of Dutch Narrows and only left its perimeter three times a year. Harvest, Yule and Pentecost, Silas traveled with his father to the outside world to trade or barter with the English beyond the village walls. He endured the derision and taunts of the English and gaped at their wanton, mindless ways and never understood their smug sense of superiority. The English, in their ignorance, referred to plain folk as Dutch and slandered their village with the name of Dutch Narrows. With a conflicted heart, Silas hated the outsiders as much he was curious about them.

He had heard stories about wolves his whole life, told to him by his father and grandfather. Countless tales told in church by the Bishop. Twice he had seen the carcass of the monster, strung up on a pole or thrown onto a fire after another attack on the village walls. That second time, he was thirteen and his father waved him forward as the watchmen dismembered the monster with their blades. Father thrust a small axe into his hands and told him to help carve the beast, he was old enough now for man's work. It had been gruesome work and the smell of the creature curdled his belly.

Both of those times, the wolf had been stopped outside the boundaries of the village. The monster was dead, the threat defeated. This was the first time he had seen a living wolf. The first time he had witnessed the violence of its attack. The first time in his life that a wolf had ever breached the fence and violated the sanctity of their town. Dead and dismembered, the beasts still held power to terrify and awe but this one, this ravaging obscenity from Hell had frozen his limbs to useless clubs and blanked his mind with horror.

He had wanted to run, wanted to flee for the safety of the house and the soothing reassurances of his father that God would protect them and that there was nothing to fear. The urge to run like a child had issued forth shame and the shame begat rage and with the rage, action. God had swelled his heart with courage and, surprising himself, he had attacked the beast.

It had been foolhardy and rash and Father would not have approved if he had witnessed it but in that moment, Silas was prepared to die. He was outmatched and, while the reaper's sickle in his hand was lethal, it was little threat to a great wolf. It would have been a martyr's death, a death his family would have been proud of but the Almighty had other plans. What troubled him was the way in which God had spared his life.

A girl had saved his life. And not just any girl but an outsider, one of the blasphemous English.

Of all things, a girl.

He had seen English girls before, heard them titter and giggle at his family when they went into town to trade, but those girls had seemed vacuous and cruel. Nigh obscene in their dress and posture.

He had never seen a girl wield a gun before, or a weapon of any kind for that matter. She looked no older than he and yet this outsider had pulled him from harm's way and put herself between him and the monster. Who was this girl? Where had she gone?

He scanned the chaos around him. People ran to and fro while others lay on the ground, screaming in pain and praying to God for mercy. How many of his people had the wolf killed, how many injured? The women ran from their homes to minister to the fallen, daughters rushing back to get water and linen. The Becker brothers had already fetched their stretcher and were ferrying the injured to their homes. The Burkholder house was completely devoured in flames and the blaze of the fire lit the square. There would be no saving the home now and Herr Burkholder and his daughters stood in the grass watching it burn.

The remains of the beast lay in a wreckage of gore and twisted flesh and a devilish smoke rose from the butchered pieces as if the devil himself was coming to claim its remains. If that was the case, Silas wondered, the Bishop seemed determined to thwart him. He stood over the broken remains with his black clad guardsmen and prayed in a loud voice for God to find it in his heart to forgive this wayward beast. Their Bishop struck an intimidating figure at the best of times, taller than most with long arms and a fierce look in his dark eyes. With his black tailcoat and stoop to his shoulders, he gave the air of giant crow, ready to pluck away the unwary. The axe he had used to slaughter the wolf remained gripped in his fist, the hands so wet with blood that they looked painted.

When the Bishop concluded his prayer his head swiveled round until his eyes found Silas out, as if he knew he was being watched. The fire from the battle was gone from the Bishop's eyes and in its place, a mournfulness set in so weighty it seemed to stoop the man's shoulders even more. Those eyes turned away and the Bishop ordered his watchmen to build a fire in the central pit. They would burn the abhorrent remains immediately.

Amid the wails of mourning and cries for help, Silas spotted the outsiders. One of them had been felled by the monster and lay sprawled in the spring grass. His companions, another man and a young woman clad in so much black she almost merged with the night, kneeled over their prone friend. The woman's hands were pressed over the wounds to staunch the blood. Her face alternated between confusion and terror. Silas couldn't remember the last time the English had set foot in Dutch Narrows. They were usually stopped at the gate. Even the constables of the Englisher's police force would not enter without permission. These barbarians had stormed the gates and one of them had paid a hefty price for it.

But where was the girl who had saved his life? Scanning the grounds, he picked her out among the others and, without thinking, strode towards her. She was on her knees in the grass, trying to rouse her companion. The dark woman who had attacked the monster with a knife lay bloodied and still on the ground. He could not tell from this distance if the woman was dead or unconscious. Her name was Lara. The girl repeated the name over and over in an effort to wake her injured friend as she looked over the woman's wounds. The mark of the thing's teeth were left deep and ghastly in the woman's flesh and if she was still breathing now, Silas doubted she would survive such a mauling.

A twig snapped under his boot heel and the girl spun around to face him. There were tears in her eyes, a smear of blood on her cheek.

“Help me,” she said. “Please, I need to stop the bleeding.”

Silas turned to stone, as if caught doing something he should not have. He understood English, was competently fluent in the outsider's tongue but he felt a strange reluctance to reveal that fact to the girl.

Still. The girl, this outsider, had saved his life.

“Please.” Her hand shot out and snatched his. “I have to stop the bleeding.”

The shock of her hand on his rippled through his bones and broke his reticence. He dropped to his knees beside her, plucked his good handkerchief from his breast pocket and pressed it over the worst of the woman's wounds. His grandmother had sewed it for him and now it was soaking up the blood of an outsider. He would have to lie and tell his Oma he had lost it.

The girl spoke to the unconscious woman, pleading with her to hang on, to fight back. To not die on her. Silas remembered the rag in his back pocket, soiled from cleaning his father's carriage but it was all he had. He handed it to the girl and she slapped it over another wound. She glanced up at him quickly and sought his eyes. “Thank you,” she said.

“Are you hurt?” he asked in English.

“No.”

He nodded at the injured woman on the ground. “Is she your kin?”

“What?”

“Your family.”

“No.” The girl shook her head and then stopped, as if confused by the question. “Almost.”

From behind them, Silas heard the Bishop bark orders to his men and he knew in that instant that he had made a terrible mistake. He should not have helped the outsider. He should have stayed away.

The watchmen advanced on them quickly. They seized the girl by the arms and pulled her away. The gun was snatched from her belt and confiscated. The girl demanded to be let go, trying to shrug off the grip of the black guard but they clamped down harder and ferried her along. Her eyes locked on his and the fear and confusion in them made him wince. “What are they doing?” she screamed at him. “Tell them to stop!”

Silas pushed up and got to his feet. “You're being arrested. I'm sorry.”

They took her away. The panic in her eyes made him feel ashamed and he didn't understand why. He didn't know this girl, this outsider. She had trespassed and her companions had caused mayhem in his town. Why should he feel ashamed that he could not stop her from being placed under arrest?

Two of the guardsmen hauled the unconscious woman away by the arms, her feet dragging through the grass. Silas watched as the others were taken away. The Bishop hovered over the remains of the beast and Silas felt the man's eyes bore into him like a drill. Condemnation was not something Silas was familiar with but he felt it then in the gaze of the church elder.

He heard his name called above the din around him and when he turned, he saw his father running towards him. His face was pale and he was out of breath. “Father, what's wrong?”

His father gripped his arm and panted. “Where is Jacob? Is he with you?”

Jacob was eleven. Silas’s younger and, now only, remaining brother. “Isn't he at the house?”

Silas felt his father's hand tremble on his arm. He had never seen fear in his father's eyes before. Not like this. “No,” his father said. “Help me find him.”

He was off like a bolt, running through the crowd of plain folk in the square, checking every injured person on the ground. His brother was not among them and he thanked God and ran on. Jacob was a good son, an obedient and devout one unlike Silas but also something of a daydreamer and would often wander off in his own woolgathering. This time would be no different. He had simply chased a firefly into the meadow and missed the horror that had invaded the village. There was nothing to worry about it.

The windows of the blacksmith's shop were dark as he ran past, the smith himself no doubt in the square helping with the injured. Silas ran past its dark windows towards the open meadow where Jacob would often go but he stopped short when he spotted a dark shape in the scrabbled yard of the shop. It's nothing, he chided himself. A pile of rags and a trick of the light.

The mass let out a sigh as Silas turned it over and his brother's face rolled to the night sky. Droplets of blood were spackled across his downy cheeks like rainfall.

23

THE WATCHMEN SAID NOTHING as they manhandled the outsiders away from the square and across a meadow. Rising from a tangle of rosebushes stood a circular structure of stone, like an oversized silo. Amy dug in her heels but she was no match for the iron grip of the watchman dragging her along. When she asked where they were being taken, the pikeman surprised her by replying in English. “The keep,” he snarled. Three of his front teeth were missing.

The keep was a massive silo of mortared fieldstone and raw pine beams. The floor was rancid with the remains of previous harvest and rats scuttled among the scattered millet. Amy, Tasha and Griffin were hazed to one wall while the injured were carried in. Lara and Jay jostled limply on their pallets as they were lowered to the floor.

Griffin pushed back. “You can't keep us in here.”

A watchman slammed him against the cold wall. The knuckles of his fist were bloodied and raw and he snarled at the outsider to shut his mouth. Then he turned smartly on his heel and followed his troop out. The heavy oaken door boomed shut followed by the cold rasp of metal as it was locked.

Amy knelt over Lara's prone figure. There was a deep bite wound on her left shoulder and upper arm where the wolf's teeth had chomped down. At least the bleeding had stopped, the angry puncture marks scabbing over in a deep shade of crimson. She tore away the tattered shirt and picked out the shreds of fabric from the wounds. She needed to clean it but there was no water to be found in the silo prison, not even a stray drip from the ceiling. She patted her pockets only to remember they had been emptied by the sullen watchmen with the long spears. They had taken away her gun and phone and even the loose change in her pocket.

She smoothed the hair from Lara's face and thumbed open one of the eyelids. A deathly blank stare looked back at her, unconscious to the world.

Griffin stood at the door, pounding against the wood and barking at his captors to be let out. His voice was becoming shrill as it rang off the stone walls and circled back in an echoing vortex.

“Hey!” Amy snapped. “Knock it off.”

The man fumed as he glared at Amy, hands balled into fists but he ceased his racket. Amy rose and joined Tasha where she hovered over Jay. “How is he?”

“Not good.” Tasha's voice was low and fragile. “I think the bleeding's stopped but he's seriously hurt. What happens when someone goes into shock?”

Amy looked over the cameraman. His right arm looked mangled beyond repair. “The body shuts down. Beyond that, I don't know.”

“He needs a doctor for Christs’s sakes,” Griffin said, pacing the floor. “How can they just lock us up like this? When are the cops gonna get here?”

Amy leaned back against the cool wall. “I don't think they're coming.”

“What are you talking about? After all that carnage? Of course they're coming.”

“Did you see this town? These people don't deal with the outside world. They keep themselves closed off. There's no cavalry coming to the rescue.”

Griffin sputtered at the notion. Tasha's face fell, suspecting that Amy was right. “What do we do?”

Amy looked at her. “Does anyone know you're here?”

Tasha shook her head and Griffin ceased pacing the floor. No one on the outside knew where they were, no one would come looking for them. The same was true for Amy and Lara.

“We're on our own.” Amy turned back to Lara and said no more.

Griffin tried to swallow the queasy panic rising up his gullet. He watched the girl minister to the unconscious woman. She seemed almost glib about their predicament, held prisoner at the hands of these weirdo Amish people after their friend was ripped open by a monster. It was almost laughable. “What's wrong with you? We were attacked by a monster, an honest-to-God werewolf and you act like nothing happened. Where did that thing come from? And why were you after it?”

“I don't know anything,” she said without looking back. “Leave me alone.”

Tasha countered, “Someone close to you was killed by one of those things.”

That rattled Amy but she fought hard not to let it show. She had forgotten what Tasha claimed to be. “How do you know that?”

“There's someone around you. They keep their distance so I can't see them clearly. A man? He watches over you.” Tasha nodded at the woman on the floor. “Over her too.”

Griffin softened his tone. “Who is it, Amy?”

Amy brushed the hair from Lara's face and then looked at her hand. Blood dotted her fingertips. “My dad.”

“He was killed by one of those things?”

Amy felt no compunction to give up her secrets, not to these people, but what was the point now? “We were attacked by a pack of them. Dad set off an explosion, killed them all. Or so we thought. Lara and I survived. He didn’t.”

Tasha's gaze softened. “I'm sorry.”

“How did it start?” Griffin asked.

They knew the worst of it already. Almost the worst of it, she reminded herself as she listened to Lara's breathing. “Lara and my dad worked together. They were cops. They were tracking down this psycho guy who turned out to be a werewolf.”

“Where was this?”

“Portland,” Amy said.

Griffin inched closer, eager for the story. “Did they catch him? The werewolf guy?”

Amy nodded. “They killed him.”

“And no one else knew about it?” Griffin shot an incredulous look at Tasha. “They didn't tell anyone about confronting an actual werewolf?”

“They had their reasons,” Amy shrugged.

Tasha wiped the blood from her hands. “Is that when you lost your dad?”

“No. That first encounter led them to a second suspect. Another lycanthrope but this guy was worse. Their investigation led us here, to that burned-out town we were at yesterday. That's where it happened.”

Tasha nodded her head. “That would explain why that place gave me the creeps. So much death there.”

“Did you run into these people?” Griffin gestured at the village outside the stone walls. “These weirdo Mennonites or whatever they are?”

“No. I'd never heard of them until yesterday.”

“They know what's going on,” he said. “The way those dudes in black went after the wolf with those spears? Like they’d done it before.”

The injured cameraman lay as still as stone on the floor. Tasha pressed her fingers to his throat just to make sure he still had a pulse. “Amy, is the story true?”

“What story?”

“That anyone bitten by a werewolf is cursed to become one as well?”

Amy narrowed her gaze, looking down at the wounded man. “Yes.”

Griffin shot up and immediately backed away. “Holy shit,” he said, and started pounding on the door again.

~

Silas stood outside his brother’s bedroom listening to his father pray. His cheeks burned in shame because he could not join him in beseeching the Almighty to save Jacob’s life. It was all Silas could do to stay on his feet and keep from collapsing into a weeping wreck of misery at his brother's bedside. Jacob Hostetler had been torn and rent badly by the beast and his flesh was ashen from the loss of so much blood. Silas kept coming back to one central tenet of life under his father's roof. He was the oldest, almost a man now, and it was his responsibility to watch over and protect his younger sibling. And in this small, simple task, he had failed. Watching his mother dip a cloth into a basin of water to clean the awful wounds, he knew that his brother would not survive such a savage mauling. Who would?

Jacob would die and the fault of that sin would be strung around Silas neck for the rest of his life and beyond that, unto the time after death when he would be judged by God and found wanting.

He watched his mother return the cloth to the chipped basin and saw the water foul pink with blood. Her raw calloused hands trembled as she did this but she did not cry or wail. She was trying to save her son's life and there was no time for weeping. Silas blinked with glassy eyes at her strength but remembered that she had been here before. She had tried, in vain, to save her other children who had been mortally torn in accidents or misadventure. How many children had she sat vigil at their deathbed? Two so far. Jacob would be the third. Silas wanted to pray that this be the last but he could not even pray for that. Damnation was where he was bound, of that there could be little doubt.

His father ended the prayer then rose stiffly to his feet. Taking up the basin of soiled water, he turned to look at Silas lingering outside the door. A moment played out where neither father nor son moved, then his father looked up and said “Come with me.”

They went downstairs, their boots creaking the wooden steps and his father pushed open the back door and flung the water into the grass. He held the chipped bowl out to Silas. “Rinse that, then fill it.”

Silas took it to the sink and worked the handpump until cold water sputtered and gushed. “I'm sorry, father. I should have prayed with you but I couldn't.”

“You're still in shock,” his father said. “It will pass. Then you can pray for your brother.”

The water surged from the spout and he rinsed the last of his brother's blood from the ceramic basin. “This is my fault. I should have been watching over him when that thing came.”

“Don't martyr yourself. How could you have known that the beast was coming?” His father shook his head in dejection. “A wolf. After all this time.”

“Where did it come from?”

His father was a tall man, taller than most in the village, but he seemed to have lost an inch or two. His shoulders drooped and his head hung low enough for his beard to scratch at his shirt. “I don't know. It came with those outsiders. They brought evil into our town. They must be in league with the beast.”

“But they were trying to kill it.”

His father leaned against the door jamb, looking out at the night. He simply grunted, a response that meant he wanted to talk no further. Silas set the basin down, wavering over what he wanted to say. He was not raised to disagree with his elders. “I don't think they were in league with the wolf.”

His father turned his head sharply. “The English are wicked and without faith. The Bishop has declared the outsiders to be consorts to the beast. Don't question his judgment, Silas.”

Silas bit his lip. He was treading thin ice but he couldn't stop going over the events of the night in his mind. The monstrous wolf charging at him. Being shoved out of the way by the girl and how she put herself between him and the monster. “That girl saved my life. She put herself in harm's way to do so. How can she be evil?”

His father marched on him smartly and, for a moment, Silas thought the man was going to strike him. “The shock you experienced tonight has rattled your brains, son. It's not for you to question the Bishop's wisdom. Flush the girl from your thoughts and never speak of her again. Her evil has already tainted you.” His father took the basin of clean water and wagged his chin at the open door. “Go help the watchmen clean the filth from the square. Make yourself useful to someone, at least.”

The night air was warm, a soft breeze blowing in from the hemlocks to the west. Silas ventured into the square where an enormous bonfire rippled and cracked, its sparks lifting like sprites into the night air before winking out like snuffed candles. The Bishop's men had stoked the flames into a massive inferno and were just now feeding the butchered pieces of the wolf into the flames. The broken limbs dripped gore onto the ground as the men threw the pieces into the fire where they hissed and sizzled. It would take most of the night to burn the remains and even then, some of the bone matter would persist. These fragments would be raked up and pulverized with a mallet into powder. In the morning, the ashes would be swept up and buried beyond the protective walls of the village.

None of the men spoke as Silas came forward to help but they all regarded him as he reached down and lifted out a bloodied mass of ribcage. He carried it to the fire, holding it away from himself to keep the gore from dribbling onto his boots.

When he came back for more, one of the black guard handed him a spade and together they dug into the soil. Any patch of earth corrupted by the blood of the slain wolf was to be dug out and carried away. It was the only means to sanctify the ground.

The watchman nodded at him and said “Be sure to scour your hands with lye after this, Silas. You don't want this filth to stay on you.”

Silas looked down at the wreckage of the monster. He nudged the carcass with his spade. “Where is the thing's head? Did you burn it separately?”

“No,” said the other man. “The Bishop took it.”

24

COME MORNING, JACOB'S CONDITION had worsened. Rising before the cock crowed, Silas crept into his brother's room to pray. “Vater unser im Himmel,” he whispered, making it through one pass of the devotional before leaning in to see if his brother had improved at all over the night. Jacob's flesh was cold to the touch and Silas could detect no breath issuing from his blue lips. Panicking, he pressed his ear to his brother's chest and detected a faint heartbeat but it was slow, like a poorly wound watch grinding out its final rotations.

Jacob's room was the coldest in the house and even in late spring, the damp chill crept into the room to numb its occupant. Jacob needed warmth and he needed to be moved out of this room immediately. Silas tiptoed down to the kitchen and fed kindling into the embers of the woodstove until the fire stoked anew. Gathering the pallet from the shed, he snapped the legs upright and set the cot near the stove. Then he stole back upstairs and lifted his brother into his arms to carry him downstairs to the warmth of the woodstove. Jacob weighed nothing in his arms, as if the lad had shed half of his weight during his cold sweat. He fumbled through another hasty prayer as he settled the boy onto the pallet and buried him under quilts that his mother and sister had stitched.

The boy moaned, a low and sustained hum that unnerved Silas to his core. He bent close to his brother's ear and repeated his name in an effort to wake the lad but Jacob remained limp and cold as a ripe carcass. Jacob's eyes had yet to open since the attack and Silas reached up with shaky fingers and thumbed open his brother's eyelids. There was something wrong with his brother's eyes, an unnatural glow emanated around the black pupils. Amber in color and eerie beyond reckoning. Silas bent his head and prayed a third time.

Morning came and the family fussed over the boy and then everyone carried on with their duties, his mother and aunt scurrying around the sickbed as they put breakfast on the table. An hour later, there was a knock on the back door and Silas answered it to find the tall figure of the Bishop darkening their doorstep.

“Good morning, lad,” said the Bishop, ducking his great height under the lintel. His dark eyes swept the room. “How is your brother?”

“Not well, sir. He's still unconscious.”

The Bishop clapped his big hand over Silas's shoulder and nodded gravely, as if this was to be expected. “Keep your spirits up, lad. Faith and a close watch is what's needed now.”

Father shooed his son out of the way and mother beseeched the elder to take some tea. The Bishop thanked her and turned his attention to the pallet near the woodstove. He leaned over the still figure of Jacob and narrowed his eyes in scrutiny. “How bad are his wounds?”

“They are severe,” said Herr Hostetler. “The teeth marks are deep. I don't know if he'll ever regain use of his left arm.”

“I see. Why did you bring him down into the kitchen?”

Father and mother both turned to their eldest boy and Silas cleared his throat. “I was afraid he would freeze to death. He's still cold to the touch.”

Silas turned back the quilts and raised his brother's arm for the Bishop to see for himself but the elder made no move to verify the boy’s claim, refusing to touch the stricken boy. “Very well,” said the Bishop.

“There's something else, sir.” Silas thumbed back the lid of Jacob's left eye. “There's something wrong with his eyes.”

The Bishop removed his hat and clutched it in both hands as he craned over the pallet to get a better look. Still he would not touch the boy. “Pray for him.”

“Yes sir.” Silas nodded. He wanted to ask about the Englishers but one glimpse at the Bishop's stern eyes stilled his tongue. The church elder was an older man, older than his father but he emanated an intense zeal that Silas found difficult to face. One simply listened and obeyed the man.

The Bishop straightened up. “Silas, will you keep me informed of your brother's condition. Twice a day. Once in the morning and again in the evening. Will you do that?”

Silas said he would and the Bishop took his father's arm and the men swept into the parlor to talk privately. While his mother bent to her prayers, Silas stole away, stepping around every creaky floorboard, to the door of the parlor and listened.

“How many souls did we lose last night?” his father's asked.

“Three,” replied the Bishop. “Colm Burkholder. Hiram's eldest boy, Matthew, and the younger Pauline. All murdered by the beast.”

“My God. And how many injured?”

“Six, including your boy. Three of them gravely. I fear they won't last to see sundown. The other three may survive. But all of them are stricken like your son. Unconscious and unresponsive.”

“Six? There must be something to be done to help them.”

“You know there isn't,” the Bishop said. “It's been a long time but you remember what happens when the wolf comes. We pray for mercy. Or expediency.”

Silas heard his father curse abruptly and that surprised him. No one cursed around the elder but the Bishop let it go. A moment passed when neither man spoke. Silas thought he heard his father sob but he couldn't be sure. He had never seen nor heard his father weep.

“We have to be strong now,” the Bishop said. “And prepare for the worst. Evil has slithered its way into our village and it will fester and grow if we don't contain it.”

“How did it get past the barricade?”

“I don't know yet. Keisler thinks the fence may have fallen in some spot, the hex seals broken. Or someone broke the seal, allowing the wolf to get in.”

“Who would do such a thing?” asked his father.

“I don't know. But we must keep vigil if someone within our community has fallen astray.”

“And what of the outsiders? Where are they now?”

“The keep.”

“You have to let them go,” said his father. “They don't belong here. What happens if the English police come looking for them.”

“I need some answers from them first.”

“Of course.”

The sound of the chairs scraping against the floor signaled that the men had risen. Silas tiptoed away and silently scampered down the hall.

~

Lara was cold to the touch. She hadn't stirred at all since the attack and, to all appearances, seemed dead. Amy had to press her fingertips against the woman's wrist to find a pulse. It was was faint and sluggish. She looked over the stone floor of their prison for something to cover Lara with to keep her warm in this dank room but there was nothing. A shred of burlap sack so rotted that it fell apart in her hand when she tried to peel it from the cobblestone.

“Oh God—”

Tasha's voice broke. Sitting next to her injured friend, Tasha recoiled from Jay as if she'd been stung by something.

“What is it?”

“Something cracked,” Tasha sputtered. “Inside him.”

Amy crossed the floor to her. “Cracked?”

“I had my hand on his chest, trying to feel his heartbeat, when something moved under his skin. Like a rib had snapped or something.”

Griffin sat up. “Maybe he broke a bone and we didn't notice it earlier?”

“No,” Tasha said. “It was like something was inside him.”

Amy placed her palm flat over the man's chest but couldn't feel anything out of place. She peeled back one of Jay's eyelids but his pupils had rolled back in his head, revealing only an eerie pan of white. He jerked suddenly as if prodded with something, startling the others.

“Is he dying?”

“I don't know.”

Amy shushed the other two and felt for his pulse. Another sound came, a loud crack like a bone snapping. Jay flinched, a low moan leaking out of him.

“Holy shit.” Griffin backed away quickly. “He's changing.”

Tasha sought Amy’s eyes, fear bubbling up fast. “Is he?”

“No.” Amy pressed her fingers against Jay's throat and felt his pulse. It was slow and he became still again. “He's not changing.”

“But he will,” Griffin spat. “What do we do when he wolfs out?”

Amy didn't know. Lara had never spoken much about the transformation or how it works. She knew the coma was part of it. She had sat vigil at Lara's hospital bed as Lara remained unconscious for three days. But was that true of everyone who was infected? She remembered Lara referring to it as a cocoon stage and that everyone experienced it differently. If Jay's chrysalis stage was shorter, then three of them would be locked up with a monster.

“There must be something we can do for him,” Tasha sighed.

“Silver,” Amy muttered to herself. Lara had been treating her own condition with it for months now. Just like in the old stories, silver was a lethal to a werewolf but used in small doses, it helped Lara keep the wolf suppressed. Maybe the same would be true for the injured cameraman.

The only problem now was where to find some. Her last silver-tipped bullet had been confiscated along with the big handgun it was chambered in. All of their pockets had been turned out, the contents taken away. No silver, not even a copper penny.

Griffin cocked an ear in her direction. “What did you say?”

“Silver,” Amy repeated. She shot to her feet and crossed to where Lara lay on the cold floor. Maybe the strange militaries hadn't taken everything. She tugged Lara's shirt up to expose her belly. Pierced through her navel was a thick ring of brilliant silver. “We can treat Jay with it.”

“Silver?” Griffin guffawed at her. “Like in the movies?”

“Yup.”

Tasha knelt beside her. “How does it work?”

“It's a pure element. It has to come in contact with the blood to fight infection.”

“Jesus,” Tasha said, leaning in for closer look. “How many times has your friend changed her piercing?”

The flesh around Lara's navel was pockmarked with scar tissue. The original idea for a silver piercing had been Amy's but her dad was the one who had administered that first pluck into Lara's skin. A messy affair. It was clear from the scar tissue circling the navel that Lara had removed the ring and re-pierced the silver a number of times. The wound would have healed over, lessening the efficacy of the metal.

She reached for the ring to detach it but then stopped. What if removing it put Lara at risk? Without the balm of the silver, would the wolf in Lara's heart uncoil and emerge?

“What are you waiting for,” urged Tasha.

She'd just have to take that chance. Amy threaded the ring through until she found the clasp and unsnapped the ornament. Tugging it out proved tricky and when she finally plucked it free, a thin trickle of blood welled up in Lara's bellybutton.

They scuttled over to Jay and Amy held the piece in her hand, unsure of where to apply it. Griffin soured. “What are you gonna do, give him a piercing with it?”

“It just has to be in contact with his blood,” Amy said.

Tasha lifted the injured man's blood-soaked shirt and peeled it back to reveal a puckering wound left by giant teeth marks. “There's no shortage of that.”

She was right. Amy took a deep breath and pressed the ring into the goriest tear of open flesh. The injured man shuddered as if chilled as it touched his open wound. Amy pushed it in with her thumb and blood spurted out and Jay's shuddering turned violent and sharp. He spasmed, teeth clenched fast.

“Stop,” Griffin barked. “You're gonna kill him.”

Amy pushed the silver in deeper, the sucking wound closing over her thumb and the hot blood staining her fingers. Jay kicked his feet and Tasha pinned his arms down to keep him still.

Griffin barked at her to stop and Tasha hissed at him to shut up. And then the flailing man went still and didn't move, as if a switch had been turned off. Within a few heartbeats, his breathing leveled out and color bloomed back into his face. The mask of pain melted away, replaced with the open-mouthed slack of someone in a deep sleep.

Griffin blanched. “Is he dead?”

Tasha pressed the back of her fingers to Jay's brow. “He's out but the chill has gone. He's warming up.” She looked up at Amy and smiled. “You did it. You saved him.”

Amy sat back and flattened her palms on the stone floor. “I didn't save him. We just postponed anything nasty from happening.”

“Well, he's resting anyway,” said Tasha. “Nice job.”

Even Griffin seemed to relax, sliding his back down the stone wall until he slumped on the floor. They sat watching Jay for a moment until a noise behind them broke the stillness. The metallic click of a lock unbolting made them all look up. The door swung open and a young man in shirtsleeves and suspenders entered the prison with a cauldron in one hand and clay bowls in the other.

Amy squinted at the young man, trying to place his face. It was the man who had attacked the wolf with a sickle.

“Hello,” he said in accented English. His gaze latched onto Amy, ignoring the other people in the room.

25

SILENCE SETTLED OVER THE prison like dust. Amy and the others took a step back, wary of the young man.

Silas raised the pot in his hand. “Are you hungry? I brought you something to eat.”

Griffin puffed up. “You have to let us out of here.”

“I can't do that,” said Silas.

“Who's in charge?” Griffin demanded. “This is kidnapping and the cops are gonna come looking for us.”

“The Bishop will come when he's ready. If the English constables come, then maybe they can sort it out.” Silas shrugged. “It's not up to me. Here, eat something.”

Amy studied the young man and how his eyes kept darting back to her. As if she was in charge and not the blustering male. She moved closer. “What do you mean 'if the police come?”

“They won't come here without permission.” Silas turned and met her gaze. “Do they know you are here?”

“Yeah, they know,” snapped Griffin. “And then there's gonna be trouble. We didn't do anything wrong.”

“Wrong? You trespassed into our village and shot up the town with your guns. Heedless to the bystanders. You caused a fire that destroyed a house and now a family is without their home. You are not innocent.”

Amy watched the young man bristle at Griffin, clearly holding back his anger. Griffin's bluster would try anyone's patience. She hazarded a guess that these people were, like other Amish, non-violent but then she remembered the men with the spears and how savagely they butchered the wolf. “I'm Amy. That's Griffin and this is Tasha.”

The young man bowed, his eyes softening at Amy. “Silas Hostetler.”

“Silas, is there a doctor here? Our friends need medical attention.”

“There is no doctor. Families treat their own here.” He looked down at the two on the floor. “Are they badly hurt?”

“Extremely,” interrupted Griffin. “And if they die, you people are going to be in a world of trouble so you better call an ambulance.”

“Three people were killed last night,” Silas said. “One of them a child of thirteen. Six others were injured.”

“Six?” Amy reeled at the number. Six injured meant six more were infected. Half a dozen potential lycanthropes in the village. The prone cameraman on the prison floor made seven.

“Yes.” Silas's voice lowered to a whisper. “My brother is one of them.”

“I'm sorry. Is he badly hurt?” Amy instinctively reached out and touched the young man's elbow.

He flinched, as if jolted by her touch. “He's like these two here. As still as stone and unreachable. Near death.”

“Maybe Amy can help him,” Tasha suggested. “She cured Jay. See?”

“Cured? Show me.” Silas moved closer and knelt beside the injured man.

Tasha laid the back of her fingers against Jay's brow. “He was failing badly but Amy treated him. The fever’s broken. He's back to normal and resting. He's cured.”

Silas studied the man on the floor then swung his gaze up to Amy. “How did you cure him?”

“I didn't cure him,” Amy countered. “I treated him with silver. It lessens the effects but it's not a cure.”

Silas straightened up and gripped Amy by the hand. “My brother. Can you help him?”

“There's no guarantee it will but—”

“Please. He's just a boy. He doesn't deserve this.”

Amy saw the young man's eyes welling up. How could she say no? “I can show you what to do. Do you have any silver? The purer the better.”

“You must do it. I'll find the silver and come back for you.” He turned to go but nodded at the pot he had brought in. “Here, eat. I'll be back soon.”

Amy followed him to the door. “Hold on. We have to get out of here. Can you talk to whoever is in charge? Or let me make a phone call?”

“I'll try.” Silas put his hand on the door then hesitated. He sought her eyes and lowered his voice. “You saved my life last night. Why did you do that?”

Amy shrugged. “What was I supposed to do?”

The young man went still, as if flummoxed by the question. Then he turned his face away and reached for the door. “I'll be back.”

Amy heard him gasp. She looked over his shoulder to see the imposing figure of the Bishop looming in the door frame.

~

Boots rang on the flagstones as the tall man stepped inside the gaol. One of his watchmen followed and stood at his flank. Amy stepped back and when she glanced at Silas, she saw raw fear in his eyes.

The Bishop, as Silas called him, would have been intimidating in any location. Well over six feet with wide shoulders and clad all in black, his presence was like a column of night poured into the room. Amy could barely make out his eyes under the brim of his wide hat but what she could see was not welcoming.

“Are you in charge here?” Griffin barked, striding forward and demanding that the man let them go. The watchman shoved him back.

“Schweigen,” the Bishop ordered before turning to Silas. Amy could see the young man quaking, clearly in fear of the tall man. Silas answered a question posed to him, nodding at the pot of stew left on the floor. Amy hazarded a guess that the Bishop wanted to know why Silas was here. The Bishop growled something in a curt tone and Silas marched for the door. He glanced once back at Amy before darting out of the prison.

The imposing figure clasped his hands behind his back and studied the three prisoners before him then the other two on the floor.

Griffin's eyes darted between Amy and Tasha. “What does he want?”

“Ask him,” suggested Tasha.

“Does he even speak English?” Griffin hissed back.

“Be quiet,” the Bishop barked in English. He leveled his gaze on Griffin. “Why did you bring the wolf here?”

“We didn't,” Griffin stuttered. “We were following it.”

“Why? Who sent you?”

“We were trying to catch the thing on film,” Griffin fired back. “Where's our camera? I'll show you.”

The tall man turned his head towards the door and called to someone outside. A second watchmen trooped in bearing an apple crate in his hands. The Bishop hissed something at him and the watchman upended the crate, spilling its contents onto the floor. A clattering racket of broken plastic and glass as the smashed pieces of their equipment tumbled against the flagstones. The video camera and boom mic, recording deck and all of their cell phones were tossed in a mess of shards and wires, all of it destroyed.

Griffin gasped and bent to gather up the fractured remains of his equipment but the camera was demolished beyond saving, its innards bludgeoned with a hammer. “The footage, the evidence we had…”

The Bishop sneered at the broken debris on the floor. “Your faith is misplaced in such trinkets, lad. Learn from this.”

Griffin's face blew hot. Without thinking he shrieked and rushed the towering man in black. To all appearances, the Bishop was old enough to be the young man's grandfather but he shattered any assumptions with a strength and speed that startled Amy. She watched the older man repel the charge and flatten Griffin to the floor with barely any effort. With the man's boot jammed onto his neck, Griffin yelped like a sick dog.

“Stop it!” Amy turned to the Bishop. “You're hurting him.”

The man lifted his heel from Griffin's neck. “Why did you come here? Which of you broke the seal to let the evil come in?”

“We didn't lead it here. We were tracking it.”

The Bishop swung towards Amy. “You. You tried to kill it. Why?”

“It needed to be put down.”

The man towered over her like a volcano about to erupt. Amy took a step back, thinking the man was going to hurt her. “You know about the wolves,” she ventured. “You’ve seen them before.”

“There have always been wolves.” The Bishop turned his dark gaze away, as if there was no more to be learned from the girl. Stepping past her, he stood before the still form of the injured cameraman on the floor. He said something in German to his watchman at the door.

Tasha moved closer, skittish as a bird about to alight from a wire. “He needs a doctor.”

“We will bring you some linen and fresh water. Treat his wounds as best you can. The rest is up to God.” The Bishop gave a dismissive wave before turning his attention to the unconscious woman on the floor. “Who is this woman?”

Amy moved closer. “She's my friend.”

“What is her name? Her full Christian name?”

“Lara Mendes,” Amy hushed.

He scrutinized the woman but didn’t touch her or inspect her injuries. Kneeling down, he hovered in close over Lara and crinkled his nose as if smelling her. “There's something wrong about her.”

“She needs medical attention.”

His hand shot out like a rattlesnake, snatching Amy’s arm. “What is wrong with her?”

“She’s hurt. Let go of me!”

“Answer me—”

His words were choked off by a hand snapping over his throat. Lara's hand. She struggled to get up, her hand locked fast over the man’s windpipe. The Bishop pushed the woman away but Lara’s grip was latched tight.

“Lara, stop!” Amy pushed them apart but was suddenly shoved aside as the watchman jumped in. The guard smashed an elbow into Lara’s face before ripping her grip from his Bishop’s throat.

The Bishop rose, massaging his bruised voicebox. “The woman is tainted. Bind her hands and take her to the Penance Hole.”

“No!” Amy snapped. “She's hurt. She doesn't know what she's doing.”

He pushed the girl away as the watchmen lashed Lara’s wrists and hauled her limp form out the door. The Bishop wiped his palms down his jacket as if they were soiled. “The Jezebel is unclean and needs to be quarantined.”

Amy swung her fist at the man but felt herself shoved back with a strength that surprised her. “Where are you taking her?”

“To the place of penance. Where she can ruminate over her sins.”

The Bishop turned smartly on his heel and followed his guards out the door. The heavy door clanged shut with a thundering boom.

26

THE DARKNESS WAS COMPLETE and almost tangible in its totality. Then, in the distance, a crack of light. It cut the pitch like a blade and there was shape to it. The form of a cross, beckoning in the night.

This is death, she thought, and yet by some small grace salvation was being offered in this sliver of light. Her hand reached out for it but it was too far away and would always be out of reach. Purgatory was a word that came to mind. Able to see the light of salvation but unable to touch it.

Lara Mendes blinked at the light, its shape swimming in and out of focus, until the scrambled fragments of her mind stitched themselves back together. The ground underneath her was solid, cold stone under fine grit. When she tried to sit up, the pain snatched her breath and she lay still until the worst of it ebbed away.

Memory returned in mismatched pieces that needed to be fitted together until they made any sense. Chasing the wolf through the trees. The ghost-hunters in turn chasing them. The village of backwards people. The wolf turning to attack her. But where was Amy? A thousand other questions buzzed inside her head but these were pushed aside by the overarching question of Amy. She had to be alive. She could not have been killed by the wolf. The thought was too much and if she had failed the girl, then she deserved to be in purgatory.

Noise. The scrape of wood against stone. Light flooded in bright and hot and she closed her eyes. She heard boots ring off the stone and a voice hissing in a language she did not understand. She was gripped and jerked upright, the pain savaging her nerve endings.

When her pupils adjusted to the available light, she saw two burly men in wide brimmed hats propping her upright.

Her voice cracked on the first try. “What is this place?”

They didn't even look her in the eye. She struggled against their grip but the pain had sapped all of her strength, leaving her with the backbone of a jellyfish.

“Dutch Narrows,” said a voice. Low and cold, it boomed around as if they were in an echo chamber. “As the English call it.”

Lara's eyes swam up. A figure stood silhouetted in the doorway with the sunlight hazing around him. For a tiny moment, the entrant seemed like some dark angel come to claim her. She tried to ask the stranger who he was but her larynx cracked and the question fell to the floor unfinished.

“You have trespassed against us.” The man stepped closer and Lara could see the deep lines etched in his face and the gray flecking his beard. The contempt in his eyes was unmistakable. “You have no right to be here.”

“Who are you?”

“He is the Bishop,” hissed the younger man at her side. “You will address him with respect.”

“Your name is Lara Mendes,” said the Bishop. “Yes?”

She carried no identification with that name. So how did he know? He must have been told. “There was a girl with me. Where is she? Is she hurt?”

“She is here. She is uninjured.”

She wanted to shake off the man holding her but she had no strength at all, not even a show of strength left. “Why are you keeping us here? We haven't done anything wrong.”

The Bishop towered over her. He bent lower, his teeth bared. “You have done everything wrong. You have tainted everything with your evil, woman.”

Alarm bells rang through Lara's ears. Fanatic. Fundamentalist nutjob. With her vision acclimatized, she could see that she was inside some kind of dungeon. The only window was a cross-shaped hole chiseled high into the wall above her. The glowing light she had mistaken for salvation earlier.

Something else wasn't right. Her pulse was spiking at the threat of danger, a surefire trigger to the wolf inside her. But there was nothing. It was as if the lobo in her heart had vanished. Or died.

“Where did it come from?”

Lara looked up. “What?”

“The wolf. Where did it come from?”

The wolf they had tracked, the one these men had butchered. “I don't know. He didn't tell me.”

“Not him. He is destroyed and doesn't matter.” The Bishop reached out and pressed a finger into her sternum. “The wolf here, inside you. Where did it come from?”

Lara went very still. How did he know? What possible answer could she give?

The man at her side hissed in her ear. “Answer the Bishop.”

She turned stony. The Bishop 's face creased into something like a smile and he stepped back. Reaching into a pocket, he withdrew a heavy glove. Thick burled leather that he tugged on and curled his fingers into a mailed fist. Divots of metal were studded into the knuckles, giving the piece a brutal menace.

The Bishop nodded to his guards. “Grip her stout, lads. This one may hold out on us.”

The metal studs of the Bishop's glove distracted her from what was happening. It took a moment before she realized what was so distinct about the studs. They were solid silver.

~

“He's dying.”

“No, he isn't,” Silas rebuked. His mother had not left his brother's bedside all day, praying over him but now her head was bowed in grief as if already mourning the boy. “He's going to be fine, mother. You can't give up on him.”

She winced at the sting of his scolding. His father turned on him sharply. “Don't speak to your mother like that, Silas. I don't know where you've groomed this wicked tongue but it is cruel and unwanted. I expect more from you.”

Shamed, Silas fell silent and looked down on the pale figure of his brother. Jacob's eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling but there was no life inside them. Silas had tried to force the eyelids closed but they rolled back up again in that eerie stare of nothingness. To make matters worse, the boy's jaw had begun to flicker open and shut like a fish suffocating on dry land. It was awful to behold and Silas was forced to look away. Something evil had slithered into his brother's blood and it was killing him before their eyes.

His father leaned over the bed and peeled back the gauze laid across his wounds. Then he turned to his wife. “Mother, this poultice needs changing. Will you fix another?”

The woman rose and quit the room without looking at her eldest son. Silas’s guilt over his hurtful words tweaked up another notch and he looked up at his father. “I'm sorry.”

His father reached up with both hands and clamped his brother's snapping jaw shut, holding it in place for a time. When he took his hands away, the jaw resumed its mindless popping again. “I haven't seen anything like this in a long time. I fear we may lose poor Jacob. We need to be prepared for the worst.”

“Don't lose faith, father.”

“This is beyond my faith. Yours too. All we can do is be prepared. If your brother passes, your mother will collapse into grief. You and I cannot. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

Silence crept into the room. The only sound was that of barn swallows flitting outside the open window. That and the popping of Jacob's teeth.

“There must be something we can do,” Silas said.

“It's in God's hands. We need to concern ourselves with his soul now.”

Was that the truth? Silas thought back to the English locked up in the stockade. The injured man was not in the same state that Jacob suffered now. The outsider had color and was resting peacefully. He had no eerie death stare nor did his teeth clamp up and down in that terrible snapping. What was it that the Englisher had said? The girl had cured him. The girl who had saved his life. Amy. She had treated the injured man in a manner that flushed the corruption from his body.

Would she help his brother? Silas watched the boy’s jaw undulate. There was no other option. The English girl had to help his brother, even if she had to be coerced into it.

Father would be a different matter. Under no circumstances would he allow an outsider to step foot into his house, let alone accept her help. Father would declare it to be witchcraft and refuse. He would have to do this without his father's knowledge. It would be wicked and unfaithful but needs must as the devil drives. Turning to leave the room, an unsettling stone of guilt plunged to the pit of his stomach at the prospect of what he was about to do. Perhaps the evil bedeviling his brother had wormed its way into his blood as well.

~

This was all wrong. The wolf coiled inside her heart lay dormant and refused to come out. Under normal circumstances, it could be roused from its den by sharp emotions; fear or anger especially. Both of these triggers were hot as the silver-studded fist knocked her senseless but the wolf refused to come out to play. If she was careful, she could harness a little of the lobo's ferocity and knock her tormentors into a wall but there was no wolf, no supernatural strength to summon.

It was as if the wolf had died inside her. It was simply gone. Was it the silver pummeling her flesh or was it this place? She hadn't felt right from the moment she stepped across the barricade that protected the little town. The Bishop had said that the hex signs kept the wolves away. Were they also dampening the lobo in her heart?

Another blow from the fist knocked the thought from her skull. Why was she holding out? Lara spat blood onto the stone floor and gritted her teeth against the pain. “Prall. His name was Ivan Prall.”

The Bishop lowered his mailed hand. He wasn't even breathing hard. “Who?”

“The wolf that infected me,” Lara said. “His name was Ivan Prall.”

“Good.” The Bishop tugged at each finger until the heavy glove slipped free and he shook the blood from his hand. “Tell me about him.”

One of the Bishop's men brought her water and she rinsed the blood from her mouth and then drank. Then she told the man all that had happened. About her former life as a detective and the suspect who turned out to be a werewolf. How she had been mauled and went into a coma and awoke to find herself cursed with the same affliction. How she had fled into a self-imposed exile for fear of hurting anyone as the wolf. How another wolf named Edgar Grissom had tried to coerce her into joining his pack. The stand-off that occurred in the ghost town not far from here where her old partner and friend had set off an explosion that destroyed most of the pack and burned the tinderbox town to the ground.

The Bishop’s eyes were closed as he listened, interrupting twice to clarify a point. When she finished, he opened his eyes. “How long has it been since you were bitten?”

“Nine months,” she replied.

His eyes narrowed. Leaning in close, he crinkled his nose to smell her. He pressed two fingers against her throat to gauge her carotid pulse. “That can't be. You must be mistaken.”

Lara met his stare. “What is this place? How do you know about the wolves?”

“The wolves are always at the gates.” The Bishop turned to his men and nodded at something behind him. “Manacle her. Then leave us.”

Lara was led backwards until she felt the wall flatten against her. Rusted iron cuffs hung from chains on the wall and these were locked around her wrists and ankles. The chains tinkled as she tested their strength. The guards nodded at their Bishop and turned smartly from the dungeon.

The Bishop rubbed the knuckles of his right hand where the skin was broken. Popping a handkerchief from his vest pocket, he dabbed the blood away. “The wolves have always been with us. Since the earliest time of our community. They were brought into this world by a man named Melchior Bratenburg. The founder of this order.”

27

“IN THE WINTER OF eighteen fifty-nine, Bishop Melchior Bratenburg ventured out alone to face the wolves that were slaughtering his nascent church. When he crawled back three days later, something within him had changed.”

The Bishop patted his knuckles with the handkerchief. He looked at the blood soiling the fabric and slid the cloth back into his vest pocket.

Lara hung in her chains, the iron cuffs biting into her wrists. She desperately wanted to lie down, to rest. “What kind of wolves?”

“Timberwolves. As far as I know, there was nothing supernatural or diabolical about them. Just wolves.” The Bishop removed his hat and wiped the back of his clean hand over his brow. “Bishop Bratenburg was an exceptional man. Pious and fearless and, above all else, protective of his flock.

“He was born in Deutschland but came to the new world with his family during a violent wave of Mennonite persecution in Europe. He became a church leader in time but disagreed with the elders when they began assimilating with the English here in the new world. Calling out their infidelity to the faith, he formed his own band of faithful and broke away, traveling further west to find an Elysium that God had shown him in a vision. The going was hard, ten families traveling over hostile wilderness, and when they came to this place, the Bishop fell to his knees and declared this was to be their new home. Here they would establish a new community of faithful, here they would be simple hewers of wood and drawers of water. The vast wilderness would protect them from the vile world of the English.”

Lara shifted her weight, trying to find a position that lessened the pain. She studied the man before her. With his head bowed and his hat clutched in both hands, the Bishop recited his story with the hushed reverence of a prayer. “They pitched their tents and put their shoulders into the backbreaking work of clearing land. They worked hard to dig in and fortify their encampment before the winter months but when the snows came, so did the wolves.

“They howled through the night, sending chills down the spines of all who heard and in the morning they would find another oxen slain, another goat butchered. As winter set in harder, the wolves became bolder, making sorties into the perimeter in the daylight. Scrounging around the outer edges of camp for the weak or the lame. The first to go was a child of eight, snatched away while he collected firewood with his brother. The Bishop led a rescue party to save the boy but they were too slow, too late. What they recovered of the child, there was little left to bury. After that, the wolves became relentless. They circled the camp night and day, charging into the village in raids and dragging away the unfortunate. Not just children anymore, but adults. Grown men were taken down and ripped apart. The snow all around the village was dark with their blood.

“Some began to lose faith in Bishop Bratenburg, to question his leadership. He told them they would find a paradise but they seemed to have planted stakes into an outer circle of Hell. One elder openly denounced the Bishop as a fool and packed up his family to seek refuge at an English fort three days travel from here. They were a league past the gate before the wolves came down. Father, mother, children; the beasts took them all.

“Bishop Bratenburg prayed to God for guidance while the elders around him whispered mutiny. God did not answer so Bratenburg forced His hand. Arming himself with a few simple weapons, he told the elders that he would go out alone and face the wolves. God would either allow him to drive off the monsters or He would let the wolves take him. He told his followers to be ready to flee. If he wasn't back in three days, they were to leave en masse for the English fort. The Bishop took an axe and a pike and quit the gates, marching north into the wilderness.

“He was gone for three days. The elders presumed him lost and prepared for the long march to the fort. On the third day, the Bishop returned. Stumbling through the snow, bloodied and driven half-mad. But alive.”

Here the Bishop fell silent. Somewhere outside the prison walls, an owl cried in the night. Lara shifted against the irons. “What happened to him?”

“He fell into a deathlike sleep for days. The elders debated whether to flee the encampment or stay and hope for Bratenburg's recovery. Of the wolves, there was no sign. It appeared that the Bishop had kept his word and driven the pack off.”

Lara mulled over the tale, the familiar pattern of events. “Did he recover?”

“He did. His injuries healed up with an alarming speed. The elders took this to be a blessing from the Almighty and regretted their earlier mutinous thoughts. The Bishop said that the wolves had come out to meet him in the wilderness, circling him alone in the snow. He said that the largest and fiercest of the wolves, the pack leader, had charged at him, intent on bringing him down but he had slain it. He said that the struggle was brutal and desparate and that the wolf gored him mightily but with a prayer on his lips he prevailed, butchering the beast with his axe in a berserk frenzy. Seeing their leader cut down, the other wolves backed off, confused and cowed by the enraged man amongst them.

“Then, with their sovereign slaughtered, the wolves hung their heads and slunk their tails. They circled round the Bishop and licked his wounds, as if anointing him their new chieftain. Bratenburg said he spoke to the wolves, whispered for them to leave his flock alone and move further north to some other hunting grounds. They listened and obeyed. And the Bishop crawled back to camp.”

“Do you believe that story?” Lara asked.

“Every word.”

“But it doesn't end there,” she said. “Did the wolves come back?”

The Bishop shook his head slowly. “No, the wolves stayed away. Bratenburg secluded himself to his cabin. He said he needed time to pray and contemplate over his ordeal. A week later, the village was awoken by a nightmarish howl in the night. The awful sounds came from the Bishop's quarters and when the elders approached his door, worried he was seized in some fit, a monster broke loose and slaughtered the first among them. It was a wolf but unlike any wolf they had seen. It was enormous and hellish to behold and it tore through the village, ravaging anyone in its path. The men scrambled for whatever meager weapons they had. The Bishop's own wife emerged bloodied and raw from the cabin and she screamed at the beast to stop. The great wolf turned on her, dragging the woman away into the darkness. The people listened as her cries were carried off in the night.

“There were three deaths and more than a dozen injured and broken. A search party was formed to find the Bishop's wife and in the morning, the party found what little was left of the poor woman. And lying naked and besmirched with filth among her broken bones was the Bishop. He was unconscious but still bore the marks of the beast. His hands were claws and his teeth were still that of a wolf. One of the men raised his cutlass to slay the Bishop where he lay but the others stayed his hand. Not knowing what to do, they bore the Bishop back to camp and set about caring for their injured. When the Bishop awoke, he was told what had happened and he fell to his knees and wept.”

“He was the first?” Lara shook her head at the idea. “That doesn't make sense..”

“He didn't believe it either. The Bishop withdrew from everyone while the injured all fell into that death trance. And then they too began to change. Some were slaughtered in their sickbeds but some escaped. The ones that still slept were burned at the stake in an attempt to cleanse the village of the evil. “

“What about the Bishop? He was still infected.”

“The Bishop took to flaying his flesh to keep the wolf at bay. In time he learned to keep it trapped inside himself. He built this stone prison for the time when he could not fight it off. He would lock himself into this Penance Hole to trap the beast and keep the village safe.”

Lara leaned forward and spit the blood from her mouth. “They should have just killed him.”

“But he was their Bishop, the founder of their order. Killing him was no simple task. He had the devil under his control and, aside from that first time, the wolf did not take another life nor injure anyone in the village. And when the monsters returned, the folk needed him most of all.”

Her eyes flickered up. “The werewolves came back?”

“They all come back. They're drawn to this place. To him. When the first werewolf showed up, the Bishop laid out a plan to his elders and went out alone to meet it. He lured it out into the open where his trap could be sprung. The elders charged at it with their weapons and brought it down. Then they burned the carcass in the square for all to see. But they knew this was not to be the last. The others would come.

“They all came back eventually. But they had spread their plague in the outer world. These eventually come here too, despite the fact that they had never stepped foot in this land before. Whether as the wolf or in the form of the cursed individual, they come. And the Bishop was waiting for them, with a troop of watchmen he had trained to take down the monsters. Generations after the fact, they still come, drawn to something they don't understand in this place. We remain vigilant until the last of the werewolves are destroyed.”

The Bishop hovered in, peering straight into the woman's eyes. “Like the beast you chased here. Like Grissom whom you put down. And the wolf that cursed you. And now you, Lara Mendes.” He took her chin in a hard grip and tilted her face to meet his. “I pray to God you are the last.”

He flung her away and turned for the door. Lara gritted her teeth at the man. “What happened to Bratenburg? Did they kill him after all that?”

The man's face darkened. He brushed a stray bit of straw from his hat and then fit it back onto his head and squared it. He stepped out of the dungeon without another word and slammed the door home with a heavy clang.

28

GRIFFIN HAD ALL BUT given up. Curled up in a corner of the prison cell, he stared at the stone floor and became very quiet. A small blessing after his marathon grousing and ranting earlier. Amy had watched him unwind through denial and rage until he unspooled into grim acceptance as the reality of their situation settled in.

Tasha wasn't faring much better. Sitting cross-legged on the floor beside her unconscious friend, she was rocking back and forth the way a distressed child does.

Amy had already cycled through her own anger and acceptance, circling the perimeter of the round cell looking for a loose stone or crumbling mortar in the wall to chip at. Completing another circumference, she stopped at the pallet to check on Jay. The color remained in his cheeks and his breathing was steady. The silver was working.

She looked up at Tasha. The rhythmic swaying was unnerving to see. Like a clock being wound too tight, eventually it would snap. “Hey,” Amy whispered to her. “Tasha, you all right?”

The young woman didn't respond.

Amy touched her arm and Tasha flinched. She softened her tone. “You still with us?”

“It's too noisy in here,” Tasha muttered.

Amy listened. Aside from the chirp of crickets outside, there was no sound at all. “I don't hear anything.”

“There's so much death. They're all screaming at me, wanting to tell their stories. It's too much.”

Amy watched the woman press her palms over her ears. She didn't know what to make of Tasha's abilities. She'd been raised a skeptic but the woman seemed to be in physical pain from something Amy could neither hear nor see. “Why do they want to tell you their stories?”

“It's what the dead want, the ones that get stuck here. They need to tell their tragedies to anyone who can hear. And their stories are awful.”

“How so?”

“The misery. Some were torn apart by wolves, others were cut down with axes after being accused of being in league with the devil. Some were burnt alive.”

Amy groped for something to say, something that could help, but she was in over her head. “Can't you shut them out? Turn off your radar, whatever?”

“Normally I can but not this time. There are too many of them and they know I can hear them. There's something wrong with this place.”

Amy rested her hand on Tasha's shoulder. “No kidding.”

The woman's eyes snapped onto Amy's. “No, something else. Beyond the ghosts and the misery and that weirdo preacher man. There's something else here, Amy.”

“What is it?”

“I don't know. I can't see it. I can just feel it's here. And it scares me.”

“Okay.” Not knowing how to comfort the woman, Amy changed topics. “Is Jay doing any better?”

“He seems okay.”

There was still flecks of dried blood on the man's arms and neck. “Maybe we can clean him up a little?”

Amy turned to get the bucket of water when a clang of iron rang through the cell. The sound of a bolt sliding back and then the heavy door swung open on its creaky hinges. The young man who had brought them food earlier stepped into the room.

Silas looked at Amy as she rose to her feet. “Come with me.”

“Are letting us go?”

“I need your help,” he said. “Please.”

Amy took a step back. “Why should I help you?”

“My brother is getting worse. Will you save him the way you saved your friend?”

She looked down at Jay then back up at the young man. “I didn't save him. I didn't cure him.”

“But he’s not suffering anymore. Jacob is only a boy. Please.” His lip was quivering and he clenched his jaw to bite back the tears. “I know I am already indebted to you for saving my life and I have no right to ask for anything from you. But Jacob—”

Amy watched his face twist up as he pushed down his tears. One spilled over and ran hot down his cheek. “Okay. But you have to help me.”

“I will do what I can.”

“Where is Lara? The woman who was with us?”

“She is locked in the penance hole.”

“The what?”

“It's a dungeon,” he said. “An awful place.”

“You have to help me get her out of there.”

He shook his head. “It's guarded by the watchmen. There's no way to get her out. But you, alone, I could slip out.”

“And leave them behind?”

“And get away from here. Go to the English. Bring the authorities.” He took her hand. “Will you help my brother?”

“Yes.”

There was a bundle of material draped over his arm. He held it out to her. “Put this on.”

Amy unfurled the garment. A heavy cloak and a bonnet like the kind worn by the women in the village. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“Disguise yourself as one of us. There's no other way to get you across the square.”

Amy hated the very idea and said so as she flung the cloak over her shoulders. It hung heavy and smelled of woodsmoke. Sighing loudly, she coiled her hair up and fitted the bonnet over her head. She turned to Tasha. “Will you be okay?”

A slight smile broke over Tasha’s face. “That look really suits you.”

“Oh shut up.” She turned to Silas and followed him out the door.

~

The bonnet didn't sit right and Amy fought the urge to tear it away as they marched across the square. A few men milled about near the door to a blacksmith's shop and two women hurried past with baskets tucked under each arm. Amy scanned the thoroughfare and clocked two watchmen at the main gate and a third manning the crow’s nest perch above the garrison wall.

“Keep your eyes down,” Silas hissed at her. “And walk behind me.”

“Behind you?”

“That is how it is here. Just do it.”

The watchman on the stoop turned in their direction and Amy quickly drew her gaze to the ground, letting the folds of the bonnet hide her face. Had the guard seen her? He must have, for he called out to them.

“Keep walking,” Silas whispered. He stopped and called back in the same tongue. Amy kept marching, head down and straight ahead. Which house belonged to Silas? She had no idea. Slowing her pace, she listened to Silas banter with the man, their words punctuated by laughter. What they were saying was beyond her but it didn't sound threatening or antagonistic.

“Straight ahead,” he said coming up behind her. “The house on the left, with the twin gables.”

Spotting it, she corrected her course and kept her head down. Silas drew up alongside her and she slowed to let him take the lead. He went past the front entrance, down the side to the back porch and ushered her into the house. Her eyes adjusted to the dim light cast by two lanterns over a double woodstove and chipped porcelain sink of a rustic looking kitchen.

Silas put a finger to his lips for her to be silent. When no sound issued from further inside the house, his shoulders slackened in relief. “I'm sorry. Our ways are different to yours. I couldn't risk drawing attention.”

Amy tore the ridiculous bonnet from her hair. “So the women keep to the shadows, head down and no talking.”

“Yes,” he said flatly, as if there was some other possible way. “Jacob's room is upstairs.”

“Hold on. I need silver to treat your brother. Do you have any? And a knife. A sharp one.”

He reached into a pocket and held up something pinched between his fingers. A sharp triangle of silver. He dropped it into her outstretched palm.

“What is it?”

“Tip of a halberd,” he replied. “It broke off the weapon during the fight with the wolf. Will it do?”

She said it would. He took her hand and led her upstairs.

The bedroom was stuffy and the air reeked of something sour. Flies buzzed against a window of crown glass. The boy in the bed was still and pale. At first glance, Amy thought they were too late.

“You see the state he is in.” Silas drew the curtain to let the sun in, scattering the flies. “Hurry.”

Amy flattened her palm over the boy's cold brow. “I need a knife and a cloth. And something to bandage him up with.”

He placed a small knife on the bedside table while Amy peeled back the sheets. She looked over the boy's small body wondering where to cut. Somewhere fleshy and safe or closer to the heart? She settled on the belly. The cut didn't need to be deep but the metal had to touch the bloodstream. She gathered up the knife and hovered the blade over the soft flesh of the boy's abdomen. Her hand trembled.

“Are you certain?” Silas knelt at her side with a linen at the ready.

“It'll be safe. He might react to it. Hold him down.”

Silas clamped his hands over his brother's arms and Amy cut the blade into the skin. The boy flinched and jerked. Amy fumbled the silver on her first try, scrambling to pick up the piece again.

“Hurry. I can barely hold him down.”

“Almost there.”

Blood welled up in the wound she had sliced, making it hard to see. Pressing down, she slid the pointed end of silver into the cut and thumbed it deep. The boy went into spasms, his teeth chittering in some guttural moan, then he fell limp under Silas's hands.

They watched the color bloom back into his face and his breathing become steady. Amy thumbed back an eyelid to reveal a perfectly normal pupil contracting against the sunlight from the window. No telltale amber color or unearthly glow.

“You did it,” he gushed, almost pushing her aside to see into his brother's eyes. “You cured him.”

“It's a band-aid.”

“A what?”

“It manages the symptoms but not the disease. There is no cure.”

He wasn't listening to her, the elation spilling over his face. “You eased his pain. That’s what matters.”

“Well—” Her words were cut short when he caught her up in an embrace and squeezed her tight.

“Thank you,” he whispered into her ear.

Amy stiffened up. Silas released her and they stood facing one another with their eyes bouncing off everything in the room. Neither spoke and the moment tipped over into awkwardness. Relief came with the boom of footfalls on the stairs.

His face fell. “My father.”

There was no time to act, no escape save leaping through the window. The door flung open and Silas's mother and father entered the room. They both startled at the sight of a girl in the room.

Herr Hostetler sputtered. “Who is this girl? What is she doing in my house?”

Amy felt her cheeks flush hot as Silas stepped in front of her, as if to protect her from a blow. “I brought her here. To help Jacob.”

“Help? Help how?”

“Look.” The mother rushed to the bed and smoothed her hand over the boy's face. “His face. His blood is back. He's warm. Feel him!”

The father bent closer and touched his boy's cheek. Disbelief broke over the man's face and his mouth corkscrewed with anguish as the mother uttered prayers of thanks.

The man composed himself and turned a harsh eye first on the stranger, then his son. He snapped something in German to Silas.

“I had to do something,” Silas replied in English. “Jacob was dying. She knows how to help.”

“She's an outsider. She has no place being in our home.” The father clasped a hand to his brow. “What have you done? Do you have any idea the laws you've broken by sneaking her out of the keep?”

Amy broke in. Even in a different language, she understood the scolding. “Please. Silas just wanted to help.”

The woman turned and said something to the man. He clenched his fist and motioned to the door. “Wait downstairs.”

Entering the kitchen Silas motioned for her to sit and poured water from a pitcher into a tin cup. He set it before her on the table. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” Amy said. “Wait. I'm starving.”

She watched him open the larder and come back to the table with a brick of cheese and a plate of biscuits. Taking a paring knife, he sheared wedges from the cheese and pushed it towards her. “It's not much.”

“It's fine. Thank you.” The first taste of it roused her stomach and she tucked in. The biscuits were hard but she polished it off in seconds. Amy nodded at the stairs to the second floor. “How much trouble are you in?”

“Enough.” He swept the crumbs from the table. “Jacob is better. That's all that matters.”

“Are you two close?”

“Close?” His brow furrowed, as if he didn’t understand the question. “He's my brother. Do you have siblings?”

“No, just me. I always wanted a sister.”

“I find that sad. Everyone should have siblings.” He turned the knife in his hand then laid it back down on the table. “It must be lonely sometimes.”

Amy shrugged. “I guess. I don't have anything to compare it to. Do you have other siblings or just Jacob?”

“There were more. I had two brothers and a sister.”

“Had?”

“They died.”

“I'm sorry.” She watched his eyes dim. Old grief breaking the surface. “How did they-- I mean, was it a wolf?”

He shook his head. “No. One brother fell during a barn raising, the other died in a fire. Mary was taken by the fever.”

“Three siblings. I can't imagine what that’s like. I can see why you'd brave your neck to save Jacob.”

She ran a hand through her hair. It felt dirty and tangled in her fingers and she suddenly wanted to shower. She caught Silas watching her but his gaze shot away when caught.

“Brave? Says the girl who faced down a wolf. Where did you learn to shoot a gun?”

“My father taught me.”

His eyes widened. “Your father lets you run the forest stalking monsters?”

“He died.”

“Oh.” Taken aback, he watched her eyes glisten up. Without thinking about what he was doing, he placed his hand overtop hers. “I'm sorry for your loss, Amy. It wasn't that long ago, was it?”

“No. I keep waiting for it to get better or not hurt so much. You know?” She was surprised at her own frankness. Grief was something she never discussed. It seemed different now, in this place. With him. “Maybe there’s just something wrong with me. I can’t seem to move on. It’s confusing.”

Silas almost laughed. “You don’t move on.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It doesn’t happen,” he said. “My father would get frustrated with me. He’d tell me to move on, not to linger in grief. But there is no moving on. You just learn to live with the absence.”

Amy watched his hand laid atop hers. His thumb grooved over her knuckles as if tracing a pattern. Something deep down was rumbling and threatening to burst the dam. It took all she had to hold it down. She wished he would stop talking.

“You will see him again,” he said in a soft tone. “Some day. Take comfort in that.”

“Please stop,” she whispered.

The pounding on the stairs shut everything down and Amy had just enough time to wipe her eyes dry before his parents entered the kitchen. The mother and father towered over them and Amy girded herself for the coming reprimand. She gaped in surprise when Silas's mother threw her arms around her and buried Amy's face in her dress. The woman prattled on in a language Amy could not understand, kissing the top of her head. The words were foreign but the meaning was not.

Silas leaned forward. “She's thanking you and asking God to bless you.”

“Oh.” Amy was released from the embrace and looked up at the woman. “Thank you. I mean, no problem.”

The woman smacked a kiss on Amy's brow and patted her cheek, prattling rapidly in German. She straightened up, said something curtly to the father and hurried out the door.

A husband dressed down by his spouse is universal in any language. The man glowered but said nothing as his wife ran outside. He looked down at his son and the English girl seated at his table. He folded his arms, his face a wither of dismay.

“How is Jacob?” Silas said in English.

“He is peaceful.”

Silas nodded his chin in Amy's direction. “She did it. She saved him.”

“I didn't save him, Silas. I told you that.”

The father glared at her. “What am I to do with you? Or you, Silas? The Bishop will flay your hide if he learns that you let the girl out.”

Silas bowed his head. “I know. Will you tell him?”

The father rubbed his eyes but made no reply.

Silas pushed his chair back and stood, waving at Amy to do the same. He turned to the patriarch. “Father, I'd like you meet Amy...”

“Gallagher,” she added.

“Amy Gallagher. Amy, this is my father; Abram Hostetler.”

Protocol demanded that Herr Hostetler welcome and protect anyone under his roof. He bowed curtly, omitting a handshake before turning a sharp eye on his son. “You must take her back. Quickly, before anyone notices her missing.”

“I promised I would help her,” Silas said.

Herr Hostetler grimaced as he looked at Amy. “I am truly grateful for helping my boy, I am, but if the Bishop finds out what Silas has done, I will lose him. Do you understand?”

“I do,” Amy said. “But they can't keep us locked up like prisoners. We have to get out of here.”

“You know she's right, father. Keeping them against their will is wrong—”

Hostetler raised a hand, interrupting his son. “I know that. I will talk to the Bishop but for now, the girl has to go back.”

Amy felt like a child, spoken of in the third person while in the room. She could see Silas struggling to keep his head up. He clearly wasn't used to disobeying his father. Patriarchal rules were ironclad in this anachronistic place.

The father clasped a hand over his son's shoulder. “I'm sorry. Take her back.”

Silas wavered, caught in a shaft of sunlight from the window. A thin sheen of sweat broke over his brow.

Silas's mother rushed into the kitchen, clutching hands with another woman. This frau looked no older than Amy but she wore her bonnet and shift in the style of the other married mothers. With her eyes red with tears, the woman rushed in and clasped Amy's hands. She spoke rapidly at Amy, pleading with her about something.

Hostetler barked at his wife but she waved her hand at him. The frau panted rapidly and Amy looked to Silas for help. “What does she want?”

“Her husband was ravaged by the wolf too. Frau Goerzner wants you to save him the way you saved Jacob.”

29

A SMALL CRACK IN THE window pane let a breeze into the study, fluttering the wick of the candle on the table. The Bishop sat propped in a chair with a finger pressed to his lips studying the guttering taper. He hadn't stirred in almost an hour, his eyes narrowing to slits. What thoughts burned behind those lidded eyes only God knew.

A knock at the door broke his meditations and he barked at the person to enter. Watchman Keisler stepped into the room clutching a heavy canvass bag. Keisler was dark and sober and followed orders to the letter. For these reasons, the Bishop had anointed him captain of the watch.

The bottom of the canvas bag was dark and wet. A single drop fell to the floor, splattering red onto the scuffed hardwood.

The Bishop 's gaze fell to the blood on his floor then up to Watchman Keisler. “Is that it?”

“Yes, sir.” Keisler raised the satchel a few inches. “It's heavy.”

“Good. Then let's get this over with.”

They quit the house and marched west, away from the main part of the village. The Bishop led the way through the green stalks of timothy, dangling a hoop of iron keys in his hand. Looking back over his shoulder, he said “Where's the rest of it?”

“In the ice shed behind your quarters.”

“Good. Has anyone come asking about their...remnants?”

“Frau Lindstum did. She was quite upset too.”

“I'll speak with her.”

The field rose on an incline and the two men crested the rise to the plateau of a graveyard. Trudging through the tombstones, they drew up before a building of mortared fieldstone. The Bishop unlocked the iron gate and let Keisler enter. Before them was the vault to the masoleum, on the left stood the passage to the Penance hole and its sole occupant. Keisler struck a match to light the lantern and their shadows flitted over the rows of votive candles. Moving past the vault, Keisler stopped before a trapdoor in the floor. Brushing aside the withered flower petals, he hauled the trapdoor open by its ring. Wooden steps led down into darkness, each one groaning under their boots as they descended.

Watchman Keisler almost fell with the heavy satchel and the Bishop held his arm as he gingered the last steps to an uneven floor of hewn earth. The walls were sheer rock, the ceiling held aloft by beams like an old mining shaft. Keisler readjusted his grip on the bag and followed his Bishop down the passageway.

The stench, already nosed from the top of the narrow stairs, intensified until both men covered their snouts with their hands. The low guttural noises coming from further on bounced off the stone walls all around them and then the passage opened up into a vast darkness. The floor before them fell away in a sheer drop and the stench burned their eyes.

The watchman let the bag fall to the ground as the Bishop hung the lantern on a peg and lit another lamp on the opposite side of the doorway. The added light did nothing to push back the darkness. The space was cavernous, a chasm plunging away before them and down in the darkness something shuffled with unearthly clamor.

The Bishop flung open the heavy sack and then turned to Keisler. “Do we know whom this belongs to?”

“Lundstrom, sir.”

The Bishop reached into the bag and lifted out something wet and dripping. As mutilated and broken as it was, it was still recognizable as an arm. Three of the fingers were missing from the hand and the Bishop wondered whether the pieces were still inside the satchel or lost altogether.

The noise coming from down in the pit grew louder as the smell of blood drifted up from the satchel. A cacophony of snarling and popping teeth grew louder as the Bishop dangled the limb over the edge.

“A Pentecost gift for your black soul.” He dropped the limb into the pit.

The obscene noise from the pit grew louder. The Bishop stood and kicked the satchel over the edge and turned for the archway.

Locking the mausoleum, the Bishop and his watchman trudged back through the weed blown cemetery without another word. A voice in the night caught their ears and they looked up to see watchman Hess running towards them, the shins of his trousers damp from the dewy weeds.

“Bishop,” he panted as he drew up. “Come. There's trouble.”

The Bishop scowled. There was blood on his hands and all he wanted right now was to scrub them clean. “What is it now?”

“The girl,” Hess spat, hands on his knees. “The English girl. She's a witch.”

“What are you talking about?”

“She's doing something to the injured. They claim she's curing them.”

The Bishop's sullied hands clenched into tight fists. “Where is she?”

~

The silver was provided by the stricken man's wife, a silver thimble given to her by her grandmother. It was a keepsake more than a tool, kept hidden away in her sewing kit. After leading Amy to her husband's bedside, Frau Goerzner pressed it into her hand and pleaded with her in a rapidfire tongue. Amy looked to Silas for help.

“She's begging you to save the father of her four children,” he translated.

She did what was asked, making a small incision and slipping the silver under the man's flesh. The wife prattled on and Amy stepped away as the woman cleaned and dressed the wound. Of the four children standing vigil around the bed, the eldest boy turned to her and thanked her in English.

“Here.” Silas pulled her away to the window. Holding a linen in his hand, he nodded at the basin of water on the dresser. “You can wash your hands.”

Rinsing her hands in the cold water, she said “They don't need me to do this. Just show them how to do it.”

“We can't. It's a sin to cut into another's flesh.”

“Even to save them? What does the doctor do?”

“He heals without cutting.” He watched her frown then looked down at his shoes. “You think we're backwards, don't you?”

“I just don't understand. Don't you ever…” She shrugged the thought aside.

“What?”

“Do you ever question it? This way of life?”

“It's all I've ever known.” He held the linen out. “Give me your hands.”

She looked skeptical for a moment before lifting her dripping hands from the basin. He folded the towel over them and patted her hands dry. “Do you ever question your way of life?” he asked.

“All the time.”

His fingers clenched over hers through the thin material. “And what do you do about it?”

Amy paused. “Nothing.”

“Well. Maybe you and I are not so different after all.”

She saw a hint of a grin crease his lips. For some reason, she expected him to wink but he did not.

She was nudged from the side as another person crowded into the bedroom. Silas noted the newcomers and how they whispered amongst themselves, their eyes darting from the man in the sickbed and back to Amy.

His grin fell away. “Word is spreading about what you've done. More plain folk are going to come to you for help.”

“I have to find Lara.”

“She's in the penance hole. We can't get her out of there.”

She flung the towel onto the dresser. “Then I need to get out of here.”

“All right. Let's go now.” He took her hand and slipped through the crowd towards the door. “Put the cloak back on. Where's the bonnet?”

“I’m not putting that back on.” She draped the cloak over her shoulder and pulled the hood over, shading her eyes. “Move.”

They pushed through the hallway towards the stairs. His hand squeezed tight over hers as if afraid he would lose her. She bumped up against him when Silas stopped cold at the top of the stairs.

The Bishop stood at the landing, flanked by two of his watchmen.

Amy shrank away as Silas moved to hide her. The Bishop flew up two steps at a time, elbowing Silas aside as he strode towards the bedroom. Everyone cowed and flinched at his booming voice, berating them all in German. Four people ran from the room and thundered down the stairs.

Amy peaked over Silas's shoulder to see the Bishop tear the hat from his head and haze the family from the bed like cattle. The children scurried away but the wife refused to leave. Watchman Keisler tore her from her husband's side and pushed her onto her knees as the Bishop paced the floorboards, his deep voice echoing off the thin wooden walls.

She leaned closer to Silas's ear. “What's he saying?”

“He's telling them to pray for their sins and weak spirit. For letting their weakness lead them to witchcraft.”

The Bishop fumed and railed before turning to the man laying peacefully in the bed and flinging the sheet back. Tearing the dressing away, he dug his finger and thumb into the wound until blood seeped down the man's belly to stain the sheets. The Bishop grunted triumphantly and held his hand high, the bloodied thimble pinched between his fingers. He flung it out the open window.

The horror was immediate. The injured man started to quake in a fit and a long moan of anguish spilled from his throat. The wife rose to comfort him but Keisler pushed her back down. The Bishop barked orders at his men as he pinned the injured man down, struggling to contain the violent paroxysms.

Amy heard Silas gasp at the leader's words. She gripped his elbow harder. “What is it? What did he say?”

“He ordered his men to tie him down,” Silas whispered. “He said he would cure the man himself, here and now.”

“How?”

When he turned to look at her, his face was pale. “He's going to exorcise the demons from the man.”

~

The noise was unbearable. The watchmen had driven everyone from the room so the Bishop could perform the rite of exorcism. Before being chased off, Silas caught a glimpse of the Bishop preparing himself. He had shrugged off his long jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, like a brawler getting ready to enter the ring.

Neighbors crowded into the parlor to comfort the family. Women fussed in the kitchen to make tea while the men stood idle, all pretending not to hear the terrible noises coming from the upstairs bedroom. The Bishop's voice boomed in fury and the stricken man alternated between cries of agony and snarls of rage. The house shook from the banging and crashing on the second floor, as if the two men were hurling one another into the walls.

For once, Amy was grateful that she did not understand their language. She did not want to know what the Bishop was bellowing about nor listen to the people in the room comforting the family at the table. The whole atmosphere felt like a funeral with mourners mumbling in hushed tones and it reminded her of her father. There had been no funeral, no wake of any kind then. She immediately wanted to leave.

“I have to get out of here,” she said. Without another word, they made for the door.

Silas's father appeared out of nowhere, his eyes dark with a cool anger. “You must take the girl back. Quickly, before the watchmen see her.”

“I can't,” Silas said. “I promised I would help her.”

The man's eyes darted coldly to Amy. “I don't care what you promised. You're putting our family at risk.”

“We are indebted to her,” Silas spat back. “All of us.”

“Use your brains. What will the Bishop do when he finds out?”

Silas wagged his chin at the awful sounds spilling from the bedroom. “Do you want him to perform that on Jacob?”

Amy watched the older man clench down his anger. His eyes were damp and he looked away to hide them. He didn’t seem like a bad man, Amy thought. Just caught in bad circumstances.

Something was suddenly wrong. She thought it was another noise but realized it was the lack of it. The room upstairs fell silent and then like a wave, the silence fell across the people assembled on the main floor. All eyes lifted to the bedroom door.

It swung open with a rusty creak and the Bishop emerged. He looked as if he had been assaulted and left for dead. His hair was plastered across his brow with sweat, his shirt torn and disheveled. He leaned over the railing and looked down on the assembled folk.

“It is finished,” he said. “The devil has been cast out. God has shown mercy on brother Georzen. He has been saved.”

Both watchmen stepped into the hallway, holding the stricken man between them. Goerzner's head lolled limply on his neck. The Bishop lifted his chin and the man's eyes opened. Exhausted but lucid, he mumbled a prayer of thanks and his bearers carried him back into the room.

The Bishop smeared a forearm across his brow before addressing the families again. “The Lord has granted us His mercy by showing us the way. Tomorrow, we will exorcise all of the injured and sick. With God's clemency, we will save their souls from this evil.”

Amy looked to Silas but the young man's jaw was slung open in silence.

30

“YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN this coming.” Griffin sat with his knees to his chest to keep warm. The stone walls of the silo were cool and the dampness had seeped into his bones. He glared at the woman across the room. “You should have predicted this would have happened.”

Tasha didn’t even bother to look at him. “I'm not a diviner, Griffin.”

“Maybe you should start,” he grumbled. “Next time we go out on a case, you can cut open a dead pigeon and read the future in its guts.”

“You want a haruspex for that. Not my field.”

“Whatever.”

Tasha rotated her neck. “Tell you what. If we get out of here, I'll recommend one. Cause I fucking quit.”

“Good,” he spat back. “You're dead weight anyway.”

Each party looked away from the other. Neither had spoken loud or bellowed. There was no need, given the acoustics of the stone construction. When the third voice spoke, it boomed over the round interior.

“Would you two shut the fuck up?”

Tasha and Griffin startled in the same beat, eyes darting to the pallet. Jay sat up rubbing the sleep from his eyes.

“Jay?”

“How you feeling, buddy?” Griffin patted his friend's back. “You gave us a hell of a scare.”

Jay looked up at them in a bewildered haze, his movements slow. “I need some water.”

Tasha brought the tin cup from the bucket and passed it to his shaky hands. “How do you feel? Are you in pain?”

Water dribbled down his beard. “I feel kind of numb.”

“Maybe numb is good,” Griffin said. “You really got put through the ringer.”

Jay looked at Griffin and then Tasha. “What happened?”

Tasha studied the young man's face. “You don't remember?”

“Everything's kind of a blur.” Jay's eyes rolled slowly across the room, blinking in confusion. “What the hell is this?”

Tasha glanced quickly at Griffin before answering. “We're still in that village. With the Amish people. Do you remember?”

“Yeah but... What the hell kinda hospital do they run?” He tried to sit up straight but winced at the effort. His eyes went down to the bandages on his arm. “What the hell happened? That kid didn't hit me with the shotgun, did she?”

Tasha tried her best poker face but if it was anything like Griffin's, the truth was leaking out. Jay didn't remember the wolf or being attacked. He didn't know what had happened to him.

The cameraman's expression fell at seeing his friend's hesitation. “Dude, quit freaking me out. What is it?”

Tasha cursed their captors for taking her cigarettes. “Jay, you got hurt in the attack. That thing—”

The clang of iron rang through the cell. The door pushed open and three of the black clad watchmen strode in. The first one hazed Griffin and Tasha back while the other two snatched Jay by the arms and ferried him to the door.

“Hey, get offa me!” Jay struggled in their grip but his injuries sapped his strength. “Griffin!”

Griffin barked at the watchman. “Where are you taking him?”

The watchman's teeth flashed as he sneered in English. “To the Bishop.”

“Why?” Tasha said. “What does the Bishop want with him?”

“He is cursed.” The watchman turned and followed his companions out the door. “He is to be exorcised of his demons.”

Tasha felt her jaw give out. “Did he say exorcised?”

~

Under the cast of the pole star, two figures slipped from the Goerzner house and darted over the weed blown lot. Silas had stood slackjawed at the Bishop's words when he felt a hand clamp his wrist and yank him to the door. The English girl pulled him away and they bolted from the house. Huddled low against a shed, they watched the path but no pursuers burst from the doors after them.

Silas leaned back against the barnboard. “Jacob won't survive an ordeal like that. What am I going to do?”

“You’re gonna help me find Lara.”

He shook his head. “That's too risky. You need to flee now. Come back with the English authorities to get your friends.”

“I can't leave Lara here. Where is she being held?”

“Amy, you'll get caught—”

She snatched him by the collar. “You promised you would help me. Show me where she is.”

His anger flared at being accosted so. No woman had ever laid a hand on him like that, not even his own mother but his anger blew off when he saw the desperation in her eyes. “This way.”

They kept to the shadows as they scurried from house to house. Word of the Bishop's decision was spreading fast as the mourners ran to tell the other families what was to become of their injured. Cries and wails drifted up from one house after another as news dominoed through the village.

Amy peered around the next corner. “Where is it?”

Silas pointed. “There.”

Amy followed his lead to where a tall structure rose up from the gravestones of the cemetery. Another stone silo with an iron gate set in its arched doorway, it towered up like an enormous termite mound. There was no way to approach it unseen. Amy scanned for stragglers and then sprinted off at a dead run.

“Wait!” Silas hissed but it was too late. Amy was halfway across the graveyard. He bolted after her.

They collided into the gate. Amy tugged on it but the door rattled in its frame, locked tight. Silas flattened his back against the wall and eyeballed the cemetery to see if they had been seen.

“Only the watchmen and the Bishop have keys to the penance hole,” he said. “We can't get her out.”

Amy knelt in the weeds to take a closer look at the lock. The iron block was big and rusted, the slot channeled for an archaic skeleton key. She patted her pockets down but remembered they had been emptied by her stone-faced captors. But there was the bonnet. Threaded into the back was a large pin meant to secure the hat into one's hair. It might work. Pressing it flat against the iron block, she bent the pin and then worked it into the lock.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” Amy prodded the needle into the breach, probing for a gear to turn. “I'm picking the lock.”

His brow crinkled. “Where did you learn to do that?”

“My dad taught me.”

“Your father. Was he a burglar?”

A loud click. Amy swung the gate open. “He was a police officer.”

His face darkened then he followed her inside. “I don't understand you at all.”

Stepping into a deeper darkness, Amy groped forward until she found another door. The air smelled dank and rotten. Silas produced a box of matches from his pocket and struck one. The door before her was wooden with a simple breech bolt. Opening this door revealed nothing but darkness.

“Lara?”

A soft tinkle of chains came from the dark cell. Then nothing.

“Amy, wait,” said Silas.

“The watchmen are headed this way,” he gasped.

“Did they see us?”

“I don't think so.” He tossed the matchbox to her. “Take this. I'm going to head them off. Be quick!”

He slipped back outside before Amy could reply. Closing the wooden door, she fumbled up a match. The dark cell was was damp and smelled awful. “Lara? It's me. Where are you?”

The match crackled as it ignited. The teardrop flame was tiny in that darkness, revealing nothing but her own hand. Amy tiptoed forward, calling her friend's name. The chains tinkled again and she followed its sound and Lara swam up in the pale light.

She hung limply from the irons manacled to her wrists. Her head was tilted to one side, as if she was unconscious or dead and Amy could see another constraint around her neck. A broad collar of black iron, it too chained to a coupling in the stone wall.

“Lara!” Amy ran to her, lifting her head up and calling her name but Lara Mendes didn't respond or even stir. Her head rolled loose as if broken and Amy felt for pulse. Was she too late? There was a heartbeat but it was faint and Lara was cold to the touch.

Amy sought out the manacle clasped over Lara’s wrist. The metal was bolted together with an iron pin. Tugging on it proved useless, the pin required some kind of tool to winch out.

She cast the match flame around the floor, hoping the necessary tool was left within reach. There was nothing. A few rags and a slop bucket. The flame seared her fingers and she dropped the match and the darkness swallowed them both again.

The chains rattled softly. Another sound in the dark, this time a low guttural noise. Scrambling for another match, she spilled half the matchsticks to the floor.

“Amy...?”

Relief broke across Amy. Lara was conscious. “I'm here, Lara. It's okay. We're gonna get out of here.”

“Amy.” The woman's voice sounded hoarse and brittle. “Get away.”

“I just need to get the cuff off of you.” The remaining matches spilled from the box. Amy caught one and struck it.

The woman in chains looked nothing like Lara Mendes. Her eyes glowed with that diabolical light that Amy relived in her nightmares every night. Lara's face twisted up in rage and her arms swung out as they pulled against the restraints.

“Get away from me,” the woman growled.

The change was coming over Lara. Amy could see the sharper teeth in the woman's snarl, her fingernails curling into claws. Yet it seemed to stop there, the transformation stuck in an early phase.

“Lara, you have to push it down. Don't let it take you—”

The woman lunged at her, an unnatural roar spilling out. A wild animal caged.

“Stop it!” Amy reared back. “What have they done to you?”

“You...” Lara spat, her words gritted in a barely decipherable snarl. “You wanted to come here. You wanted to make things right. You stupid stupid girl.”

The words stung and Amy scolded herself to think hard. Lara was stuck in some early phase of the change. From the bruises and contusions on her face, she had clearly been beaten. Pushed to the breaking point, Lara wasn't herself, Amy told herself. Don't listen. She's lashing out, that's all. Still, the words bit hard.

“Lara, you need to calm down. I'm gonna get you out of here. But you have to push the wolf down.”

The woman flailed against the chains, her jaw chomping as she snarled a single word over and over. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

She had to snap Lara out of it. Without thinking, she wound up and smacked the woman hard across the face. “Enough!”

The woman startled for a moment but didn't cease her accusation.

All her life, Amy had been taught to be the bigger person in a dispute. Don't lower yourself to the other person's rage, she had been told by both parents. One of the few points of agreement between them. Amy did her best but sometimes she failed. Squaring Lara in the eye, she spat back. “And dad would still be alive if it wasn't for you.”

The woman flinched, words biting back. Her arms ceased flailing against the chains and her chin dropped. When her eyes came up again, they were clear. “Amy,” she coughed in a hoarse whisper. “I can't stop this. If you undo the chains, I don't know what I'll do.”

“I can't just leave you here.”

“Yes you can.”

Amy took a step back. Fatigue seeped into her bones and she didn’t know what to do. Too many decisions, too many hard choices. She was tired of trying to catch up with all the craziness in this awful place.

“Amy...”

Amy shook off the withering indecision and looked up.

Lara's voice sounded nothing like her. “They're coming. Run.”

Stepping out of the cell into the anteroom, she could hear a commotion outside. Voices bellowing in anger. The Bishop's men. Then another voice. Silas.

Sliding to the outer door, she looked out over the graveyard. Silas was thrown to the ground by three of the watchmen. One pinned him down with his knees while the other two looked up at the mausoleum and came running.

31

THERE WAS NO WAY out without being seen. Behind her was the prison cell, to her left a vault of old candles and dead flowers. Amy felt her heart constrict like a fist as she backed into the vault, eyes darting around in a panic. Then her foot hit something on the floor. An iron hoop ring, and around that the faint outline of a seam. A trapdoor. Snatching up the ring, she hauled it out of its casement and pushed it aside. Darkness within. Striking another match, she slunk inside and heaved the door home.

She almost fell down the stairs that yawned open before her. Narrow and steep, the steps plunged dangerously into more darkness. Two lanterns hung from pegs on the wall to her left. She lit one and slid it from its roost and descended the stairs. The steps narrowed into winders, cutting left and left again before coming to a landing . A passageway hewn from the earth, the ceiling only a few feet over her head and held up by old timbers. Ten paces on and the smell of moldy earth gave way to a stench of rot and decay and something else Amy could not identify. She stopped, the stink warning her back but there was no other way to go.

A noise rumbled in, filling the passageway. She wasn’t alone down here. Amy patted her pockets for a weapon that she knew wasn't there but she searched anyway. The noise timbered again but did not seem any closer. She took another step, tiptoeing onward.

The tight corridor opened up into a massive space, a cavern deep underground. She could see no ceiling or walls, just the floor as it ended in a sheer cliff. The noise that thundered through the dark came from below.

It was a wolf, of that she had no doubt. Its growl hitched into a snarl and she knew it had smelled her but she inched forward to the edge where the floor dropped away into nothingness. The thing was down there at the bottom of some pit. Lifting the lantern over the edge, she waited for its soft light to reach the bottom.

A ridged back cut through the darkness like a shark fin, its knotty spine poking through the razorback pelage. The coat was filthy and bald in patches, the monster's vertebrae rippling in knots along its back. The thing was enormous and horrid and it looked like no wolf she had ever seen. A true monster and when it lifted its snout to look up at her, she scrambled back not wanting to see anymore. What the hell was it? The term demon flitted through her head before she pushed it aside. Why was it down here?

It roared at her from its pit and a greater stench wafted up from below. Amy swung the lantern about looking for some other passage or exit but there was none. One way in, one way out.

The sound of boots thundered from the corridor and Amy backed up but there was nowhere to go. Two watchmen burst onto the gallery and she was trapped between the thing in the pit and the blackguard at the entrance.

The first watchman dove at her and she swung the lantern down hard, breaking the glass over his ear. The other one moved too fast and she felt the first blow against her jaw, followed by a boot to her stomach. Then everything went dark as the flame in the broken lantern snuffed out.

~

Silas had no intention of fighting the watchmen, only to stall them to allow Amy to find her friend. The blackguard were in no mood to listen, let alone parlay. The first blow knocked him flat, the second exploded against his gut as he hit the ground. He curled into a ball to protect himself.

A pair of legs strode into his sight line and when he squinted up through his swollen eye, he saw the Bishop. For a tiny moment, he couldn't remember what he had done nor how he had gotten here. When it came back, he wished he was dead.

The Bishop glared, his voice timbered with disgust. “Your weakness surprises me, Silas. Led astray by a girl? I thought you were stronger than that.”

The shame of it was physical, a burning ember lodged in his gullet. Silas said nothing.

“I had hopes,” the Bishop continued, “of you joining the watchmen. Your seminary was to begin in the fall. I overestimated you.”

The Bishop was about to go on but stopped when a holler sounded from the hill. Two watchmen ran forward with the missing English girl between them. “We found her,” huffed watchman Keisler.

“Where?”

Keisler fired a glance at Silas before answering. “Below the penance hole.”

Amy struggled against her captors, a look of pure murder fixed on the Bishop. “What is that thing? Where did it come from--”

“Shut her mouth,” the Bishop barked, flapping a hand to dismiss her.

Keisler popped a linen rag from his pocket and gagged Amy with it.

Silas fumed watching the girl mistreated. Her lip was swollen and bleeding, her cheeks blowing as she breathed through the gag. He shot to his feet. “Don't hurt her.”

The Bishop glowered at the young man's protest. “How did she get out of the stockade, Silas?”

Silas locked eyes with Amy but bit his tongue, silence condemning him.

“Led astray by a girl,” the Bishop sneered. “An English too, not even a plain girl. You're a disgrace, Silas Hostetler.”

Silas dipped his head in shame, a reflexive instinct to the Bishop's scolding. It galled him, the unquestioning power this man held over him. His situation, he decided, couldn’t get much worse. He straightened up and returned the man’s glare. “She didn't do anything wrong.”

“She's a witch, you blind monkey. She's lied to you this whole time.” The Bishop stepped closer, to get through to the young man. “Didn't she tell you that she's in league with the very monsters that seek to destory us?”

Silas shook his head. “No. They killed her father.”

“More lies.” The Bishop narrowed his eyes and spoke softly. “Her friend is one of them. She didn't tell you that, did she?”

Amy saw the shock ripple down Silas’s face, followed quickly by confusion and doubt. How could she explain this to him now?

“See for yourself,” the Bishop said, goading the young man forward.

Back they went through the graves to the stone building. Passing through the gate, the Bishop unlocked the cell and dragged Silas inside.

“Look at her,” the Bishop gritted, hauling the boy into the cell. “This is what the girl brought into our village. Her friend.”

Silas felt his stomach drop away at the sight of the woman in chains. She bore the marks of the wolf. She gnashed her teeth and flailed against the chains like a rabid dog.

The Bishop leaned close and whispered into the young man's ear. “Look at it. This is what the girl is part of. She led you here with a promise of cunning and now your soul is on the brink. Do you want to be part of this wickedness?”

With her mouth gagged, all she could do was plead to him with her eyes. When Silas looked at her, his eyes roiled from confusion to betrayal to damp tears.

“Choose a path, lad” the Bishop hissed.

When Silas marched out of the cell, he made no attempt to even look at Amy. She felt her knees give out.

The Bishop removed his hat and wiped his brow, a look of satisfaction on his face. Shooing them from the cell, he held back the captain of the watch. “Bring the girl to me.”

~

The wood floor was rough and unpolished and it left splinters in Amy's hand as she was thrown to it. She yanked the sour-tasting gag from her mouth and took in her surroundings. A simple room with few furnishings. A scattering of books on a pine hutch, an oil lamp on a neatly arranged desk. On the mantelpiece above the fireplace rested her gun, the big fifty caliber. The Bishop seated in a chair, studying her with his fingers steepled before him. A watchman stood stiffly at the door.

The Bishop removed his hat and placed it on his desk. “How long has the woman been cursed?”

Amy gingerly touched her swollen lip. Blood spackled her fingertips. She wouldn't even look at the man.

“Please,” he sighed. “We both know what she is. I need to know how deep the malady runs in her. How long?”

“Nine months,” she said. Her scabbed lip cracked when she spoke, bleeding anew. A coppery taste of salt on her tongue.

“How many has she killed in her wolf state? How many has she passed the curse to?”

Amy licked her lips. She was thirsty. “None. On both counts.”

“No one with the curse goes that long without killing. Least of all a woman. How many?”

“Believe me or don’t. I don’t care.”

“Do the other Englishers know what she is?”

Amy shook her head. “They don't know anything.”

“More lies. Why were you and the woman hunting the wolf?”

The room began to spin. Unwilling to be called a liar again, Amy pulled her legs up, rested her cheek against her knees and refused to speak. The man in the chair fired more questions at her. How does she know to treat the curse? How many other wolves are out there? Where is she from? Each unanswered query agitated the Bishop more, his voice booming through the room.

She lifted her head and looked him in the eye. “What is that thing in the pit?”

The man leaned back, his eyes cold slits.

“It's a wolf,” she said. “But it's not like any wolf I've ever seen. Why is it down there? Why don't you kill it?”

“The wolf serves a greater purpose. When that purpose is fulfilled, it will be destroyed.”

“What purpose is that? So you can torture it down there? Just put it out of its misery.”

The Bishop's brow wrinkled in puzzlement. “You have sympathy for the beast?”

“No. I just don't understand keeping it like a pet.”

The watchman at the door shifted his weight, clearly uncomfortable at the mention of the thing hidden under the cemetery. He fired a harsh look at his Bishop but the older man was too engaged with the English girl to notice.

The Bishop evened his tone. “The beast in the pit is a lure. It draws other wolves to it, leading them to our village. It is our duty to destroy these wolves and when the last of the wolves are butchered and burnt to ashes, we will end the beast's misery.”

None of what the man said made sense. Amy wondered how deep his insanity ran. “How does it draw other wolves? Why do they come for it?”

“Because it is the first wolf,” the Bishop said. “The wolf that unleashed the curse upon this blasted world. His name was Melchior Bratenburg; the founder of our church. Its first Bishop. The beast is over ten generations old. “

Amy felt her jaw hang. Was the man lying? “That's crazy.”

The man's eyes glimmered, looking through the girl on the floor. “The Bishop infected many with the curse in those early days. Sooner or later, they all come back. And when the last wolf is destroyed, the thing that was Bishop Bratenburg will be destroyed. And God will judge his black soul.”

32

THE BELLS PEELED JUST after dawn and a slight mist rose from the dewy ground as the sun rose in a cloudless sky of blue. An hour after the bells came the sound of axes hewing wood and spades turning earth. Silas pulled back the curtain from his window and looked out onto the square. The watchmen were busy, already toiling in shirtsleeves under the new sun. They had felled trees from beyond the walls and dragged them in behind two draft horses. Two of the watchmen were hacking the greenwood limbs from the poplar while another worked a drawknife to peel away the bark. Two others were taking turns with a single spade, digging a deep post hole into the ground.

What was it for? Pentecost was still a week away and the furious manner in which the men toiled hinted at some other purpose. Whatever that reason was, it could not be good.

He sat back down on the bed where he hadn't slept at all. Staring up into the darkness of his room, he thought of nothing but the English girl. His head felt dizzy from it. No matter how hard he tried to push her out of his thoughts, she snuck back in and wouldn't leave. Like a bumblebee trapped in a bottle, buzzing against every corner. His heart thumped heavy every time his mind conjured up her face. He felt like a fool. How could she have lied to him? How could she be allied with one of those monsters? How could he have been smitten by someone he barely knew?

He was not naive. He'd been in love before. Marta Heninger had stolen his heart when he was fifteen and he remembered acutely how he had burned to touch her. But Marta was two years older and when her time came, she was scooped up by the widower Frankel. The old man had lost his last wife during childbirth and at the age of seventeen, Marta found herself mother to five children that she didn't much care for. In public, Marta stole furtive glances at Silas but her eyes were sad and dim. As if she wished events had turned out differently but was powerless to change anything. Silas tried not to think about how lonely she must be in that old man's house.

He had loved Marta and continued to long for her, even though that was a sin. But all of that had vanished the moment he saw this strange girl. He thought her rude and brash at first and was confused by how she snagged his every thought. He lied to himself that he simply felt obligated to her for saving his life. It was more than that. In his idle moments, he indulged in silly daydreams about being with her. The two of them stealing away into the night.

He was an even bigger fool now. Did he think that she would leave her world behind and stay with him here in his? How backwards and foreign his life must seem to her. Could he survive in her world? Neither option would work. He pushed the image of her face from his mind and scolded his heart to let her go. No more foolishness. Use your brains.

It was useless. He bent over the basin on the dresser and splashed cold water over his face. Foolish or not, he had to see her.

A new sound came through the window as he pulled on his boots. The bells pealed a second time but these pealed a different chime, the notes calling the faithful to church. It wasn't even Sunday.

~

Amy was awoken by a boot nudging her back. She leaned up, trying to orient herself in the unfamiliar space. Still on the rough floor of the Bishop's study. She had spent the night chained to a post like a dog. A watchman stood nearby, the one she recognized to be Keisler. He loomed over her with a perverse grin that made her shudder.

“Get up,” he said.

There was no one else in the room. “Where's the Bishop.”

Watchman Keisler knelt and unlocked the manacle on her wrist. The iron thumped heavily to the floor and Keisler rose, drawing a black lacquered truncheon from his belt. “Get on your feet, witch.”

Her legs were stiff and her back ached from sleeping on another hard floor. The sound of a bell was ringing from outside the door. “What is that?”

“The church bell. The Bishop is calling.”

Amy blinked against the sunlight as she was escorted outside, the watchman's grip locked onto her elbow. The dirt road was filled as plain folk traipsed out of their homes and shuffled towards the town square. Keisler shoved her forward and they joined the stream of people beckoned forth by the bells. The men and women around her cleared a path to avoid coming too close to the English girl. Amy searched the faces for someone familiar but the plain folk averted their eyes from her and pulled their children close. She was being shunned.

Two more watchmen drew up alongside Kiesler with the other two prisoners. Griffin was haggard and wouldn't look at Amy. Tasha was a frightened bird pushed on by her keeper.

“Tasha,” Amy whispered. “Are you all right?”

Tasha's eyes darted about. “Where are they taking us?”

“I don't know.”

“Shut up,” Keisler barked, prodding Amy away from the other prisoners.

Around the last house they marched and the town square opened up. A small gazebo formed the epicenter of the plaza and here the crowd gathered. Next to it stood a pole fashioned from a newly lumbered poplar erected by the watchmen. It rose twenty feet into the air, its base packed into a mound of freshly turned earth.

Amy was pushed along to the edge of the crowd and then halted beside the other two prisoners. The watchmen bound their wrists with horse rope and lashed all three of them together. Keisler and Hess pushed forward, leaving them to the care of the third watchman. The people near them shuffled aside to keep their distance.

Amy whispered to Tasha. “Where's Jay?”

“They took him away last night.” Tasha took a second look at Amy's bruised face. “What happened to you?”

“I got kicked around. What's wrong with him?” Amy had tried to get Griffin’s attention but the man's eyes were lidded as if drugged.

“He's not dealing well.” Tasha looked out over the assembled crowd. The grim faced men in their beards and the women in their bonnets, their eyes downcast. “Amy, I don't think we're gonna get out of here.”

“Don't say that,” Amy admonished but the look in the Tasha's eyes held little spirit, as if already resigned to a worst fate. Amy wondered if Tasha had seen the outcome already and almost asked if she had but then chose to remain mum. If their fate really was doomed, she did not want to know beforehand.

She heard her name hissed over her shoulder. She turned to see Silas draw alongside her, his hat pulled low over his eyes.

“Silas—”

“Don't look at me,” he hissed. “Eyes on the gazebo, like everyone else.”

Moments ticked by, the two of them shoulder to shoulder like complete strangers. Without taking his from the platform, he said “Why did you lie to me?”

“It's complicated.” Amy whispered. “I’m sorry. I didn't mean to keep it from you.”

“Your friend is one of them,” he hushed. “What does that make you? Its keeper?”

“Lara's not a monster. She's fought hard to keep it under control.”

“No one can keep the curse in their control.”

Amy fixed him with a hard glare. “She can.”

She clocked the hurt and betrayal in his eyes and he seemed so much younger in that instant, like a boy, and something caught in her throat.

“Look at me,” she whispered to him. “Lara's not a monster. Neither am I. Can you trust me enough to believe that?”

“I don't know what to believe anymore.” He finally looked at her, seeing the busted lip and bruised cheekbone. “Good God, did they beat you? Are you in pain?”

“I'll survive.” She nodded at his purpled eye. “They did a number on you too. At least we match.”

A light returned to his eyes, a smile almost breaking across his mouth. “Amy—”

A murmur rippled through the assembled townsfolk, people craning their necks to see what was happening up front. Amy raised up on her toes but still couldn't see past the throng in front of her.

Something dark rose up over the brimmed hats and bonnets of the congregation. The lean figure of the Bishop came into view as he climbed onto the gazebo. His head swiveled round as he looked over the assembly . He raised a hand to still the crowd.

“Brothers and sisters, the Lord is testing us once again. The horror has returned and this time, it is woeful. The evil has sunk its teeth into us. We must be strong and cast it out.”

There was a commotion upfront as two watchmen struggled up to join their Bishop upon the stage. Caught between them was the limp figure of the injured outsider. Jay’s wrists were manacled behind his back and the watchmen forced him to his knees.

“No one member of our church is stronger than the whole,” the Bishop exhorted. “As individuals, we are weak but collectively we are invincible. Together, we can can cast out the evil within our midst.”

At that, the Bishop gestured to the man on his knees. “Our grace extends even to the infidel and unbeliever. Pray with me now as we exorcize the evil that is poisoning his soul.”

Amy felt a tug on her wrist from the rope binding her to the other two. Griffin and Tasha had both surged forward at the sight of Jay, the urge to help their friend instinctual and strong. Their faces fell hopeless as the restraints held them back.

Turning to face the prisoner before him, the Bishop began reciting a prayer in German. Jay shook his head as if refusing the prayers but the spiritual leader only bellowed louder, his voice carrying out over the ears of the faithful.

She glanced at Silas.“What is he saying?”

“He's demanding that the unclean spirit leave him.”

The Bishop ceased his barking and motioned to the watchmen. Keisler and Hoffmann threw Jay flat on his back, pinning his arms and exposing his belly. The Bishop reached down and tore the bandage from the man's ribs, then plunged his fingers into the wound. Jay screamed and blood ran down his side and when the Bishop straightened up, he lifted a bloodied hand into the air. Although it was too small to make out, Amy knew it was the silver she had slipped into the man's wound.

The Bishop flung the piece away and resumed his bellowing prayers. He screamed at the injured man, spittle flying from his lips and when he reared back and struck him sharply across the face, a hush went through the crowd.

Jay flailed, shaking his head crazily and twitching in a fit. Each tremor a challenge to the Bishop who shrieked his prayers louder and struck the man again and again. The crowd surged forward, craning their necks to see the ritual play out. Amy stretched up but couldn't see anything more than the tip of the Bishop's hat. Then a pike came into view, followed by two more. The long spears favored by the Bishop's watchmen.

A snap broke over the air, loud and sharp, like that of a bone breaking. Then another and another, popping and breaking and the noise sent a shiver down Amy's neck. Jay's screams distorted into low grunts, then growls. Amy felt her stomach drop the moment she realized what was happening to the injured cameraman.

The Bishop never broke stride, shrieking his German prayers and swinging his long arms like some frenzied buzzard.

The crowd surged backwards to get away. Jostled hard by the retreating horde, Amy elbowed her way forward, dragging the other two with her. She heard Tasha and Griffin both gasp at the sight of the thing on the wooden stage.

Jay was gone. In his place squatted a grotesquerie of teeth and claw. Its newborn fur was plastered red with blood as the man they knew jerked and twitched into a wolf. The manacles on its limbs snapped away and its great snout reared up, flashing jaws of teeth.

The Bishop stepped back on the small platform and held out his hand to the guards. Keisler slapped a double-headed axe into the man's palm and the Bishop gripped it firm in both hands.

The wolf shuddered under the last spasm of transformation then swung its head in the Bishop's direction and coiled back to spring at him. When it leapt, the long pikes were ready. The weapons arced forward, impaling the beast against its own velocity and it raged in pain. Skewered against four pikes, it was momentarily stuck, unable to rampage forward or back.

The axe whistled through the air. Bone cracked and blood flew and the Bishop became a blur of frenzied swings, butchering the wolf under his blade.

The howls ceased and the thing fell to the planks and didn't move again, its massive head stove into a dark pulp. The Bishop's hands dripped red and his face was twisted into a mask of fury.

“Stop!” He turned to address the withering crowd. “Come back. Look on this thing. This was another test of the Almighty and its candidate was found wanting.” He swung the axe twice more then reached down and lifted the severed head of the wolf.

Amy heard another gasp as the bloodied mass twisted in the man's grip. Griffin went pale and fell to his knees in the dirt.

The Bishop bellowed on, shaking the gory mass in his fist. “This man failed the Lord's test because his heart was poisoned and without faith. His soul was found wanting and he succumbed to the evil. The others will not fail. The plain folk are pure and the exorcism will purify their affliction. Go to your homes and bring forth your injured to me. All shall be purified this day. Amen.”

The Bishop's edict rippled through the assembled congregation like a wave cresting and falling. The townsfolk stirred, glancing nervously at one another as the orders settled home. People broke away from the gathering and shuffled mournfully to their homes.

“Jacob.”

Amy turned to Silas. His face fell white as he uttered his brother's name. His eyes goggled into saucers as he searched through the crowd for his parents. Amy saw the Hostetlers hang their heads in despair. They shambled back through the crowd towards their home like two condemned for the gallows, obeying their Bishop's edict.

Amy's first instinct was to reach out to him but her wrists were bound. She nudged her shoulder into his. Silas flinched, turning on her sharply. “He'll never survive that torture,” he uttered. “It will kill him.”

“You have to stop him,” she said. “Or hide Jacob somehow.”

“How can I do that?” Silas jerked back. “What do you care?”

She stepped on his toe so he couldn't get away. “Snap out of it, Silas. I'm trying to help you. You know the exorcism won't work.”

“How can I stop it? They'll put me in chains if I try to hide Jacob.” His hands trembled as he gently pushed her back and slid his foot free. “Why did you ever come here?”

Her mouth gaped as she groped for an answer but no answer came.

A low rumble went through the congregation. A commotion at the platform tore their attention from one another to a gruesome display in the center of town.

The carcass of the malformed wolf was hauled from the stage, leaving a smear of blood over the unmilled wood. Keisler went at it with the axe, hacking the misshapen limbs of the thing that used to be a young man named Jay Kenilworth.

The Bishop raised a hand to gather their eyes to him. “God, in His infinite mercy, has revealed the source of the evil that has diseased our community. It's form is that of a woman. The English witch.”

The crowd east of the gazebo parted as two watchmen marched forward, ferrying the last prisoner between them. They stood the body against the poplar pole and snaked her arms around its trunk. Lara's head rolled lazily on her neck, as lifeless as a cadaver. When the watchmen finished binding the wrists they snaked a thick rope round and round her, lashing her to the trunk. With that accomplished, they scurried to gather the collected briars and kindling to stack under the unconscious woman's ankles.

“This outsider, this trespasser against our ways, brought her curse into our midst. She is one of them. A wolf in woman's clothing. The first step in cleansing its blight is to destroy it. There is only one way to cauterize the depravity. The woman will be burned at the stake. May God purify her stain of blood upon us.”

Amy fell against Silas as her knees jellied. Lara didn't stir nor waken as the watchmen piled the wood around her and the Bishop plucked a box of wooden matches from a vest pocket.

33

WHEN SHE WAS TWELVE, Amy had read a magazine article about how, under great duress, some individuals were capable of extraordinary feats of strength. She prayed that in this moment when her friend was about to be burned alive, she would prove to be one of those rare people. She pictured the thick ropes snapping away from her wrists as adrenalin flooded her system, boosting her strength to super-human levels.

She was not that person. The ropes would not budge, let alone snap and she remained bound and helpless. All she could do was watch as the Bishop dropped from the stage and knelt before the newly erected pole to hover a match under the kindling around Lara Mendes's feet.

A woman to her left gasped out a prayer while others shouted out their Deutsche curses. A stone was hurled, missing Lara by an inch. An electric charge sparked the crowd as they surged forward again. A sense of chaos hovered over their heads of all.

Silas remained fixated by the tableau before him. Amy rammed her shoulder into his. “Silas, cut the rope.”

He turned, eyes clouded with confusion. “What? No.”

“They're going to burn Lara. Undo this!”

“So you can go save her?” He shook his head. “They will kill you.”

“I can't stand here and watch. Cut it!”

The pleading in her eyes was more than he could take. A quick glance about showed the watchman nearby was too preoccupied to notice. He slipped his knife from his pocket and sawed at the hemp. The fibers frayed until Amy could worm one hand out.

“Give me your knife.”

He flattened his hand, the small blade resting in his palm. “Amy, please—”

She snatched up the instrument and sprinted away at a dead run, weaving through the shoulders of the onlookers. Screaming at Lara to wake up, she crashed up the mound of kindling and attacked the rope with the blade.

The Bishop took no notice of the intrusion, so caught up in his own prayers that he seemed possessed himself. Watchman Hoffmann was a different matter, standing south of the flames with the medieval pike in his hand. Startled by the sudden rush of the girl brazenly hacking at the prisoner’s bonds, he swung the lance level in both hands and prepared to drive the blade into the girl's back. A blow to her backbone would drop the girl without killing her.

Something hammered him from behind and his face dove hard into the dirt, the pike pinned under him. He rolled over in a rage to see the Hostetler boy standing over him, shrieking at the girl to get out of the flames. He scrambled to get up but a bootheel came down with force onto his face.

One tendril of rope split away under the knife but there were still two more to go and Amy could feel the heat scorching her legs. Lara didn't respond no matter how loud she screamed at her. Sawing frantically at the next rope, she caught sight of Silas kicking down one of the watchmen but she didn't have time to warn him about the other one rushing up behind him. He was thrown to the ground and kicked mercilessly.

What she didn't see was the third guard crashing through the flames behind her. An arm locked around her neck and she was spun and hurled away. The knife fell from her hand as she collided into the hard earth. A knee slammed into her back, flattening her to the ground.

The fire popped as the kindling went up fast, spitting sparks overhead. A scream shrilled the air. Amy swiveled around to see Lara blur against the shimmer of heat rolling from the flames like a highway mirage. Lara's eyes were bald with terror, the scream issuing from her gaping mouth was heart-stopping. Wavering in the heat shimmer, her form blurred and then the ropes snapped. Lara Mendes leaped from the fire as woodsmoke clouded the air but it was the wolf that landed square in the barley on its massive paws, the pale wolf with its hide smoldering in orange flames and its enormous maw of gargantuan teeth.

Amy gasped at its bulk, having forgotten how tall the pale wolf stood. It didn't make sense, this wolf that was three times the size of the woman it sprang from. Its massive head swung about as it popped its jaws at the brute on Amy's back. The watchman flailed backwards, arms pinwheeling to get away.

Rolling onto her knees, Amy came face to snout with the pale wolf. Its nose blew hot on her face as its snout rippled back over its outsize teeth. It's amber eye fixed on her and Amy tried to find her friend within that unearthly glow but there was no glimmer of anything human. What she saw there was only rage and hatred and a rabid ferocity that froze her marrow. The pale wolf did not recognize her, did not distinguish her from any other piece of meat to be rendered to shreds. The wolf wanted to kill, nothing more.

A war cry went up as the black guard rallied, scrambling for their weapons. The wolf swung away, ropey strands of froth dribbling from its jaws as the watchmen charged. The lobo looked past the shrieking men to the lone figure perched on the rickety stage like a dark conductor overseeing a choir of the deranged.

The mask of righteous anger on the Bishop's face slid into cold terror as the wolf ignored all else to fixate on him and him alone. His fingers scrambled to find the axe on the boards at his feet and when he looked up, the lobo had sprung. Its bulk arced over the others and the stage shook as it landed on the boards. The man swung his weapon wide to ward off the popping teeth. The Bishop swung and the wolf lunged in and the man went down. The jaws opened wide and frothy spittle fell onto the man's screaming face.

The first pike speared its ribs, high up on the withers. The second plunged into the lobo's hind flank. The wolf coiled back in pain, snapping at the long-poled lances piercing its hide. Its teeth broke the haft of the first harpoon, leaving the remaining piece to flap but as it swung about to dislodge the second, another missile slammed deep into its neck. A bolt launched from the crossbow of the watchman on the tower.

It dove from the stage, the pike in its flank falling away as it loped towards the townspeople. The assembly scattered, the plain folk running from the monster and it bounded for the treeline with the bolt of a crossbow lodged in its throat and the broken length of harpoon dragging along the ground from its ribs.

Panic was absolute. The faithful scurried for their homes and the sound of doors slamming shut rang all around the square. Watchman Keisler was jostled this way and shouldered that way as the mob bolted past him. Hollering up for his Bishop, he turned to the platform but it was vacant. A smeared trail of blood along the boards but no sign of the church leader. Had the wolf dragged him off into the woods?

Coming around the stage he found the Bishop on the ground, one knee in the barley as he struggled to gain his feet. Keisler scooped up his arm to help but the man pushed him away, rising up on his own power.

The man's face was pale and grimaced in pain. “Where is it? Where did the wolf go?”

“The east woods,” Keisler reported, pointing out the direction. “Are you hurt?”

“Didn't you stop it?”

“We lanced it. It ran off with a bolt in its neck and a pike still in its back.” The watchman looked over his Bishop for any injury. The Bishop's left arm was cradled against his chest, the hand thrust inside the flap of his dark jacket. “Your hand, sir?”

The Bishop blinked at him as if he didn't know what his guardsman was asking. He withdrew the hand from his coat. Slathered red, the blood dribbled from his fingertips. He looked surprised at his own injury.

“My God,” Keisler swore. “Did the wolf—”

“No. The blade. The blade cut me when I fell from the stage.”

The Bishop thrust his hand back inside his coat but did not return Keisler’s wide-eyed stare. He cast about, scanning through the laggards still running for home. “Where is the girl? The younger witch! Where is she?”

Watchman Keisler strode forward to the place where he had seen her taken down. Trampled weeds and nothing more, the square about all but empty now. The English girl was gone.

~

“She's just a girl. How could you lose her?”

The Bishop stormed into his study and threw himself into a chair, his hand still tucked inside the folds of his coat.

Keisler followed him inside and crossed to the sideboard where a pitcher of water and a ceramic basin stood. “I was preoccupied with the monster trying to kill you,” he hissed. “How thoughtless of me.”

“Don't be flip with me, lad. What about the other two?”

“She can't have gone far. We'll find her.” Keisler filled the basin from the pitcher and scrounged the sideboard for clean linen. “The wolf is the more pressing matter now.”

The Bishop grimaced in pain. “Gather the reserves and double the men on the towers. Then assemble the watchmen into two hunting parties. We are going after the wolf.”

Keisler placed the basin on the table before his leader. “Is that wise? A hunting party will be in the wolf's element and vulnerable. Why not lure it back here?”

“We don't have time to wait. We need to destroy it now before it gets too far.”

Keisler watched a ripple of pain flash over the Bishop's features as he shifted in his chair. He dampened the cloth in the basin and wrung it out, then motioned for the Bishop's arm. “We need to clean that wound. Let me have it.”

The Bishop waved him off. “Leave it. It's nothing.”

“At least dress it properly. To stop the bleeding.”

The man rose unsteadily and hazed his watchman out the door. “Post the guards and assemble the hunting party. Now.”

Keisler scowled but marched away to do as he was told. The Bishop locked the door and limped back into his chair. Taking up the damp linen, he withdrew his hand from his coat and patted the blood from the wound. Dark clots appeared over the wrist and back of the hand. There was no cut or laceration from a blade. The wounds were angry puncture marks left by the wolf's monstrous teeth.

~

The barn was hot and dark and the tang of manure was not something Amy was used to. Leaning against a post, she clutched her aching ribs and caught her breath. Silas was flat against the wall, peering out through the slats of the barn board.

“There,” he said. “I see them.”

Amy crossed the floor to where he stood. Every breath cut a stitch of pain to her ribs where the watchman had slammed down on it with his knee. In the chaos triggered by the pale wolf, she'd felt herself pulled away. Silas dragged her along at a fast clip while the Bishop and his black guard fought the wolf but every step flared the sharp pain in her side and every sting stole her breath. When they rabbitted into the barn, she thought she was going to throw up.

Standing alongside Silas, she looked through a gap in the board wall. “Where?”

“To the left of the stage, near the silo. See them?”

Amy spotted the pair, loping away in a clumsy stagger. Tasha and Griffin were still tethered together by the binds on their wrists as they ran through a briar. Like some bastard three-legged race, they careened and stumbled in their dash for freedom. Griffin fell and tumbled hard, almost pulling down his companion. With her arms lashed behind her back, all Tasha could do was wait for Griffin to get back up.

Tasha startled suddenly, tugging at the rope that bound them. Charging in from the west Amy saw two watchmen throw both of the prisoners to the ground. The black guard kicked and kicked until the escapees stopped moving.

Amy turned away. There was no way to help them now. She looked around the barn. Two cobwebbed windows let in the sunlight and pixies of chaff floated through the gloom. The horses in the stalls blew and stamped their feet.

“Are you hurt?” Silas's eyes went to the hand clutching her ribs.

“I'll live.” It hurt to even talk and she was forced to take shallow breaths. “Thank for saving my butt. I guess we're even now.”

“Are you keeping score?”

“No. But you are.”

Some of the panic left his eyes, the flicker of levity clawing back the tension in his face. He leaned his brow against the barn board and his shoulders slackened. He looked tired. “Your friend. She changed so fast.”

“No guff. I didn't know she could do that.”

“She almost killed the Bishop. If the watchmen hadn't speared her—”

“She wouldn't kill him,” she replied too quickly. “She hasn't killed anyone.”

Silas fixed her with a hard look. “How do you know?”

“Lara isn't like the others.” She wagged her chin, groping for words. “I can't explain it but some part of her is still there, even as the wolf.”

He closed his mouth, keeping his skepticism to himself. “Will she change back?”

“Yes. The question is where. She could be miles away by now.”

Over the sound of the horses blowing came the peeling of the bells, hurried and urgent. A voice followed, crying out in alarm. They hurried to the window and Silas pointed to the ruckus. A watchman perched on a rickety guard tower, ringing a school bell in the air and hollering out in Deutsche.

Amy gripped his arm. “What's he saying?”

“The wolf is back,” he said. “It's circling the village.”

34

HERR INGOLDST WAS THE first to see the wolf. Returning from his trap lines at the river, he had missed the mayhem in the village. Two snow-footed hares dangling from his hand, he was pleased with the morning's catch and was looking forward to a hot breakfast when he heard something big trample the brush to his left.

The pale wolf sklathed out from the trees, its yellow eyes locking on the trapper. The white pelage of its chest was dark with blood where a crossbow bolt had skewered its neck.

The rabbit carcasses flopped to the ground as Ingoldst sprinted for the gates. His terrified cries alerted the watchman and the gate unlatched to let him inside. The wolf chased his heels all the way to the gate but retreated as the watchmen let loose their weapons. A volley of crossbow bolts and lances turned it back but the great wolf did not disappear into the forest. It trotted west along the perimeter of the gate, keeping out of range of the missiles. Unhurried and patient, it circled the village looking for a way in.

The swing gate on the west stockade wall gaped open as the hunting party made its foray. Six watchmen, armed to the teeth, marched out smartly and took formation with their pikes at the ready. From the watchtower at the gate, the Bishop looked on with one wounded hand hanging limp in a sling. He barked at them to tighten formation and look sharp. The wolf was coming.

It loped along the edge of the treeline, watching the armed troop lockstep towards it. The silver points of the lances sparkled in the sunlight but the wolf neither charged nor fled. It stopped, nose to the ground and then turned and disappeared into the heavy brush. Keisler urged the men on, emboldened by the mass of blood slathered on the beast. It was weak, he insisted, its strength sapped. An easy kill.

He did not hear his Bishop shrieking at him not to go into the trees, not to enter the wolf's preying ground where the monster held the advantage. The phalanx formation of the troop only worked in the open where the men could maintain rank.

Keisler realized his mistake at the first strike. It was dark under the tree canopy and the wolf charged from the shadows. The phalanx broke apart and three men trampled under the lobo's massive paws. A fourth, Hoffmann, was snatched up in the thing's jaws and dragged off screaming into the darker woods. His fingers left claw marks in the loamy earth.

Keisler pulled the trio of men to their feet but only Aldrecht was fit to hold his weapon. The others clutched their ribs and groin, their faces paled and gibbering in pain.

Like the first, the second strike was deadly fast and damn near silent. The pale lobo broke from behind them and bowled Aldrecht headfirst into the trunk of a sycamore. He fell soundlessly and didn't move. Keisler drove his pike into the monster's withers. It coiled back before roaring at him with its unnatural growl. The outsized teeth flashed wet as they chomped down on Keisler's right arm. The wolf shook him violently and Keisler screamed to God against the jerking motion, his flesh slurring from his bones. The lobo bit down with its powerful jaws. The sickening sound of bone snapping and then the limb tore free in the beast's jaws. It loped away under the ferns. Keisler gaped in disbelief at the dark geyser of blood spewing from the angry stump of arm he was left with. He fell to his knees, watching his blood paint the dark leaves on the ground a deeper shade of red.

The cries bounced off the pines and filled the forest but the tortured pleas ceased when the sound of the wolf came. The howl issued from faraway but its eerie treble silenced even Keisler. Terror overrode the pain as the lesser ranked gathered their mutilated captain and dragged him away. Two men ran to find Hoffmann and within minutes, all six of the hunting party broke from the trees and hobbled to the gates like broken puppets.

The Bishop stood on his parapet and cursed at the wolf before scrambling down the ladder to tend to the routed watchmen.

~

Silas pressed his nose against the wall, peering through a gap as the men stumbled back in through the swing gate. “My God. They're butchered.”

“But they're alive,” Amy said.

“They were lucky then.”

Amy shook her head. “No. Some part of Lara is still conscious inside the wolf.”

“It is a wolf like all the others, Amy. Drawn here to destroy the faithful, the same as all the rest. I'm sorry about your friend, I truly am, but it's the truth.”

She bristled at his righteous conviction. Yet, she noted, there was no malice in his tone. Silas simply stated what he believed to be true. “Silas, why do the wolves come here?”

“To test the faithful,” he stated with a shrug. As if there could be any other answer. “They come to destroy us. They are evil and our faith is abhorrent to them.”

Amy drew back in hesitation. Silas didn't know. Did she have the right to burst his belief? It was the truth, he would understand. “What about the monster in the pit? Below the cemetery. Why does the Bishop keep it?”

“What are you talking about?”

Amy took a breath and told him what she had seen in the pit, what the Bishop had told her. “The Bishop said it was once a man named Bratenburg. The founder of this place. The first wolf. It's the reason the others come. The monster in the pit is what draws them here.”

Silas backed away slowly. His eyes darted around like a crazed bird looking for a perch to land on, disbelief and anger rolling through them in equal measures.

“I'm sorry, Silas. I saw it with my own eyes.”

He looked as if a rug had been pulled out from underneath him. She grasped for some way to console him but what words could soften that blow? A ruckus sounded from outside, breaking the spell. They peered out through the slats to see the Bishop rush to the injured guard. He winced at the trauma of Keisler's severed arm while another watchman gibbered at him, close to tears.

“What are they saying?” Amy asked.

“How the wolf attacked them. How it was cunning and deliberate. Not like the other wolves they'd encountered.” Silas listened to the back and forth between the Bishop and his men before going on. “The wolf's injured. An arrow and a lance still in its hide, bleeding out. They don't think it will last long.”

The air inside the barn was sour and stifling and Amy couldn't breathe. How badly was the pale wolf injured? How much blood had she lost? What happens when she changes back into Lara? “I have to get out of here.”

“And go where? Everyone will be looking for you. Stay here. At least until nightfall.”

“I can't.”

The bell rang from the tower again. Silas listened to the cries of the man on the parapet. “The wolf. It's circling the gates again. The Bishop has ordered another hunting party to go after it.”

Amy gripped the worn handle of the door. “I have to go to her.”

“Have you lost your mind?” He flattened a hand against the door. “The wolf will kill you.”

“It's only a matter of time before they find me. And I need to be as far from you as I can. You're in enough trouble.” Amy took his wrist and gently pulled his hand from the door. He offered no resistance. “The wolf won't hurt me. Will you help me get past the gate?”

His hand dropped but her fingers remained locked around his wrist. “It's suicide.”

“We're out of options, Silas. Help me. One last time.”

Even the horses quieted, as if they too were waiting for an answer.

Silas crossed to the door. “Stay right behind me.”

They stepped into the sunlight and Amy pulled the door closed after them. Silas took a quick scan around and then sprinted across a yard dotted with dandelions for the blacksmith’s shop. Amy stayed right on his heels.

~

Watchman Keisler was unconscious by the time a leather belt was cinched tight over his severed arm to stop the bleeding. The midwife Johnson, harried from her home to treat the wounded, doubted he had any blood left to spill. The man's face had paled to snow and she wondered if he would survive the night. The other watchmen had suffered only cuts and bruising. A broken wrist for Herr Aldercott, which she splinted and wrapped. Prayer would do the rest.

The Bishop fumed, watching the captain of his guard taken away on a pallet. He ordered the remaining watchmen down from their towers to form a second hunting sortie. Senior volunteers, some of them retired guards themselves, scaled the parapets to keep watch while the Bishop gathered the elders to begin a sweep of the village to find the missing English girl.

The other two infidels were hazed forward like cattle and made to kneel in the grass. The fight had been beaten out of them and neither prisoner even looked up at the tall man in black.

The Bishop gently lifted Tasha's chin until her eyes met his. “The girl. Where did she go? Do not lie to me.”

“I don't know,” Tasha said slowly. “She ran to help her friend. That was the last I saw of her.”

Her eyes drifted away again. The Bishop tugged her chin to focus her attention. “Look at me. Do you repent your evil path and accept the Lord God as your salvation?”

Tasha blinked, trying to untangle the question put to her. “What?”

The Bishop let go of her chin, wiped his hand on his coat and straightened. He nodded to watchman Beck. “Lash them to the post. The witches will burn before nightfall.”

Tasha blanched, searching the eyes of the men around her but all of them turned away, shunning her pleas for mercy. Griffin hadn't stirred, as if he knew all along what was coming.

Of the elders gathered before the gates, only Silas’s father approached the church leader. “Herr Bishop, we can't do that. They are sinners but they are outsiders and we are without jurisdiction over them. We cannot execute them.”

“I should have known you would betray us, Hostetler.” The Bishop's face darkened, turning to the lone voice of protest. “Their sin has tainted your family.”

Hostetler protested. “We cannot execute them. The English will come looking for them. The trouble it will cause—”

The Bishop sprang at the man, as if he would throttle him. “Your son has helped the witch escape. And now you've shown your true colors, pleading clemency for these barbarians. Your whole family is in league with the witch.”

Hostetler stammered, disbelieving the nonsense he had just heard but the other men around him stepped back and looked the other way.

“Get him out of my sight,” the Bishop barked, then he waved a dismissive hand at the prisoners. “For the safety of the village, the outsiders will burn at the stake forthright. Then we find the missing girl.”

All eyes lifted at the bell ringing from the watchtower. The man on the parapet pointed a hand to something on the distance. The English girl had been spotted, he shrieked. Running across the barley field, beyond the stockade walls.

35

WHEN SHE HEARD THE clamor behind her, Amy knew she had been spotted. A dead run through a field of knee-high weeds, Amy looked back once and saw the man in the watchtower shoulder his crossbow and draw a bead on her. The bolt whistled the air to her left and thunked into the earth.

Crashing through the briar, she tumbled behind the trunk of a thick oak tree for cover and craned back to see the gates of the town. No troop of armed pursuers chasing after her. The watchman in the tower slotted another bolt into his weapon and hauled back the bowstring.

Catching her breath, the sounds of the forest were oddly tranquil after the chaos of the town. Swallows trilled from the trees and martins spun overhead. Amy eased up onto her feet. Now what? Call out Lara's name? Click her tongue and clap her hands the way she would a dog? She was alone and weaponless in the dark woods, looking for a werewolf.

“You really didn't think this through, did you?” she muttered to herself.

She pushed away from the trunk of the oak and on into the deep of the trees where the canopy overhead shaded the forest floor. The carpet of pine needles crunched under each step and she stopped to listen but there was no howl nor snarl. No telltale sign of the wolf. Maybe she was too late. Maybe the lobo had succumbed to its injuries like the watchman on the gate had predicted.

The fine hair on her arms tingled. It was there.

Fifty paces behind her, nose slung low to the ground. The white fur slathered in red along its snout and chest. More of it staining its hind flank. The bolt from the crossbow lodged in its neck twitched in the air. Worst of all were its eyes, ferocious and amber.

“Lara.”

The wolf charged, thundering hard across the loam like a bolt and Amy realized in that moment the mistake she had made. Did she think the pale wolf would react differently to her? That some shade of the woman inside the monster would recognize her? Stupid girl.

The lobo plowed into her, flattening her to the ground. Amy felt her breath catch at the pain of it. The enormous jaws of the wolf opened and locked over her, pinning her flat. Its crazed eye rolled over and Amy screamed for Lara to stop but the wolf was deaf to her pleas. She felt the teeth clamp over her in its vise grip and sink down.

A simple thought ran through her as the teeth tore in. Why? After all this, she despaired, why did she have to die this way? The irony of it was cruel.

In the retelling of this moment, Amy would never understand what took place. Something came between them, between herself and the wolf pressing down on her. The only way she could describe it was as if an air bag from a car had detonated between them. The force of it hammered her flat and flung the lobo off of her. It was intensely cold, she remembered, as if she had instantly submerged in snow.

She rolled over onto her knees, feeling a thousand new aches and searched for the wolf. Ten yards away, the wolf was shaking its head as if driven mad. The pale lobo reeled as if drunk before collapsing into a heap of bloodied fur in the dripping ferns.

Amy crawled to it. The wolf shuddered, its snout flat to the ground and then it lay still. Its tongue unspooled from its maw and lay on the ground, speckled with grit. It looked dead. Reaching out cautiously, Amy pressed her fingertips through the fur to the lobo's chest. Its heart was still beating.

The blood was everywhere. Coagulated into a black jelly in spots, fresh and raw in other places. Open wounds raw to the air, the bolt through its neck. Was it dying? Amy couldn't tell.

She inched closer. Twin fears hammered at her heart and competed for dominance. A primal fear of the wolf itself and its opposing dread that the wolf would die. Blowflies were already crawling over the angry wounds in its hide and Amy waved them away but the insects swarmed and resettled quickly.

The bolt protruding from its neck ticked rhythmically with the labored breathing. The tail of the missile, with its fletching of mallard feathers, had been snapped off in a clean break. It could be pulled out but Amy hesitated, not knowing if it would help or make matters worse. She listened to its ragged breath, rattling against the dart. Kneeling tight against the wolf, she wrapped both hands around the bolt in a stout grip and counted to three.

The arrow plucked free with a wet pop and the wolf reared up in a spasm, jaws popping the air with a loud crack. Amy jerked back to keep away from its teeth.

The pale wolf rose up and slunk towards her. Amy kicked at the ground to get away. The lobo stumbled and crashed down on top of her. Its bulk flattened her to the earth and then the wolf didn't move.

The dead weight of it was smothering. Amy struggled to breathe, fearing she'd suffocate against the thing. Did the wolf die on her? Pushing at it was futile, it was too big and her arms had no leverage. Something hot splattered her cheek as the wolf’s blood trickled over her.

Steam roiled up around her, misting her eyes. The mass of fur and hide pinning her down grew hot to the touch, like a bank of hot coals. Amy felt the mass tremble and quake. Closing her eyes against the vapor, she called Lara's name.

The crushing weight eased up, allowing her to breathe. The mass sprawled over her lessened and shrank as if disappearing. With newfound elbow room, Amy pushed the steaming thing off and rolled out from under it.

Lara Mendes lay face down on the forest floor. She didn't move. Her dark hair was slicked wet and webbed over her face. The flesh on her back was marred by cuts and contusions. An open wound flared down her ribs, the blood diluting in the sweat.

Amy scrambled to her side and rolled Lara over, scraping the hair away to find her friend's face. White and gaunt. Blood dribbled from the sucking wound left in her neck from the bolt of the crossbow.

Panic stitched her up. Her hand slapped over the open wound to stop the blood. The ridiculous bonnet was still in her backpocket. She popped it out and pressed it over the wound. She wanted to pray in that moment for her friend's life but she knew no prayers to utter. All she could do was beg.

“Please, God. Don't let her die. Not now.”

Her pleas went unanswered. No flutter of an eyelid nor sudden intake of breath. Amy scanned the forest around her as if there was someone there to help but there was only the swaying ferns and the silent trees. She was alone and Lara was dying and there was nothing she could do to save her. The world turned blurry as her eyes welled up and she smeared the tears away with the back of her hand.

Lara jerked to life with a fit of coughing and racked breath as if she had been drowning. She coiled up, twisting onto her side around Amy and retched into the dirt. Something foul erupted from Lara's gullet in a dark spray and Amy turned away, not wanting to see what the woman had vomited up. Lara's hands clung to her like a life preserver and Amy held the woman tight until the tremors passed.

“Amy.” Lara's voice cracked.

“Don't talk,” Amy hushed, clamping the cloth against open wound. “Lie still. You're bleeding.”

Lara clenched up as a wave of pain rippled through her. She spit into the dirt to clear her throat.

“I have to get you out of here.” Amy ran her eyes down Lara's frame, the cuts and contusions crisscrossing her flesh in a riot of angry tracks. “Can you stand?”

“The wolf—” Lara's eyes pinwheeled, trying to pull focus on Amy. She snatched the girl's arm. “Did the wolf kill anyone?”

“No.”

“Are you sure? How do you know?” Another coughing jag stole her voice.

“The wolf took one guy's arm off but he survived. Why is that important? The Bishop wanted to know too.”

“The last step. No coming back after that.” Lara winced as a fresh pain rippled through her. “It's only a matter of time before I do.”

“Don't say that.”

Lara clutched the girl’s wrist. “Did it attack you?”

Amy stiffened and then shook her head. A lackluster denial.

“Look at me,” Lara bristled. “Did the wolf try to kill you?”

The girl nodded and Lara looked down at Amy’s empty hands. She had no gun or blade or weapon of any kind. “What happened?”

“I don't know. Something stopped you. The wolf, I mean.”

A gimlet of light opened in the woman's eyes. “The wolf backed off?”

“No,” Amy said in a hushed tone. She watched Lara's hope fall away. “I don't know. It all happened so fast. It was like a wall appeared. It stopped the...”

The woman's sank, like a balloon deflating. “It tried to kill you. I'm that far gone.”

Amy grasped for a convenient denial but found nothing in reach. The rage of the pale wolf as it charged at her was too clear in her mind for that. All she could do was watch Lara collapse under its awful weight. “Lara, what happens if it does kill?”

“Then the monster wins.”

The thought of it frightened Amy, losing Lara to that darker side of nature. “Hold still.” Amy eased back the damp fabric from Lara's neck. The wound was puckered and wet but the bleeding had slowed to a thin trickle. “There's another wolf here. An old one. The Bishop has it trapped in a pit underground.”

The woman’s grip tightened on her wrist. “What are you talking about?”

“Under the cemetery. It doesn't even look like a wolf anymore.” Amy looked at the shirt in her hands. Stained with blood and filth, it would never come clean. “The Bishop said it was the first wolf, the man you who founded this place. I don't know if he's lying or not.”

Lara shook her head, trying to understand what had been said. “It's still alive?”

“Sounded crazy to me too. But I saw it. The Bishop said it's the reason other wolves are drawn here. They come looking for it. Then the Bishop and his goons kill them off one by one.”

“The first wolf,” Lara muttered.

“The what?”

Lara flinched as she sat up. “The Bishop said the founder was the first werewolf. That it started with him. But that was a hundred years ago. How it could still be alive?”

“I don't know. Who knows how long they live?” Amy glanced at Lara's face, like she'd said something offensive. “I mean, if they're not killed.”

“Where is this thing?”

Amy wagged her chin in the direction of the village walls. “It's a cavern, under the graveyard. Right where they kept you in that prison. I found a tunnel that led to it.”

Lara's gaze drew long, clouding out of focus. “Prall” she said.

“Who?” The name was familiar but Amy couldn't place it. There was too much happening to think straight anymore. And then it came. Ivan Prall. The lycanthrope that had infected Lara in the first place. “What about him? Was he tied up with this place?”

“Prall was out to kill the wolf that infected him. He believed it would break the curse and free him.”

“It didn't work.”

Lara struggled to pull focus. Too many stray birds in her mind. “Maybe he had it half right. He was hunting the wrong wolf.”

“The one in the pit?”

“If the Bishop's story is true, then that monster in the pit is the one who started all of this. That's who Prall should have killed.”

“Wait a minute. Killing the first wolf would break the curse? For you?”

“For all of them. Any other wolves that are still out there, making their way to this place.”

Amy chewed her lip. “Do you honestly think that will work?”

“I don't know. I can't think straight anymore.”

Lara rubbed her eyes with a trembling hand, fatigue running off her in waves. Amy stood and scanned the area about them. To the west lay the dirt road. “Can you walk?”

“I can barely stand,” Lara said.

Amy took the stained shirt and unfurled it with a snap. “Put this on. We're getting out of here.”

“No. You get help. Come back for the other two.”

“Not gonna happen. Let's move.” Amy held up the shirt and Lara eased her arms into the sleeves. She winced when the girl pulled her to her feet, clenching her molars against the pain. Amy draped the woman's arm across her shoulders and the two of them stepped slowly over the needles of the forest floor.

They managed all of ten paces before looking back to see the troop of watchmen charging across the field towards them, their pikes brandished high.

36

OUTRUNNING THEIR PURSUERS WAS impossible. Lara could barely walk and Amy bore the brunt of her weight, all but carrying the woman along as she trampled through the underbrush. When Lara stumbled they both went down, tumbling over the mossy deadfall of the forest floor. Amy scolded herself to keep moving but everything hurt. Banged up and battered around, she tried to pinpoint some part of her that didn't ache but couldn't find one.

The crunch of boots trampling the underbrush stopped her heart. The watchmen had reached the forest.

Lara’s hand latched onto her wrist and pulled her through the leaves into a shadowy cover of ferns. The woman had rallied and for a brief moment, Amy risked hoping that they had a chance of getting away. It fizzled when she saw Lara's eyes. The amber sheen in her iris meant only one thing; the pale wolf was coming back.

Over the trill of the birds came the sound of the hunters crunching over the forest floor. Sounding off both flanks, the watchmen had fanned out as they swept the forest, looking to flush out their prey from the tangle of vegetation.

Lara pulled the girl close and hissed a single word. “Run.”

“No,” Amy admonished. “I'm not leaving you behind. We can make it.”

“You have to get out of this place. Now.” Lara shook the girl hard. “The wolf is coming back. You can't be here when it does.”

“No, Lara. Dig deep. You have to.”

Lara shoved the girl away. “Go, damn it. I made a promise to your father to keep you safe.”

Whatever protest Amy had was cut short by the conflict warring through her friend's face. The seething rage of clenched teeth at odds with the despair in Lara’s eyes. The amber burning hotter by the second, almost incandescent.

“Don't make a liar out of me,” Lara hissed. “Please. Not to your dad.”

That was playing dirty, invoking his name like that. Amy felt her own eyes burn hot and there was no counter-argument she could think of.

So she ran.

Not quietly, a full sprint crashing through the boughs and brambles, heels snapping twigs at every fall.

A holler went up, the hunting party alert to her racket and rushing forward. Amy crashed through a thicket of cypress, drawing the watchmen away from Lara's position. She glanced back quickly but could not see Lara. Only the tall lances of the watchmen rushing through the trees towards her.

Then the earth shook at the roar of the wolf. Swallows took to the air by the hundreds, flushed from the trees by the danger. Amy vaulted over the mossy trunk of a felled tree and looked back. She saw the pikes of her pursuers stop and double-back towards the sound.

She rested her head against the damp moss of the tree. What was she to do, just run? Abandon Lara to those pious bastards and their vicious Bishop? The watchmen would either kill the wolf or the wolf would kill them. A line in the sand she could not come back from. How was she to keep the pale lobo from doing that?

Then she remembered the monster in the pit. The old wolf, the first lycanthrope as the Bishop claimed. And the mad idea, borne of the man who had infected Lara, that killing the first wolf would break the spell. Would it work? She didn't know but it was worth a chance. Anything was at this point.

Amy listened to the racket echoing through the trees. The watchmen barked at one another in German as they closed in on their prey. The wolf had gone silent. She took a breath and bolted north, back towards the walls of the village.

~

With the doors closed, the air inside the barn grew sickly with the reek of the stalls and Silas wanted no more of it. Cracking the low slung door open, he scanned the lane. Watchmen raced from the armory to the square while mothers shooed children indoors. Men hollered from their posts on the towers and above the din, Silas could hear the barking of the Bishop. When the path was clear, he darted from the barn to the Mueller's house and onto the outshed of the blacksmith's shop where he slid into the shadow under a roof of cedar shakes. The chaos was general as the people scurried to make way for the next troop of watchmen returning from the armory. The store of weapons was growing thin as the reserves carried only meager tools such as axes and clubs. One young man held an antique sword speckled with rust.

The Bishop stood atop an apple crate issuing orders in a voice so hoarse that Silas couldn't make out what the man was bellowing. His throat hitched when he saw the remaining prisoners dragged forth and shoved up against the poles. The young man and woman, outsiders who had accompanied Amy, were lashed to the posts as firewood was piled at their feet.

The man had gone mad, plain and simple. And mad was dangerous for a man with as much power and control as the Bishop. Silas considered his options. There were few. If caught, he too would be declared an enemy and God only knew what the Bishop would do to him then. The other option was to flee. He should have left with Amy when he had the chance.

“Silas!”

The cry froze the blood in his spine. It was too late even for that. Silas turned slowly, expecting an onslaught of black guard. To his relief, it was only one person, and that a boy. The blacksmith's son, James Halford, was thirteen years old. He sat perched on an old iron stove deeper inside the shed.

“James,” Silas blew with relief. “What are you doing?”

“The Bishop's looking for you,” said James. He picked at a callous on his filthy hand. “He decreed an order for your arrest.”

Silas gauged the boy's mood, wondering if he would cry out. “Are you going to turn me in?”

The boy shrugged, looking out on the tumult in the square. “The devil has come to town.”

“Is that why you're hiding out in here?”

“I'm hiding from them,” James said, nodding his chin towards the watchmen in the street. “The Bishop ordered every able bodied man to bring his weapon to defend the town.”

Silas looked the boy over. “Men, James. Not boys.”

“He's throwing recruits at the wolf. They made me put this on.”

The boy was wearing the dark tunic of the watchmen. A size too big, the sleeves of the uniform swallowed the boy’s hands.

“They put that on you?”

The boy raised the drooping cuffs. “They took it off Hess. His blood is still on it.”

Silas grimaced at the foul stain. “Has the Bishop lost his mind?”

“He declared marshal law. He's already had six men jailed for disobeying his orders. Your father included.”

“My father?” Silas scanned the crowd in the square. Dust roiled the air, kicked up by so many pounding heels. “Why was my father arrested?”

“For questioning him. The Bishop sees enemies and traitors everywhere.”

Silas pinpointed the man now among the throng at the gate. The Bishop barking orders, the watchmen scurrying to carry out his demands.

“If I were you, Silas. I would run.”

Silas passed James as he crossed to the back of the shed. “Good luck, James.”

“Godspeed,” said the boy.

Silas pulled his hat low over his eyes and quit the shed, darting from one house to another. If his father was arrested then he would be held in the silo jail. But that was on the other side of town. Difficult to get to without being seen. Unless he circumvented the town by going outside the walls. But the wolf was out there.

The Bishop had lost his wits, seeing apostates everywhere, but who could stop him? If he could lock up his own father, an elder of the town, without so much as a peep of protest, what chance did anyone have of standing up to the man?

Perhaps he should heed the Halford boy's advice and just run. Flee this town and never look back. Could he do that? He knew nothing of the English world. He wouldn't last a day in that foreign country.

Silas leaned back against the sun-faded clapboard of the house and closed his eyes over his dim prospects. Damned on all sides. When he opened them again, he caught sight of a figure darting between the houses, much the same as he had just done.

It was Amy. What was she doing back here? She was supposed to be long gone. He waved his arm, trying to flag her attention but the girl didn't see him. She flit across another yard, taking shelter briefly before moving on again.

Darting into the open again, she ran straight for the shadow of the Bishop's house.

~

The plan was simple and Amy cursed herself for not thinking of it sooner. But while plans always seem sound on paper, it is the execution of them that kills us. She had made it back inside the village and was a stone's throw from the Bishop's narrow house when something slammed into her from behind and took her tumbling into the raspberry brambles.

She lashed out hard with her fist until she heard her assailant's voice.

“Amy, stop! It's me.”

Silas rolled off of her, one hand up to ward off the next blow. “What are you doing back here?”

“Why did you tackle me?” Amy grunted. “That hurt.”

“I couldn't call out. Not without raising an alarm” He dabbed at his lip where she had punched him. “Why did you come back? You should be halfway to town by now.”

Amy brushed the dirt from her knees. “Change of plans. I need to get inside the Bishop's house.”

“Why?”

“My gun is there. I saw it earlier. I need it.”

“You need to get out of here. No one's safe. Least of all you.” He craned his neck, scanning about to see if they had been spotted. “What the devil do you need the gun for?”

“To kill the monster in the pit,” she said. “The old wolf.”

His eyes popped. “What will that accomplish?”

“It will save Lara's life. Or her soul.” Her knee popped as she got up. “I can't explain it right now.”

“Did you lose your wits out there? That's insane.”

“I'm not asking you to help, Silas.”

He blew out his frustration in a long sigh. “You want to break into the Bishop's house. Steal back your gun. Then break back into the dungeon where you saw this monster in a pit?”

“Yep.”

“And kill it?”

“That’s the plan.”

He shrugged. “Okay.”

A wisp of a smile tugged at Amy's eyes. Silas had a sense of humor after all.

A rose of pink burned his cheek. Her hand locked onto his and they ran past the Heinrich's house and skirted the Muelbech's small cottage before sprinting the last stretch to the Bishop's abode. A lean two-story house with a wide veranda that faced south and white clapboard that needed painting. Perched over the gabled roof was a small bell tower shingled in dark cedar.

They crept up the steps to the backdoor and Silas gripped the handle.

“Wait,” Amy whispered. “What if someone's there?”

“Everyone's at the gates.” He pulled on the door but it wouldn't open. “Locked.”

“I thought no one locked their doors in this town.”

“So did I,” he said.

The lock was old, a skeleton like all the rest. Amy searched the veranda for a length of wire. “I need something to pick it with.”

“Don't bother.” Silas tried the window to the left. The sash slid open with ease. “This way.”

He hopped up and climbed over, scattering the contents of a sideboard to the wooden floor with a loud clatter. He froze, waiting for a sound but there was none. The house quiet, deserted . Amy crawled in after him with no sound or calamity. They looked over the Bishop's sparse study.

“Where did you see it?”

“On the mantelpiece.” She crossed to the hearth. The stone mantel held two iron candlesticks but nothing more. The gun was gone. “Damn it.”

“Look for it,” Silas said. He tore through the shelves, knocking books to the floor. Amy rifled every drawer she could see. The hutch turned up nothing, as did the sideboard they had climbed over.

“Here.”

She turned to see Silas holding the big Desert Eagle. Taking the nickel-plated gun from him, she slid the magazine out. It was empty. Snapping it back in, she racked the slide open and a single round popped from the chamber. It rolled across the floor until Silas chased it down and brought it back to her.

“Just one bullet?” he said.

“Yep.”

“Is it enough to kill that thing?”

Amy seated the round back into the chamber and snapped the slide back. “Silver tipped hollow point and a helluva caliber. It'll take that thing's head clean off.”

“But you only have one shot at it.”

“Yup.”

The smile creased her eyes again and Silas felt a shudder pass over him looking into her brown eyes. He couldn’t stop his own smile from echoing back to her.

A low noise broke the smiles apart. Watchman Keisler stood at the end of the hallway. He swayed a little on unsteady knees, his severed arm resting in a sling. The linen swaddled over the stump was red with blood. Keisler's good hand was raised and gripped around a length of rope that trailed up towards the roof. To the mission bell in its little clapboard tower.

He yanked the rope with a violent tug and the bell peeled sharply over the town, sounding the alarm.

37

THE MUTILATED WATCHMAN was no threat, injured as he was. Keisler could barely stay upright, clutching the bell rope for support. All the same Silas scrambled to unlatch the door and they fled the house with what they came for.

They scrambled for the cemetery with the church bell ringing sharply in the air. Its peel was urgent and when Amy looked over her shoulder she saw a deputation of black guard rushing to the house with the little bell tower. She saw Keisler stumble out to meet them, gesturing with his one good hand in their direction.

Silas harried her to run and not look back. The stone mausoleum came up fast and they collided into the iron gate, Amy already working the lock with the bonnet pin.

“Hurry,” Silas panted as he looked back over the graveyard. The troop of watchmen was already sprinting towards them, five men strong. The tall figure of the Bishop among them.

Rushed, Amy's hand slipped and her knuckles raked across the rough iron bar. She took a breath, worked the pick again and the lock tumbled. She swung it open and they plunged inside.

Silas struck a match as Amy found the lantern. “Which way?” he said.

Amy retraced her steps to the trapdoor. It creaked open and they descended the narrow stone steps into an even deeper darkness. Silas slipped twice on the slick stone, almost crashing down onto Amy. Then the smell wafted up to meet them.

“Good God.” Silas covered his nose. “That stench.”

“It gets worse,” Amy said as she reached the bottom and hurried along the low passageway. The reek coming at them bristled the hair on his neck and he had to fight the urge to turn around and run.

Ducking out of the tunnel, Silas straightened up as they emerged onto the gallery overlooking the pit. The darkness was total, the watery light of the lantern revealed only the rough floor. Six paces out, it dropped away into a void of black pitch.

“I can't see anything,” he said.

“Give me the matches.”

He handed the box over. Amy struck one and found the torch in the wall sconce. It flared up easily, revealing more of the stone platform they stood upon. The smell was noxious but the air was quiet and still. Their whispers drifted away in that cavernous space, leaving Silas to speculate how vast this underground pit was.

Amy tiptoed to the edge, a sickly vertigo creeping in. There was no railing to clutch for balance and her free hand stretched out like she was balancing a beam. She flinched when his hand took hers but his grip was solid. Clinging to each other for balance, they inched forward and knelt down at the platform's edge.

Silas dangled the lantern over the edge and they looked down into darkness. Neither could see the bottom of the pit nor anything else.

“Are you sure it's here?” he whispered.

Amy squinted but there was simply nothing to see. She strained her ear to listen but there was no sound. A faint drip of water coming from somewhere in the dark. Had the monster vanished? Was there some other cavern down there that the lobo had vanished to?

A noise came, but not one they expected. It echoed from the tunnel behind them. The clang of the iron bars, the stomping of jackboots on stone. The watchmen, already pounding down the winding steps towards them.

Amy felt her hand crushed in his. And then the wolf came.

It shot up out of the darkness of the pit like a great white breaking the surface of the water. Its massive jaws open wide and snapping shut, snatching the lantern from Silas's hand. They both reared back in a panic and the monster dropped down into the darkness once again, taking the light with it.

Amy heard him curse something in German but didn't bother asking for the translation. His face was a white dish of horror. “Get the torch,” she said. “Quick!”

The racket from the passageway grew louder, their pursuers moments from bursting in on them. Silas swung the torch over the edge of the floor. Amy gripped the heavy gun in both hands and they peered down into the pit.

A soft orb of light glowed within the darkness. The lantern, spit out by the wolf, had landed without breaking and offered a dim beacon in that abyss of night. The great wolf skulked the walls of the pit in a slow circle, its gnarled snout looking up at them.

Silas gasped at the thing. The gray fur clotted in blood and filth, whole swaths of pelage missing in spots to reveal the poky slats of its ribcage. Its enormous head was malformed and twisted and, to Silas, looked more demon than wolf. The horror of it shut down his mind. More than that, the evil deception of it hammered home. How long had the monster been kept here? How many Bishops had kept this awful secret from the community they were sworn to protect?

“Shoot it,” he seethed through his clenched teeth. “Kill it.”

Amy steadied her hand and tracked the monster over the bead on the end of the gun barrel. Like shooting fish, she told herself.

“Amy, hurry!” Silas darted his eyes in a panic between the pit and the doorway at their backs. “They're here!”

One silver round left. Make it count. She held her breath and squeezed the trigger in a slow, even draw.

Nothing happened. The trigger piece stuck, glued to the loop of the guard. Misfire. The load frozen in the chamber.

Then the watchmen burst into the room.

Silas pivoted on his heel, swinging the blazing torch at the oncomers. The black uniforms filed in one after the other, each one ducking the swing of the flame. There was a moment, a blink and no more, where Silas leered as he kept the hated watchmen cowering before the fiery torch but another blink and it was all over. A halberd clattered into the side of his head, pitching him leeward into the oncoming fist of the guardsmen on the opposite side. The torch fell and Silas went down and the watchmen swarmed over him, kicking him down under their heels.

Watchman Becker lunged for the girl but was stopped cold by the butt of the gun hammering his temple. His eyes rolled over white as he fell. Amy swung for the next man but the watchmen were on her like piranha, beating her to the stone floor with their mailed fists. A bootheel stomped her gun hand and her knuckles exploded in pain. The big weapon fell from her hand and a boot kicked it over the side where it sank into the darkness below.

It was over. There was nothing left for her to do but curl into a tight ball to protect herself from the blows. Pinpricks of light popped her vision after another kick to the head. She caught a glimpse of Silas, his teeth clenched as one of the bastards in black kicked his stomach in.

The punishment ceased all at once. Amy thought she was going to vomit from the pain. Rough hands locked on and yanked her sharply to her feet. When the world stopped spinning, she found the figure of the Bishop looming over her like a buzzard.

“The little swallow returns.” His neck craned down as he sought her eyes. “For what reason? Why did you come down here, girl?”

Amy let her eyes fall to the floor. The guard holding her answered for her. “She stole the gun from your house. She tried to kill the old wolf.”

The Bishop snatched her by the hair and tilted her face up to meet his. “Is this true?”

“Get your hands off her,” grunted Silas. Held upright between two of the watchmen, he looked like a low thug rooked between two cops.

“Lad, how deep do you intend to dig your own grave?” The Bishop turned back to the man holding the girl. “Where is the gun?”

The guard nodded to the drop at their feet. “In the pit.”

“A fitting place for it,” said the Bishop. He turned his eyes to the girl again. “Little sparrow, despite your blasphemy I will offer some clemency to your wayward soul. Repent now and beg the Lord for forgiveness and you may live to earn your way back to the light.”

Something hot flared in Amy's blood. The Gallagher side of her, inherited from her father. Her hatred of the buzzard before her was whole and complete. She spat in his face and advised him to go to Hell.

The Bishop flushed red. Snatching the girl away from the guard, he marched her towards the sheer drop and pushed her over the edge.

38

DEATH SHOULD HAVE BEEN instant. Whether her skull split in two upon impact or the wolf snatched her up in its monstrous jaws, she expected to die quickly. But death has its own mandate and delights in confounding every notion placed in its lap.

Amy collided into something soft, spun backwards and crashed onto what felt like a pile of dry sticks. The wood tinkled and slurred underneath her like water as she scrambled to get upright. The lantern that had fallen in still glowed and its thin light washed over the kindling she swam in. It wasn't wood. The floor of the pit was a carpet of dry bones. Thousands of them.

Repulsed, Amy backpedalled against the bones but the brittle ribcages and femurs rattled around under her feet like quicksand. A broken skull rolled into her lap, its hollow sockets leering up at her as if mocking her grim predicament.

Something shifted in the darkness of the pit, treading heavily over the dry bones. The monstrous wolf slithered into the pale light of the lantern, its head low to the ground as it thundered closer. Its deformed snout was crisscrossed with scars and its dark nose flared at her scent.

Amy swam through the bones, kicking at the brittle things to get away until she backed hard against the stone wall and there was nowhere left to run.

Silas's eyes bugged from their sockets as Amy sailed over the edge. This wasn't happening, his mind reasoned. Even the Bishop in all his rabid frenzy would not be so cruel. And yet over the edge Amy went, arms pinwheeling as she fell. Then to salt the wound, the Bishop, the man he had once revered as his irreproachable chieftain and guide, turned to him with a leer of smug victory tilting his mouth.

A thread snapped in his head and all he wanted in that moment was to lock his hands around the man's throat and throttle the life from it. He shoved off his captor and lunged at the Bishop. He got his hands on him only for a moment before another watchman tackled him. Silas rolled with the impact and spun the man away.

Propelled by his own momentum, watchman Mueller caterwauled over the side and tumbled into the pit.

Encountering a single werewolf in one lifetime is enough to traumatize any person into madness. By the age of 17, Amy Gallagher had encountered six of the monsters and, although not unscathed, she had survived. But the monster before her threatened to dash her sanity by its appearance alone. Imprisoned within this stone pit for more than a century, the old wolf had deformed into a grotesque malformation of canis lupus and homo hominis. Festered in the darkness for so long, the creature belonged to neither camp, having become its own specie altogether. An aberrant demon chucked out of hell to stalk round and round its stone prison.

And on it came to devour the girl in the pit.

The monster reared up as the impact of the falling watchman collided onto its spiny back. The man bounced off the creature’s hide and crashed into the dry bones. Almost without breaking stride, he clawed through the tinder under him, frantic to get away from the monstrous thing that had broken his fall.

The guardsman's weapon, a long pike with a lethal blade, landed point down in the bones before Amy. The silver honed cutting edge of it missed her leg by less than a hand span.

The old lobo popped its jaws at the watchman, snapping its teeth in a loud clap as the man scurried to the wall. When it swung its head back to the first offering that had been thrown to it by its keeper, it found the girl armed with a spear. It lunged forward.

Amy clung to the pike like a life preserver, grateful to have anything to put between herself and the monster. It wasn't enough to save her, she knew and she silently wished the lobo would go after the watchman and leave her alone. When the wolf lunged in she speared its snout and the thing reared back, shaking its head. Given the massive bone yard under her feet, she guessed the monster wasn't used to having its meals fight back. Taking the offensive, she swung the weapon again, slashing it to the bone. The monster roared, its foul blood spilling from its snout.

The impact of the fall had twisted Mueller’s knee the wrong way and it flared hot with a pain he hadn't known before. But fortune had smiled on him when the wretched thing turned its attention to the girl. He stumbled and limped on towards the south wall. There was a way out of this Gehenna, a slim chance at escape if he could get to the gate in time. An egress from hell. Cobwebbed and dusty, the portcullis rested in its mortared arch at the far end of the pit. It hadn't been disturbed in a long time and when Mueller slammed into its latticed grille, he prayed it would still open.

It had to.

Slipping his arm through the lattice, he groped for the wood-handled lever that would trip the release. He screamed as his fingertips brushed against it, an inch shy of the lever.

Leaning over the edge from above, the Bishop watched the misery unfold in the arena below. The great wolf on its nest of bones, the two puny figures scrambling for their lives. He spat as he zeroed in on the watchman at the portcullis. “What does that fool think he's doing?”

“He's trying to raise the gate,” said the guardsman at the Bishop's side.

“He'll let the beast out if he raises it.” The Bishop bellowed at Mueller to stop, to get away from the grille.

“I doubt the pulleys works, sir,” offered the guardsman. “I can't remember the last time it was raised. The chains are surely rusted.”

The decrepit monster circled about in its lair, as if unable to settle on which victim to shred first. Mueller's screams echoed off the stone and wafted up to the onlookers on the precipice. His arm was shoulder deep through the lattice, groping for the lever. The lobo swung about and stalked towards the girl.

A sharp thud sounded from the gate, followed by the tinkling noise of old chains and rusty gears spinning into action. Mueller almost lost his arm as the portcullis gate rose from its moorings in the floor and lifted into the dusty aperture in the wall above. Dust billowed up in the rank air and the exit gaped open. Mueller ran headlong into the tunnel.

Amy backed into the wall with the weapon slick in her sweaty grip when the monster swung back at the sound of the old chains clanking up inside the stone walls. The gates yawned open and the lobo turned its snout to it and sniffed the air. It skulked forward, padded through the egress and vanished into the darkness of the tunnel.

Amy lowered the pike in her white-knuckled fists, wary that this was all some ruse. But it wasn't, the old wolf had slipped the gate. From somewhere up above, a terrible cry rang out over the pit as the Bishop shrieked out his protest, as if his cries alone could bring the monster back.

~

Jonathan Oppel was a watchman in reserve. His novitiate had begun the previous fall under the Bishop's tutelage. Weapons training in the morning with the captain of the watch where he learned to use the pike, the broad axe and even the sword. Afternoons were spent studying scripture and the lore of the wolves. Since he was a young boy, Jonathan had admired the watchmen, sharply turned out in their dark tunics and fearsome weapons. Becoming one of them was all he had ever wanted and when the Bishop had accepted his father's request for him to join, he had been ecstatic. He was to be one of the fabled watchmen, a pious defenders of the people against the hordes of monsters that routinely assaulted their sacred community nestled in the deep dark woods.

His first excursion into action left him questioning everything he had ever known. With the primary troop of black guard decimated by the monster outside the gates, the reserves were brought up to make up the second hunting party. Jonathan was called down from his post on the east tower and put into action, taking his place on the left flank of the troop as they sallied forth from the village gates to destroy the pale wolf laying siege to the town.

They had marched into the forest in a wide arc to flush the monster from the brush. Before blessing their excursion, the Bishop had informed that the beast was mortally wounded and close to death. An easy kill, he had promised. Slaughter the wolf, he had ordered, and drag the carcass back to him in righteous glory.

The Bishop had been only half right. Wounded though the monster was, it was no where near death. If anything, its wounds and scars had driven it into a savage ferocity that none of the men were prepared for. They had heard it deeper in the forest, stalking through the trees and when it came, it was terrible to behold. On its first pass, it had thrown Miller into the trunk of an ash and trampled Duncan Casser into the ground. The senior watchman ordered them to close ranks and form the tortuga. It did little to dispel the monster. Again and again it came. Men were bleeding and broken, some bitten and others trampled into the earth. Jonathan was the only one left uninjured and he alone sounded the retreat, dragging his battered comrades out of the trees and into the clearing. He had hauled another one out when the pale wolf appeared for the final time.

Its bloodied snout was low to the ground but its eyes squared right at him. Jonathan's hands were empty, his pike abandoned on the ground as he tried to save his fellows. He stuttered out a prayer as the monster came on, knowing he was about to die but the Lord spared him. The pale wolf froze mid-step and reared its terrible head in the direction of the village. Its nose flared hot and then it tore off, bounding full speed towards the gates of town.

~

The floor of the tunnel was rocky and uneven as watchman Mueller stumbled through the dark of the mine shaft, splashing through puddles of bracken water. He fell and cursed and limped on.

Patting his vest pocket for his matches, he struck one, cupping his hand over the tender flame to keep it lit. Veils of cobwebs drifted from the beams overhead and clung to his face like gossamer. He tried to recall how much further the shaft carried on but it had been years since he had been down here. Another thirty paces? Fifty?

His boots were soaked from the standing water and he wanted to stop to catch his breath but he pushed on, knowing what was behind him. How long before the old wolf finds its way into the escape shaft? The teardrop flame stung his fingers and he flung it away and got another. The sticks spilled out as he fumbled another match and carried on. He wished he had had the foresight to count his paces when he ran into the tunnel. Something to gauge the distance traveled and the yardage left to go.

The roar of the monster rolled up behind him like a wave and blew over him. He could hear it thundering along the ground as it came up behind him and Mueller quickened his pace. He'd come this far, the way out couldn't be that far.

He didn't dare turn around. The thunder of its paws grew louder until he could feel the thing's breath on the back of his neck, blowing hot and foul. It was toying with him.

The steps appeared in the distance. The way out, up out of this darkness and away from the thing at his back. Twenty paces and he'd be there.

The match winked out.

~

The boom of the portcullis slamming home echoed around the walls of the pit. When the wolf disappeared into the tunnel beyond, Amy slid down the wall while her heart clanged inside her chest. The pike fell from her numb hands. She could hear the voices of the Bishop and his men on the platform above her but could not make out their words. More German. She heard Silas's voice among them and wondered what he was saying.

The gate remained open but the spiked ends of the lattice shook and a clank of chains echoed, as if the portcullis was unstable and ready to slam back down any minute. It was the only way out. Amy forced herself to move but her legs were as numb as her hands and wading through the nest of bones was difficult. The gears in the wall clanked and the gate dropped a foot before catching.

The gun.

Amy stopped and looked back. The gun was down here. She scrambled for the lantern on the floor and raised it high but there was no gun in sight. Nothing but bones and more bones. The portcullis shuddered, dropping another foot.

A glimmer amongst the dusty bones caught the light. She dove for it, scooping it up from the ribs it had caught on. The handgun was dusty but appeared undamaged. She ran for the gate, stomping the foul sticks underfoot and scurried out the other side of the gate.

Setting the lantern on the floor, she tried to rack the slide open but it wouldn't budge. Shimmying it back and forth, it unsnapped and jerked forward. The cartridge spun out and landed in the grit. She chased it down and blew the dust from it then slotted the last round of fifty caliber silver into the chamber and snapped the slide back home.

She hurried on, limping over the uneven floor on numb feet, wondering how far the shaft went on for. A soft light up ahead revealed the stairs leading up. Her heel skidded on something slick and she held the lantern out. Pieces of the watchman lay scattered about, little more than meatscraps on the tunnel floor.

She ran for the steps, her kicks slipping in the gore.

39

THE SUN BURNED HOT in Silas's eyes as he was pushed out of the mausoleum by the watchmen. Squinting his eyes against the daylight his ears caught the screams of terror coming from the square.

“God Almighty,” the watchman on his left stuttered. “The beast is loose in town.”

Silas heard the Bishop seethe. “Quick march, lads. Weapons high.”

“What about him?” The captor on his right shook Silas.

“Bring the apostate. We may need fodder to net the beast.”

None of them had recovered their eyes but they sallied forth at a quick jog through the headstones and Silas was forced to leap over the markers to avoid pratfalling to the dirt.

The square opened before them. A trundlecart lay overturned in the street, its contents spilled into the dirt and a body was sprawled next to it. Twisted and rent to pieces, the victim was unrecognizable in its splash of gore.

Around the square were smashed windows and shattered porch railings. A basket toppled in the dirt where its owner had dropped it to flee. A trail of destruction left by the beast but of the thing itself, there was no sign.

One of the black guard staggered out from behind a house with a crossbow in his hands. Jamming his foot into the latch, he slotted a bolt in and heaved back on the gut string, desperate to get the weapon armed. That's when they saw the wolf.

It sklathed out from behind a shed and in the full light of day, its foul appearance stopped them cold. The few glimpses Silas had caught of the thing were enough to make him shudder but here in the sunlight, the decrepit lobo was abominable to see. Its open sores and bony limbs, the snout and eyes like something spit up out of Hell itself. More than that was the sheer size of the thing, unseen in full until now. Even the Bishop seemed awestruck by the sight of it.

The crossbowman had nary a chance. Latching the pull into position, he swung the weapon up quickly but the wolf struck before he could seat the stock to his shoulder. He was lifted clean off the ground by those awful teeth and the great wolf shook its head in such violent jerks that they could hear the man's bone snapping under the force. The jaws bit down and the screaming man fell to the dirt in two separate lengths. The crossbow, armed but unfired, fell spattered in its owner's blood.

The Bishop hazed his men forward. “Get the nets, lads. We need to lash the beast down.”

Silas watched the faces of the men fall. “Nets? We need to destroy the damn thing before it kills us all.”

“No!” The Bishop snatched the protester by the collar and shook him. “You are not to kill it. Do you understand? The nets will capture it. We need it back down in its pit. Alive.”

The Bishop slapped the men away, hurrying them onto their tasks. One of them stayed behind to guard Silas. Silas glanced at the man, taking his measure. Could he overpower him? Just enough to break away and find Amy in all of this mayhem?

As if reading his thoughts, the Bishop shoved Silas to the dirt. “Be still, lad. You'll get your turn to contribute.”

~

The numbness in Tasha’s arms began where her wrists were bound with rope and crept upwards. The lack of circulation had deadened her limbs and, looking down at the kindling stacked under her feet, she prayed the numbness would overtake her entire body and spare her from the torture of the flames.

Such a barbaric way to die. A storybook image of Joan of Arc came to her, lashed to the pole while the flames rose and her inquisitors jeered from the sidelines. The girl soldier beatific as she was burned at the stake, as if at peace with her fate. Unless the numbness became total, Tasha doubted she would experience the flames in such a way.

Griffin seemed to have beaten her to that numb state. Tied to the post next to her, his eyes stared lifelessly at the gravel pathway below. He had struggled and fought as they lashed his wrists and then screamed for help for a time after that. Then he fell quiet and didn't respond to anything she said to him.

A shallow pit had been scooped out nearby and a fire built up in it, the logs popping in the flames. At first blush it looked like a campfire waiting for someone to come along and roast marshmallows. Two of the hated watchmen had stood guard, awaiting the signal from their Bishop to burn the outsiders.

The signal never came. Chaos spilled through the gates as the hunting party had staggered back, decimated and bloodied from the wolf at the door. Then other mayhem erupted from the square. The watchmen scrambled for their weapons, the few people on the street racing to get indoors. Tasha had only caught a glimpse of the source of the madness but that fleeting glimpse scared her more than the flames.

She didn’t know what to make of it. The creature stalking the streets of the little town strode on four legs like a wolf but any lupine similarities ended there.

Griffin hadn't stirred. He didn't need to, Tasha screamed enough for both of them before the foul thing bounded away, vanishing behind a barn.

Any respite from the horror was short lived as more chaos blew open the main gate. The watchman on the tower was shrieking at his fellow soldiers on the ground to ready their weapons and then something slammed the gates inward, toppling the wooden door. The men scrambled back, as the other wolf, the pale one, roared into the breach, knocking the little men out of its way.

Tasha's heart stopped and she wondered almost idly at how much horror the mind could endure. She prayed hers would snap, the way Griffin's had, and spare her anymore of this madness.

~

Amy clawed out of the reeking tunnel and up onto the clean earth. The smell of the long grass flushed the stench of the pit from her nose. She breathed it all in and let the sun warm her clammy skin before pushing herself up onto her feet. Shielding her eyes against the sun, she scanned over the little cottages, trying to orient herself. On the outer hem of town, a stone's throw from the graveyard.

Had the monster ran for the open wilderness or back into the village? It must have gone for the open country, Amy ceded. What else would it have done after being interred for so long? There would be no hope of finding it now to destroy it and end Lara's suffering. If that plan would even work.

Noise rose from the square. Cries for help and the bellowing of the watchmen and over all of it the godforsaken sounds of the wolf. It had gone for the town. There was still a chance.

Amy pushed on, limping on her banged up knee as quickly as she could.

~

Tasha's wish to retreat from the horror was no more than a penny tossed into a fountain. Wasted and unfulfilled. If anything, the inverse occurred as her adrenalin spiked and her senses became acute as the pale wolf breached the gates. Even her other sixth sense flared hot as an empathic waves of fury washed over her from the lobo.

And there were the dead, rising up from the earth or drifting in from the periphery to crowd the scene. The ghosts of those killed by just such a monster, shambling around the living, their wounds and mangled limbs as fresh and dripping as they day they had died. These phantoms caught fast in the violent moment of their deaths, each reacting as they did in life. A woman in a bloodied apron shook her fists at the wolf while a man hid his face in his hands, his entrails spilling out behind him as he wept. A little boy in suspenders looking here and there for a parent that would never come.

Some shrieked at the wolf but other phantoms railed at Tasha herself, barking their grievances and tragedies to her, each one desperate to be vindicated or avenged. It didn't matter that some sputtered German and others in Tasha's native English. The meaning of their outrage was explicit. Look at me, they cried. Look at what was done to me. It's not fair. I wasn't ready to die. Not like this.

Not all of the dead wailed. A few watched quietly from a distance, as if amused by the living in their folly . One of them had come close and was trying to speak to her. He was urgent but calm, not furious like the others but his words were drowned out by the screaming of the rest and Tasha couldn't decipher what the man wanted to tell her. His sad eyes orbited between the pale wolf and Tasha and back again.

Tasha looked away, unable to endure their demands anymore. But there was nowhere else to cast her gaze than the violence at the gate. The watchmen charged at the wolf only to be repelled back as the beast struck them down.

The guardsmen retreated and the wolf padded away, passing the two souls lashed to the rough-milled poles. Tasha felt her heart clang as the pale wolf swung about, its snout flaring hot and cold as it took her scent. It was close enough that Tasha could smell its musky hide and when its yellow eye rolled up to meet her own, her mind finally shut down.

The other ghosts had fled, as if in danger from the beast but the dead man with the urgent message had remained. More than that, he had stepped between Tasha and the wolf and he held out one hand, as if to keep the lobo from coming any closer.

The pale wolf stopped short and reared away but not because of the ghost before it. Tasha was certain the wolf couldn't see or smell the entity in its path. Something else was happening and looking up, she saw what had caught the beast's attention. Slinking out into the square came the other wolf, the demonic creature she had witnessed earlier.

The wolves swung about, each orbiting around the other as if taking its measure. Then the monsters charged at one another and the sound of their impact thundered the ground.

Tasha closed her eyes to the horror but she could not block out the heinous sound of the wolves ripping into each other.

~

The monsters tumbled in a blur of teeth and hide as they drew blood and rent flesh, rolling in the dust only to break away and charge in again.

Crashing into the bonfire, their hides lit up, smoldering with a greasy black smoke. The burning logs scattered into the long grass that was brown and dry from a fortnight without rain. The ground burned with ease and a breeze from the east fanned the flames higher, pushing the fire in an arc like a sail across the dry earth.

The wolves clashed on, heedless to the islands of flames rippling around them and the smoke from the dry grass swallowing them up in clouds. It choked the gullets of the watchmen, forcing them back and obscuring the vision of all.

The Bishop's heart sank as he came loping on his long legs around the blacksmith's shop to witness the terrible battle tumbling though the square. The two wolves were mindless in their savagery and the Bishop knew not which lobo would best the other. There was no way to tell the way they tumbled snapped and the fire burning round them obliterated them with smoke. His men stood idle as oxen, watching the battle play out.

“Move, you laggards! Move!” He shoved and struck at them like dumb animals, hazing them into the fray. “Kill the pale wolf! But leave the old one. It is not to die!”

The watchmen looked to one another with unease at this impossible demand but no man questioned his marching orders. They moved in with their weapons curled in their clenched fists. The Halford boy, recruited an hour earlier and thrown into battle, recited the words of a Psalm as he marched behind the veterans and prayed that the monsters would simply destroy each other.

~

The signs of the old wolf's passing were evident in the bodies strewn in the road as Amy ran to the square. A man in shirtsleeves lay crumpled in a bloody wreck on the steps of a green clapboard house, the blowflies swarming over his wet eyeballs. A second man was spread-eagled in the dirt. His wide-brimmed hat still clutched tight in his hand but, she could now see, the man's head was completely gone.

The fog rolling past the houses seemed odd for such a sunny day until she realized that it was smoke. Small welts of fire glowed through the billows, the haze all but obscuring the town around her. Above the screaming and hollering, she could hear the popping teeth and she knew the pale wolf had come. The two lobos clashed with ferocious hatred and all she could do was listen. There was no sight of the beasts at all, not even a silhouette in that smoky sea.

And they were on the move. The snapping echoed up ahead and then the snarling sounded off to her lee side. Then behind her, the clash a running battle with the wolves covering ground quickly.

Gripping the fifty caliber tight, she brought the barrel up and trailed the sound with her aim. All she could do was pray that the old wolf did not overcome the pale one.

The sound hemmed close and a dark mass loomed in through the smoke. The wolves tumbled over one another in a writhing ball, both bloodied and driven mad with frenzy. Amy drew a bead on the lobos but they moved too quickly, tumbling and lunging in a blur and she couldn't fire at the old wolf without hitting the pale one.

Be patient.

The moment came when the pale wolf stumbled and hit the ground. The demonic-looking wolf lunged in, locking its jaws around the other's throat and pinning it to the ground. A heartbeat, then two, and the beasts remained still, allowing Amy to draw a bead on the trunk of the decrepit monster. Through its ribs, where its heart would be. She eased down on the trigger.

A voice broke, shrieking her name. Silas's voice, telling her to run. She glanced away and the moment was lost, the wolves tumbling through the ash again. Her target lost. Wheeling around she saw a troop of watchmen charging at her through the haze. Five strong, with their weapons poised to kill.

40

SILAS WAS CLUBBED ABOUT the ears and kicked forward to keep pace with the advancing troop. The watchmen marched before him, some armed with long spears and others with a heavy net. The Bishop pulled him along by the scruff of the neck. Clutched in the man's right hand was an antique sabre, its blade polished to a high patina.

When the Bishop halted the troop, Silas expected to see the monster from the pit or even the pale wolf. What he saw was Amy, appearing through a break in the smoke. The Bishop hissed at his men and gave the order.

“Kill her.”

The pikemen charged in. The girl was armed with the pistol but outnumbered by the charge of the guardsmen. And Silas knew there was only one cartridge left in the gun. Even if she shot down one of the watchmen, the others would gut her on their lances.

So he screamed out her name, warning her of the attack.

The look in the Bishop's eyes relayed pure murder. The long blade of the sabre came up whistling and Silas knew the man would cleave him dead. He threw himself into the man, ruining the blow and tumbling the Bishop to the ground under him. Silas drew up fast and hammered his fist into the older man's face. Something unhinged inside his heart as he burned hot and went berserk on the corrupt fraud he had revered all of his life. He knew it was wrong but a mad glee swelled his heart as his fist bludgeoned the older man's nose and he felt cartilage break and soft tissue split under his knuckles. A solution to every problem sprang up in his fevered brain, one so simple it seemed absurd. He would kill the Bishop here and now, with his bare hands. How much brighter would this world be with this foul man dead at their feet? How could God object?

If the Almighty objected then He would have to issue a lightning bolt to strike him dead because Silas refused to let up his punishment to the vile face of his beloved Bishop.

~

On came the black guard with their pointy sticks aimed at her belly. Amy swung about and leveled the big gun at the rushing troop. They reared up, stopping in their tracks. None of them had ever even held a gun but all had witnessed its destructive power when the outsiders first breached the village walls. None of them wished to meet its thunder.

Amy's hands trembled but it was not from fear. She was spent and had little strength left to steady the heavy gun. The watchmen held their breath, waiting to see what she would do. She prayed none of them knew she had only one round left. And that shell was promised to the old wolf, she couldn't waste it on them.

“Drop the sticks,” she barked. The men didn't move, their lances frozen. Amy couldn't tell if they didn't understand her or stood defiant. She took a step forward, aiming the barrel at the man out front and the troop reacted in unison. Their long pikes clattered to the ground at her feet.

One of them, the lean man on the left, began muttering something at her but Amy had no way of knowing what he was saying. Was he begging for mercy or praying for salvation? She barked at him to shut up and the lean man fell silent for a moment. Then his jaw gaped open and he began muttering even more urgently, his eyes fixed on something behind her.

Keeping the gun trained on the men, Amy glanced over her shoulder to see the pale wolf stagger out of the smoke and collapse in the dust. It's snout bloodied and all but ripped from the nose bone.

~

Of the troop under the Bishop's hand, only the younger Halford boy had returned to guard the head of the church. He stood impotently with the pike in his hands and shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His lips gibbered as he watched Silas hammer the Bishop with his fist.

“Silas,” the boy pleaded. “Stop. Please.”

Silas did not stop or even slow. His arm felt like jelly from lashing out so many times and his knuckles were breaking, his hand turning to ground meat from striking bone. His Bishop's face had begun to sink inwards in a dark red hole. A wet puckering sound gurgled from the man's face as he tried to breathe through the blood in his windpipe.

The boy with the spear began to cry. “Silas, stop. You're killing him.”

This isn't how he should die, Silas thought. It was too easy, too pedestrian a death for a man this monstrous. This fraud, this degenerate pope they had all loved and revered. A better suited death, a proper punishment, would be to push the reprobate into the open maw of the decrepit wolf from the pit. To let the Bishop be devoured by his own pet.

It was wishful thinking, Silas concluded. He continued with his punishment until his arm fell limp and dead at his side. He rolled off, listening to the rattling sound of the man choking on his own blood. It went on and on, that terrible gurgling sound, until at last it stilled and rattled no more.

The Bishop was dead. Praise be to God.

The Halford boy began to tremble. Tears streaked the grime on his cheeks. He dropped his weapon and ran for home.

~

The pale wolf careened out of the smoke like an apparition. Blood dribbling from its mutilated snout left a trail in the weeds as it tumbled to the ground. It rose up and staggered on before falling again.

Amy gaped at the prone lobo. Rent to shreds, it lay still. She was too late.

A creak of leather snagged her ear. Turning back to the men before her, she spied the watchmen reaching for their weapons. She marched on them fast, all but shoving the barrel of the gun down the nearest man's throat.

“Run,” she spat. “Before I blow your head off.”

The lean man turned and ran and, like dominoes, the rest followed. The smoke swallowed them up and Amy let herself exhale, the precious round still in the chamber of the gun.

The smoke cleared and she saw Tasha tied to the post across the square. Like Lara had been earlier, waiting to be burned. Tasha was screaming something at her and Amy craned her neck to listen. Behind you.

She pivoted on one heel to see the pale wolf rise up. It was snarling through its torn up snout and its eyes were lights of rage. Driven to a frenzy by the clash with the other lobo, there was no mistaking its intent; it was rabid with bloodlust.

She leveled the gun at it, staggering backwards to keep some distance from it but the wolf kept coming.

“Lara, stop. Don't do this.”

If there was any shred of the woman left inside, it was gone now. All that remained was the wolf and its savage nature. Amy begged the wolf to stop but it would not and when she stumbled, the wolf sprang.

Tasha's vocal chords shredded from screaming so hard. All she could do was watch as the girl fell backwards and the wolf lunged forward.

The haints had all scattered like chaff, the dead backing away at the sight of the wolf as if they were in mortal danger. An instinct that even death could not scrub off and one that Tasha was thankful for. Their wailing cries had overwhelmed her and she was grateful for the quiet in her head. Except the one, the man who had tried to communicate with her. Moving quickly over the ground, he hewed up before the girl and put himself in the path of the lunging wolf. He had no substance, just form and smoke. None of it corporeal. Did the apparition think he could stop the monster?

The earth was hard as Amy fell. Flat on her back, she locked her arms straight and drew her eye down the barrel. Off the sighting bead rose the wolf, all gaping maw and teeth. There was no part of Lara in there and the wolf was going to kill her. Her finger hovered over the trigger piece, trying not to let the tears blur her aim.

Then the cold hit, an immediate plunge in temperature that goosed the flesh of her arms. The air pressure rose diametrically, stealing oxygen from her lungs. Someone just walked over my grave. An old saying she had heard from her grandmother. Her dad's mom, grandma Gallagher.

I'm losing my mind, Amy thought. The wolf is coming to kill me and I may have to kill Lara to stop it. And I’m thinking about Grandma Gallagher.

The wolf sprang. The girl pulled the trigger.

Mid-leap, the wolf buckled in two as if it had hit a brick wall that wasn't there. It crashed to the ground in a cloud of ash, its limbs kicking about as it tried to gain its feet.

Amy lowered the barrel, the gun unfired. She had pulled the trigger but the piece was locked and wouldn’t budge. With the weapon lowered, she felt the play return to the trigger as if nothing was wrong with it.

Why did the wolf changed course in mid-strike? Had it suffered a seizure in that instant before the kill? It didn’t make sense.

The lobo kicked at the dust to get up again but it could not. Amy pushed up slowly onto her feet and pushed down the aches that needled every muscle. The pale wolf lay in a heap before her but where was the other one? Had it fled for the trees or was it still here, circling her in the smoke of the scattered fires?

As if summoned by her thoughts, the haze parted and a dark mass took shape. The old wolf lay sprawled in the dirt with its malformed spine toward her. The thing didn't move. Praying it was dead, she stole forward with the gun gripped tight in both hands. Its belly was ruptured, the insides tumbling into the grit. The creature's throat was rent apart to the thrapple, the windpipe exposed to the air. Its decrepit blood was everywhere.

Her heart ballooned at the thought that it was dead, a tidal crescent of relief eager to spill out of her. Holding her breath, she inched closer. One savage eye wheeled up in its socket and sought her out. A shudder rippled down the ancient lobo's flank and its jaws moved up and down slowly.

The wretched thing wouldn't last much longer and, if she wanted to, Amy could have sat in the dirt and watch the monster die but there was more at stake here than the demise of this old wolf. There was a riddle that needed an answer. If the Bishop was telling the truth then this calamity before her was the first werewolf. And if Lara's notion, based on the ramblings of a psychotic, was true then killing it would free Lara from its curse.

Its obscene jaws popped open and snapped shut, still eager to tear her even as it lay dying. Amy took hold of one tattered ear to hold it still and pressed the gun barrel against the flat shelf of its crown. Then she pulled the trigger.

The boom was loud and the recoil violent but she held true. The lobo’s skull erupted in a vomit of gore over the earth.

It shrieked. Half the skull was obliterated and its lower jaw detached save for a thin strand of tissue but still the thing screamed. An unearthly sound that was like nothing Amy had ever heard and would later come to haunt her dreams for years after. The thing's legs kicked out in violent spasms, as if it could outrun the destruction it had suffered.

Steam rose up from the twitching carcass. Amy backed away. Its hide began to molt and blister and split. Blood bubbled to the surface. Almost idly, Amy wondered if Hell itself had come to claim the thing before her. The flesh bubbled into a dark jelly, sloughing off the bones and puddling between the rib slats and Amy turned away from the horror, unable to witness anymore. The dark mess of it spilled over the dry ground and oozed towards her foot and she crawled away from it.

Lara

Amy rose up in the last of the smoke but the pale wolf was gone. No sign of the lobo, not even tracks in the ash-dusted ground. Where had it gone? Had it smoldered into nothing like the old wolf?

What happens to Lara now?

Did it break the spell?

“Lara!”

A figure drifted from the smoke but it wasn't Lara. One of the watchmen, shambling through the aftermath with a blasted look on his face. He took no notice of her. Another man appeared in the smoke, an elder of the town, waving the smoke away with his hand. And then others, drifting back into the square. Of the pale wolf or Lara, there was no sign and Amy started to run, bellowing the woman's name into the smoke.

What had she expected to find? Lara, whole and free of the curse that had plagued her for so long? The nightmare of the wolves over? She had prayed, although she had no faith, for this to be true.

Something dark snagged her eye in the ashen weeds. A grim patch of wolf hide, slathered dark with blood but the pelage was clearly white. Had it been shredded from the pale wolf's back during the fight? Amy moved on, finding more scraps of hide until she spotted a larger mass sprawled in the clover. The pale wolf.

Amy fell to her knees. It was ravaged and bloodied, the meat of its neck exposed raw. She reached out to touch the wolf, sinking a quaking hand into the fur of the ribcage. The pale wolf didn't move. There was no heartbeat at all.

She was gone. Amy had failed Lara like she had failed her father. All of this torment had been for nothing. And all of it had been her idea, coming to this godforsaken place to put things right and now Lara was dead and something broke deep inside Amy Gallagher.

Do wolves go to heaven? Even the bad ones?

A stir, faint and far away, prickled against her palm. Amy flinched. There it was again but it wasn't a heartbeat or the rise of expanding lungs. The movement was sharp and precise. Once, when an aunt was pregnant, Amy had placed her hand on the woman's belly and felt the baby kick. That's what this felt like. A sudden and horrid thought tripped Amy's mind. What if the pale wolf was pregnant and ready to birth out a litter?

Another movement against her palm, violent and urgent. Amy snatched her hand back, the hide of the carcass writhing and undulating in a grotesque manner.

The wolf’s eyes were glassy and cold, staring up at the smoky sky. The amber glow extinguished. Then the jaw jerked back and yawned open at an unnatural angle, widening as if it yearned to swallow all of creation in its maw. There was a sharp crack of bone and the flesh of the maw split open.

Something red and wet slithered from the wolf's mouth and Amy blinked at it stupidly until she realized what it was. A hand.

Slick with blood, it shot forward, then the arm emerged. As the maw of the wolf split open, the bloodied arm slithered up and after that came the woman. Jerking out in a series of contractions, the body pushed out from the wolf's mouth and flopped listlessly onto the earth and the carcass of the wolf deflated like a leaking balloon.

Amy held her breath, eyes dished large at this figure ejected from the wolf’s gullet like something it had devoured and spit up. Scrambling closer, Amy turned the body over and looked down into the face of Lara Mendes. Slick with blood as if she'd been dipped in the stuff, Lara's eyes remained closed.

“Lara?” Amy wiped the slime from the woman’s face. “Lara, wake up. Please.”

No response. She pressed two fingers against her neck and felt a pulse, faint but it was there. A thin bubble of blood forming in the corner of Lara's mouth meant that she was breathing. Amy cradled the woman in her lap and whispered her name over and over like a prayer.

The woman coiled up in a jerk and coughed up something dark over Amy’s knees. The woman went still again, neither waking nor opening her eyes. Amy felt tears burn hot and unwanted in her eyes. There was no need to cry. Lara was alive and that was enough for now. After all this horror, it was more than enough.

The creak of leather brought her eyes up to find the watchmen circling around her. Their long lances in hand, some looked down in revulsion at the raw woman painted in blood, others at the grim carcass of the wolf.

Words were exchanged between the men in that tongue she did not understand and then Amy watched the men raise their weapons up.

“Stop!”

A commotion from behind. The men were shoved aside as Silas fought his way in. Relief spilled across his face when he saw Amy with the woman in her arms. He pushed in further to put himself between Amy and the poised weapons. He swore at the watchmen in their own tongue to back away and leave the girl alone. The troop glanced at one another but did not lower their lances. The air went still, as if nature itself waited to see who would blink first.

The wolf was dead, Silas told them. As was the Bishop and his foul monster. No more violence, no more bloodshed.

The balance tipped when another man pushed his way to the front. The elder quickly took in the sight of the woman and the carcass and then he said something to the armed troop. The watchmen lowered their weapons and stepped back.

Silas knelt down at Amy's side. “Are you hurt?”

“Silas, look.” Amy nodded at the woman in her arms. “She came back. Lara came back.”

A wary caution held his eyes. “Does she live?”

“Yes.” Amy rocked the woman gently in her arms. “She's going to be fine.”

The boy placed a hand on the girl's shoulder but didn't know what else to say. He looked up at the men circled around them and begged for someone to get a stretcher.

The elder hesitated a moment before relaying the order to the man next to him. Then he waved his cane at the carcass of the pale wolf and told the men to burn it.

41

“HOW IS SHE?”

Amy looked up as Silas entered the room, a steaming teacup in his hand. “The same,” she said.

He settled onto the cot next to her. “No change?”

“Nope.”

“Well. Maybe today will bring some improvement.”

Amy warmed her fingers around the china cup and looked over the young man sitting next to her. The swelling on his eye had gone down but the flesh was purpled. She didn't want to think how she must look. There was only one mirror in Silas's house and that a small one that hung in the front hallway. They were considered pools of vanity and every respectable household contained only one. Small mercies, she thought.

“Your lip seems better,” Silas said as if reading her thoughts. “The swelling has receded but that split may take some time to heal.”

She touched her lip as he said this. His mother had treated it with a poultice that stung and smelled awful but took the swelling down. She would have to sip her tea from the other side of her mouth. “Remind me to thank your mom for that.”

Their eyes settled onto the prone figure before them. Lara Mendes lay peacefully tucked under clean sheets on a cot in the middle of the room. She had remained unconscious since the horror of the day before when she'd been spit up from the wolf's maw. Unresponsive and limp, she had slipped into a coma that mimicked death. Amy reached out and smoothed the hair over Lara's brow.

They had been taken in by Silas's family, she and Lara. His mother had objected, quietly as was her way, but Silas insisted and father took his side. Two pallets had been set up in the parlor for their guests and Mrs. Hostetler had spent most of yesterday caring for her wards. Amy had wanted to help take care of Lara but was shooed to her cot to rest. Frau Goerzner had come to help and, after chasing the men from the room, they had washed the blood from Lara and dressed her wounds. With the woman settled comfortably under the sheets of the cot, they kept watch. Lara hadn't stirred or fluttered an eye in over a day.

“She looks better,” he said.

Amy agreed. “Her color’s improved.”

“How long do you think she'll sleep like that?”

She blew on her tea. “My guess is three days.”

“How do you know?”

“That's how long she slept when she was first bitten.”

It was only a guess but Amy prayed it would only be three days. She and her dad had taken turns sitting vigil by Lara's bed in the hospital that first time. It seemed only fitting that she would be here at her bedside when Lara came out the other side.

Not quite fitting, she reconsidered. Her dad should be here. He should have seen her emerge from this nightmare, seen her survive it.

Silas turned to her. “You should rest.”

“I can't lie here anymore. I need to stretch a bit.”

“Are you still in pain?”

“I’m okay,” she fibbed. Everything hurt. Even the delicate cup against her lip stung. “Have the elders made a decision yet?”

“No.”

“You must be worried.”

“I should be,” he shrugged. “But I'm not.”

“Why didn't they talk to me?” Amy slid the cup onto the window sill. “I knew what happened. I could have told them everything.”

“You're an outsider. They will not consider your view on it.”

“Maybe you should have lied about it.”

“What good would that serve? What's done is done. There's no need to hide it.”

Amy glanced at him and not for the first time thought he was odd. He wasn't, she reminded herself. His ways were simply different to her own. He had confessed, without hesitation, to killing the Bishop.

The body had been found in the aftermath of the chaos, the townsfolk gathering around it until the elders came and shooed everyone back. Who had done this, they asked. Had anyone witnessed the act? The Halford boy shuffled his feet and kept his eyes lowered. Hovering protectively over Amy, Silas rose and said aloud that he had killed the Bishop. There was neither shame nor pride in his declaration, just a simple statement of fact.

It had stunned Amy. Not just the news of what he had done but his admission to the act. She thought he would be taken away immediately but the elders had hesitated, scratching their chins and glancing from one to the other. Herr Stetleburg, prominent among the elders, announced that the council would decide what to do with him anon. There was simply too much to do to in the wake of the chaos and they would need the boy's help.

That had been a day ago and still no word had come from the elders about Silas’s fate. Herr Hostetler had gone to the elders to plead for clemency towards his son but was surprised to learn that the older men had yet to even discuss the matter.

The village seemed different now that the Bishop was gone. While Amy had recuperated on her pallet, the town had become a swarm of activity as everyone emerged from their homes to clean up the terrible mess and put things back in order. The wounded were taken in and the watchmen returned their pikes to the armory. They took spades up to the cemetery and dug and services were rendered as the dead were buried.

The carcasses of both wolves were dragged away and burned in one spot. The bonfire had raged all night long as the elders fed it with logs of hemlock to keep it hot in order to incinerate every last shred of the monsters. When the fire was finally allowed to die there had been no trace of even bone and the ashes of fire were dug out and dumped into a wheelbarrow. The barrow was trundled out past the village walls and the ashes buried in a secret location in the woods. No marker, no stone to dignify the spot.

A much thornier problem lay at the bottom of the monster's pit under the cemetery. Or more specifically, the countless bones of the dead that had been fed to the ancient lupus. Outside of a few of the watchmen, no one knew how many souls had been pushed into the pit and, even thornier, which bones belonged to members of the village and which were that of outsiders. What were they to do with that macabre ossuary? None of the elders had the stomach to face the issue so they had the entrance sealed off and left the decision to another time. They had a town to rebuild and deceased to mourn.

Amy had spoken to Silas's father, to ask if she could speak to the elders and tell them what she knew. It would help Silas, she had pleaded, but Herr Hostetler shook his head. She was English, he had said, and therefore her testimony was without merit or consequence. That was unfair she argued and the man agreed but there was nothing to be done about it.

So they waited.

“Silas?” Amy brushed a speck of lint from her knee. “If the elders decide to punish you, what will they do?”

“They won't hang me, if that's what you're asking.”

“Will they put you in jail?”

He propped his elbows on his knees. “I don't believe they will do anything. It's been over a day and they still haven't made a decision. I think that bodes well for me. For us.”

She repeated the words in her head. For us.

“Don't worry,” he said.

“Easier said than done.”

He turned to look at her, his lips pursed like he was trying not to smile. It took a moment before Amy realized that he was actually blushing.

She looked away before the smirk spread to her own face. Then completely out of the blue, she wondered what her mom would think of Silas. Then harder still, what would her dad had made of him? Her dad had been tough and, at times rude, but he was a relatively good judge of character. Would he have liked Silas?

Amy shook it off. Why was she wondering about that? What had brought on such a silly notion? She was still in shock, she concluded. Her brains were still scrambled.

Someone stepped into the room, lingering at the door. Silas's brother had bounced back from his wounds faster than any of the other injured. He awoke famished, devouring an enormous breakfast only to ask for seconds. All signs of the torment he suffered from the wolf's bite were gone.

“What it is it, Jacob?” Silas asked, turning to the boy in the doorway.

“The English girl is outside,” Jacob said. “The strange one. She wants to talk to Amy.”

“Tasha?” Amy rose and patted Lara's arm once before following Jacob to the front door.

~

Tasha was waiting on the porch when Amy came out. Griffin was in the yard, standing in the shade of a birch tree. Once the terror was over, they had been cut down from their moorings and taken in by the Cullot family next door. They were fed and given beds, their wounds cleaned and dressed. The smile on Tasha's face was almost startling to see.

“Tasha. How are you feeling?”

“Better.” Tasha nodded a hello to Silas as he followed Amy out onto the porch. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

“You’re leaving? I'm sure you can stay another day if you want.”

“Nah. I want to get out of here.” Her eyes went to Silas. “No offense.”

Silas smiled back. “Did the Cullots treat you well?”

“Like royalty. They're very sweet.”

Amy took a step closer and wagged her chin in the direction of Griffin. “Has he spoken yet?”

“Not a word. I think once we're on the road and well away from here, he'll start to relax.”

Amy looked out at Griffin under the birch boughs. His eyes had dimmed, as if he had crawled deep inside to protect himself and wouldn't come out. Traumatized, plain and simple. Amy could relate. Looking back to Tasha, she was taken aback a second time by the young woman's smile.

“You seem almost chipper,” Amy said. “Compared to Griffin, I mean. How come?”

“Dunno. I guess a lifetime of seeing ghosts has hardened me a little. Or I'm in full denial and I'll have a complete breakdown once we’re on the road.”

Amy rested her hand on Tasha's arm. “I'm sorry about your friend. Jay seemed like a nice guy.”

“Yeah.” The smile fell away and Tasha looked at the floor. “He'll be missed.”

Silas spoke up, his voice hushed. “What will you tell his family?”

“I don't know yet.”

“The truth may be difficult,” he said. “But it remains true.”

The question hung in the air before them. Would Tasha and Griffin tell the outside world what they had witnessed here? That had been Griffin's goal all along.

“Yeah, well.” Tasha toed a loose board on the floor. “We'll see. If Griffin recovers, he may want to but... I dunno.”

“Is your vehicle very far?” Silas asked. “I can get someone to take you back in a buggy.”

“We're fine. The walk will do us good.” When Tasha looked up at Amy, the smile was gone. “So, this is goodbye. Take care of yourself, Amy.”

“You too.” The hug was brief. “Hang on.”

There was a small table on the porch next to them and atop it was paper and a charcoal pencil that Jacob had been using. Amy scribbled something on a scrap and handed it to Tasha. “Will you write, let me know how you're doing?”

“I'd like that.” She slipped the paper into a pocket and waved before descending the wooden steps. “Bye Silas.”

Silas came alongside Amy and they watched the Paranormal Trackers walk away. Ten yards out, Tasha turned around and hollered back at Amy. “I almost forgot! Your dad said to quit mourning and get on with it. And look after Lara!”

Silas had no idea what the woman was talking about but when he looked at Amy, he saw that her mouth had fallen open and her eyes were wet. Unsure of what to say, he put his arm around her and felt a peculiar flush of gratitude when she leaned against him.

~

The Cherokee was still out on the dirt road where they had left it. How long had it been there, three days? Amy didn't know. Time was calculated differently in this place.

“I need to get the truck,” she said to Silas.

“I'm sure it's safe where it is. The only people who would see it are plain folk. They won't touch it.”

“All of our gear is back at the cabin.” Amy stretched out the hem of her shirt, peeling back the grime and stains. “Including clean clothes. These are getting ripe.”

“You're still weak. Leave it for now. I can find you a change of clothes. Lara too.”

She smiled at him. “Yeah, the bonnet thing isn’t for me.”

His face clouded. “I can go with you. If you'd like.”

“I'll be fine. But you can walk me out there.”

“All right.”

The Cherokee was there, untouched and waiting. A thin film of dust had settled over it. The ignition clicked over at the first try and Silas watched her turn the vehicle around on the narrow path and then waved as she drove away. Amy navigated the dirt track, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror. Silas stood in the sunlight watching until the road turned and he was lost from sight.

Returning to the little cabin in the woods, the first thing she did was find the stash of bills in her backpack. Relieved to find that the cash was still there, she packed Lara's things up and then rifled her own bag for a change of clothes.

The phone sat on the night table between the bunks. Amy perched on the edge of the bed and drummed her fingers on her knee. She picked up the receiver and called home. Cheryl would have an earful to say but Amy would keep it brief. She didn't want to get drawn into a long conversation with her mother, she just needed to let Cheryl know that she was okay.

Cheryl tried her darndest to keep her daughter on the line but Amy held fast and kept it short, reassuring her mother that she was fine and would be home in a few days. She hung up the clunky receiver but kept her gaze on the phone for a long while after that. She should call Lara's sister in Albuquerque to let her know that Lara was fine. Marisol must be worried sick by now. Except that she didn't know if Lara was going to come out of the coma or not. Or, if she was honest with herself, if the woman’s ordeal was truly over. She put her hand on the phone and then took it back again. She would wait another day. Or until Lara awoke.

Crossing into the bathroom, she turned the hot water faucet in the shower to full and peeled out of her grimy clothes. These she tossed into the small wastebasket, never wanting to see them again.

Driving back down the rutted path of dirt road, Amy could have rode the truck right into the village but she didn't want to disrespect the people who had taken her in. Parking the truck before the village came into view, she lugged the backpacks in on foot the rest of the way.

She had hoped that in her absence, Lara had awoken from her grim sleep but Silas shook his head and told her that there had been no change. He took the heavy bags from her shoulder and, seeing the crestfallen shade in her eyes, he reminded her that there was always tomorrow.

After dinner, the family settled in the parlor. Amy whispered to Silas at how odd a scene it presented. Herr Hostetler sat in a chair beside the fire, scribbling accounts into his ledger while his wife read to Jacob from the family Bible. Everyone ensconced cozily around the pallet in the middle of the room and the unconscious woman lying in it.

After a while, he asked if she would step out onto the veranda with him. The wicker bench on the porch creaked as they settled onto it. Amy sat quiet and waited, thinking that Silas had something to say to her but he didn't. They idled a few moments of chitchat before falling silent and listened to the chirping of the crickets. After a while, Herr Hostetler strode onto the porch after loudly clearing his throat to announce his approach. He said something in German to Silas and withdrew into the house. Silas said goodnight, showed her to the parlor and went up to his room.

After tucking Lara in, Amy slipped under the quilt of her own cot and listened to the sound of her friend's breathing. She wasn't tired and her mind roamed and after a few moments, she began to wonder if Silas would sneak downstairs and tiptoe to her bedside. It was a foolish thought and she scolded herself for thinking such a thing. And yet, as the minutes dragged on, she wondered anew at her disappointment when he didn't appear.

42

THE SOUND OF BIRDSONG chirping in through the parlor window startled Amy awake. A city kid all her life, she was inured to the artificial racket of cars and radios and construction crews but the sounds of the wild were alien and intrusive. She kept her eyes closed and listened to the birds before remembering that this was the third day of Lara's coma. Propping up on one elbow, she looked over at Lara's bed but the cot was empty.

She tilted onto her feet too fast and waited for the dizziness to pass. When had Lara woken up? Was she truly free of the curse or was the pale wolf loose and roaming the village right now?

She clumsily pulled on her clothes and crept through the kitchen but there was no sign of Lara. Gathering her shoes in the foyer, she eased open the front door and padded out to the veranda.

Lara sat on the wooden steps with her back to the door and a blanket pulled tight around her shoulders. The back of her hair was tangled and she didn't move a muscle when the screen door thunked home behind Amy.

“Lara?”

No response. Amy shivered at the morning chill, the floorboards cold against her bare feet. She had been here before, cautiously approaching Lara when the woman seemed gripped by some otherworldly pull. She tiptoed down the steps and settled next to Lara. Placing her shoes on the other side, she looked at Lara but the woman hadn't stirred or turned to look back. Her eyes were fixed on the treeline in the distance. The urge to ask Lara if she was all right or if she was in pain was overwhelming but Amy bit it back down and decided to wait for Lara to speak first. She folded her arms against the morning chill, wishing she had brought a blanket too.

“Amy,” Lara said after a moment. Her voice not much louder than a whisper.

“I'm here.”

Amy waited for the woman to continue but Lara remained silent, gazing off into the field. She watched a crow perch on a fence post. “So. Is it over?”

Lara didn’t reply but when Amy turned to her, she could see the tears in Lara’s eyes and she knew it was over. Wolves do not cry and Lara had been unable to shed a tear for almost a year now. It was over, the curse broken and more tears came. Lara lowered her head as if shamed as her body shuddered with sobs. Amy draped her arm around the woman and just held on until the sobs drained away.

“It’s gone for good?” Amy asked.

“Yes. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath all this time. And now I can breathe.”

“That coma scared the hell out of me. I'm glad you came back.”

Lara wiped her eyes. “So. What did I miss?”

Amy told her of the Bishop's death and the change in the village since then. How the elders allowed them to stay and how Silas's family took them in. Tasha and Griffin leaving and how Amy didn't know what either of them would do about the things they had witnessed here.

“I guess we'll deal with that when it comes,” Lara said. “They went home?”

“Yesterday.” Amy shivered again.

Lara unfurled one end of the blanket and draped it over Amy's shoulder, huddling with her underneath it. The girl had lost weight, like a bird under her arm. “You must be eager to get home.”

“I guess. I don't know. This place is odd.” Amy chewed her lip, reconsidering. “Not odd. Just different.”

Lara grew quiet and Amy felt something shift in her. “What about you? Is it safe for you to go back to New Mexico?”

“No. Not now anyway.”

“Then come back to Portland. We can figure something out. Hide you somewhere.”

“It's too risky. But thanks.”

Amy sighed. “Then where will you go?”

“I don't know yet.”

“You can stay with us if you like.” Silas chimed in as he stepped onto the veranda. “We can make room.”

“Thank you, Silas.” Lara cracked a smile. “That's sweet of you. I don't think I'd really blend in too well here.”

Silas leaned against the post, taking in the new day. “Think about it.”

~

Lara washed up and then they sat down to a big breakfast with the Hostetler family. When the plates were cleared, they packed up their gear and thanked the family for their kindness and walked out towards the square. Silas walked with them and offered to take Amy's backpack but she said that she was fine. He insisted on taking Lara's from her, needing to help in some way. They cut across the field of timothy to the road and followed it back to where the truck was parked.

They loaded their gear into the back and Amy looked up at Silas. He kicked at something in the dirt, avoiding her gaze. Lara had sensed something was up on the hike so she stepped around to the driver's side to give Amy some privacy.

“You okay, Silas?” Amy asked when Lara was out of sight.

“Yes. I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?”

“You seem quiet, that's all.”

He shrugged. He started to say something but then stopped and looked at the ground again. “Be safe,” he said.

“I will,” she replied. She groped for something to say to him but her mind suddenly went blank. She couldn't think of anything at all. Except goodbye.

“Amy,” he said. “I'm happy I got to meet you. I have never met anyone like you before.”

“I’m glad I met you too.” She smiled at him, then said “Silas, do you get mail here? Like if I wrote you a letter, would you get it?”

“Yes. Our mail goes to the next town down the road. We pick it up at the post office there.” The smile on his face widened. “Would you write to me?”

“Is that okay?”

“I would like that.”

“Okay.” Amy took a breath. “I hate goodbyes so let's make it brief. Goodbye Silas.”

She stepped closer to him, went up on her toes and kissed his mouth. She caught a flash of his cheek flushing pink before turning away quickly. She opened the passenger door and hopped inside the cab.

The driver's seat was empty. Lara remained outside, looking back in the direction of the village.

“Lara, what are you waiting for?” Amy fumed a little. If they lingered anymore, she was afraid she might cry and she didn't want Silas to see that. “Let's go.”

Lara leaned into the cab, her arms resting on the window sill. “Amy, do you think you can make the drive alone?”

“What are you talking about?” Amy sputtered but she already knew the answer. Lara wasn't going home with her. There was no home for her to go to.

Lara leaned back and addressed Silas. “Is your offer still open?”

He said that it was and Lara leaned back into the cab, drumming her fingers on the window sill. “So.”

Amy slid down in the passenger bucket. “You're not coming.”

“There's nowhere to go. If it's okay with these people, I'll stay on here for a while. Until I figure out what to do.”

Amy didn't say anything for a moment. “Well, I guess I'll be writing to both of you here. Do you still have your phone?”

“Nope.” The Bishop had destroyed every device they had.

“Get a new one. Find a way to keep it charged. In case of emergencies.”

Lara went around to the back and lifted her gear out of the truck. She returned to the driver's side window but Amy hadn't moved an inch. “Are you going to climb out so I can say goodbye?”

“No,” Amy said.

“Don't be angry with me, Amy.”

“I don't like this. And I don't like having to say goodbye twice in one day.”

Lara looked up at the sky, a brilliant blue unmarked by a single cloud, and then looked back to the girl in the truck. “The summer's still ahead of us. Come back for a visit.”

Amy chuffed and then slid over and pushed out the driver's door. She wrapped her arms around Lara, felt a kiss on her cheek and then stepped back into the cab without another word.

Silas hoisted the backpack to his shoulder and stood next to Lara as they watched the Cherokee swing about and trundle away down the uneven road.

Her cheeks were hot and when the first tear spilled over, Amy scolded herself for being such a baby. She wasn't even sure what she was crying about. Was it Lara? Everything they had gone through?

No. It wasn't that at all.

Did she really like Silas that much? They were completely different people. Their worlds couldn't be anymore different. It would never work. And it wasn't fair that Lara got to stay behind and she had to leave. She wanted more time. Even just a little.

Or maybe it was in her head, she wondered. Maybe once she was home and back to her regular life she would forget about Silas and wonder how she could ever think anything more of him than maybe her strange orthodox friend. Probably, she concluded and drove for home.

She was wrong. Although she was happy to get home and see her mom (and even Norman), she found her thoughts drifting back to the boy even more than before. The second day back home, she put pen to paper and wrote him a letter. By the end of the week, she was making plans to return to that strange little village in the forests north of the border. She'd leave the day after her last exam. Cheryl would have a fit but she'd just have to deal with it.

~

Lara settled in as best she could. The Hostetler family were welcoming and kind to her. Silas had offered to bunk with his brother so that she could have his room but Lara wouldn't hear of it. She asked about the old shed behind the house. It was just a tool shed, Silas explained, and a small one at that. He didn't understand why anyone would want to bunk out there but Lara persisted and Herr Hostetler agreed. After dinner that night, she and Silas cleared some space inside the shed and set up her cot and Lara thanked him for his help.

“There,” she said looking over the small space where tools hung from pegs all around the narrow cot. “It's perfect.”

“Are you sure?” Silas looked skeptical. With the cot inside, there was barely enough room for the two of them to stand in. “There isn't even a stove out here.”

“This is all I need,” Lara beamed. “I've gotten by on much less.”

Silas wondered what she meant but didn't press her for details. He didn't doubt her word either. Lara's eyes held a weariness in them that spoke of hardships he could only guess at. He gave a slight bow to her before turning to leave her in peace.

“Silas?” she said before he disappeared. “Thank you for letting me stay. You and your family have been very kind to me. I appreciate it.”

He bowed to her. “I'm glad you're safe. Goodnight Miss Lara.”

She smiled at his formality as he left the little shed, softly closing the door behind him.

Later she lay in the darkness unable to sleep but she had no watch and couldn't fathom the hour. Too many thoughts circled round and round in her head and one in particular kept nagging at her so she swung out of the cot and got dressed.

Every house in the village was dark but the sky held a crescent moon hung in a web of a thousand stars. More than enough light to find her way through the town and up the gentle rise of the hill towards the cemetery. Wading through the weeds, she wondered if some nascent night vision of the wolf lingered within her given how easily she navigated her way in the darkness.

It was still hard to believe that it was finally over. Her mind was tripped up by the impossibility of it but her gut knew the truth. There was a stillness inside her that she hadn't felt since that awful night when she had been attacked by the wolf. Back in her old life in Portland, saddled with a grumpy partner named John Gallagher. Amy's father, deceased these past five months or so.

Threading her way through the gravestones, Lara found the stone bench in the center of the cemetery. She sat and tried to unravel the thought that had troubled her since she woke from her coma. When she was caught inside the wolf, she rarely ever retained any memory of the event. At best, there were feelings or sometimes flash images left over. Vague and indeterminate, these fragmented artifacts often made little sense to her after the event.

This time, this last time, had been different. Scraps of memory stayed with her and these lost pieces troubled her. There was a clear memory of Amy pleading with her, the big gun in her hands. Another memory of attacking Amy, lunging at the girl. And the last patch of memory was the most tangible of all. It was more physical than anything. The feeling of hitting a brick wall, of being stopped cold by some terrible force. She could still feel the sensation of it, the jarring impact. And the cold, a chill that frosted her backbone with an unearthly bite.

Something had stopped the wolf in that moment and she had an idea, crazy as it seemed, as to what it had been. So she sat on the bench and became very still and listened to the sounds in the night. She didn't know what she was listening for or if there would even be a sound. A sense perhaps. Minutes passed and Lara remained as still as the headstones around her.

It was a feeling that triggered her alarm bells. Rising out of nowhere, a cascade of sorrow dropped over her like a veil, swallowing her completely. Flashes of other emotions churned up within the sorrow; regret and pity and mourning and loss so strong it carved out a hollow space inside her ribcage. Only after that came the chill and the prickling flesh along her arms. She hadn't expected that, for the emotions to trip first.

Lara straightened up slowly on the bench, careful not to make any quick movements, as if trying to lure a wild animal in to eat from her hand. She took a deep breath, ready to speak out but balked at the moment of truth. Speaking out loud to something that probably wasn't there. She felt self-conscious and silly. Another try.

“John?”

Silence. The intensity of the veil of sorrow receded quickly, as if someone had lowered the volume.

“John,” she repeated. “I don't know if you can hear me or understand what I'm saying. But I needed to talk to you.”

The racket of the crickets dimmed for a moment at the sound of her voice, before resuming their eternal chirping.

“That was you, wasn't it? You stepped between us. You stopped Amy and I from killing one another. Nice trick.”

Nothing happened, no sound or sign from the other side. The night air was still.

“There's something I need you to know. The wolf is gone, the nightmare is over. And Amy is safe.

“I know I shouldn't have brought her but she saved my life. She ended this whole awful mess that you and I walked into. She's a strong kid, John. Smart, too. And she's going to be just fine. You don't need to worry about her anymore. She's tough. Like her old man.”

A breeze floated in, ruffling her hair into her eyes. Again she waited for a sign that her words had been heard and again there was nothing. Was the breeze a signal from him? The call of an owl in the trees? There was no way to know but in the years to come when she thought back to this night, she would tell herself that he had been there and had heard every word. And that it had brought him some peace.

She looked up at the crescent moon above and then Lara Mendes rose and strode back though the cemetery towards the little houses of the village below. Tomorrow she would figure what to do with the rest of her life.

†

So you made it this far? Let me just say thanks for reading the Bad Wolf Chronicles. I’ve honestly been humbled by the response to the book series.

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A brand new series…

THE SPOOKSHOW

(Book 1 is free on Amazon here)

Injured during a violent incident between a mysterious Englishman and the police detective pursuing him, a young woman awakens in hospital to discover that she can see the dead. And they can see her.

The Spookshow (Book 1)

Welcome to the Spookshow (Book 2)

Spookshow: The women in the walls (Book 3)

By the same author

KILLING DOWN THE ROMAN LINE

OLD FLAMES, BURNED HANDS

the SPOOKSHOW

WELCOME TO THE SPOOKSHOW

SPOOKSHOW III: THE WOMEN IN THE WALLS

Available on the Amazon US store here
and Amazon UK here

Tim McGregor is a novelist and screenwriter. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children. Some days he believes in things that go bump in the night. Other days, not so much.

Timmcgregorauthor.com