It was not two hours later Andrew and I drove along a road outside Richmond, in his truck now while I leaned against the door. I was exhausted and, still in my dress, looked much too formal for where we were going, as little as I was sure on the specifics. This wasn’t a place I’d been since my fifteenth birthday, and even then that had been the first time since a couple years before that.

  It’d been two months before everything had fallen apart too, hadn’t it.

  “So, I’m looking for a bar in an abandoned colonial looking house?” Andrew asked, sounding defeated as he scanned the side of the road.

  “No, the house was a restaurant when I last saw it,” I said, furrowing my brow as I tried to conjure more details, “the bar was in the basement, down a short flight of stairs. There’s a grassy patch near it that people use as parking, you’ll be able to tell. It’ll have a bunch of vehicles and flags that don’t look like they belong together.”

  “Whatever you say,” the man muttered with a shake of his head, “you’re not afraid of getting shot or anything? I mean, you said this was a hunter hangout, I know it can’t be that safe for two werewolves to go barging in there.”

  “It’s not, why we’re not fucking telling anyone we’re werewolves,” I said, drumming my fingers on the windowsill nervously. A cigarette would have been nice, helped me focus and stopped me from losing control if something happened, but that wasn’t in the cards.

  Samuel had dropped us off at the Covenant, and I’d not even gone inside while Andrew fetched his keys. We needed to hurry, get there while it was almost nine and not when it’d be later at night and the bar would be full from people finishing up early night hunts.

  I had been tempted to ask the older werewolf along, more backup and more experienced fighters if things went bad. Not only though would it have been a bad idea to wander into the bar with that many people at once, and get attention on us, but Samuel was too old for us to. Andrew was in his late twenties, but had rarely done missions for The Lady or made much of a name for himself. Samuel was…

  I had no idea what Samuel was.

  What I did know was the man was almost fifty years old and had apparently known my mother, which meant there was a good chance he knew my dad. That all together meant there was a non-zero chance that if I walked him into this bar he’d get recognized before we’d taken five steps. I was already risking myself getting shot on sight by my dad, but Samuel was an unneeded addition to the risk.

  “I need to investigate those disappearances tomorrow,” I said with a sigh, shaking my head at the thought, “I’ll try and track down a few leads, see if I can’t find a bit more information on what’s going on here.”

  “I imagine your next couple days are going to be busy with that,” the man admitted, giving a small snort at the thought, “I’ll help you along if you need. You can’t go and get yourself in fucking trouble again.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said with a rub of my eyes, “maybe if we’re done here early I’ll think of something we can do.”

  “I think when we’re done here you need rest,” Andrew said, and I nodded silently as I let out a small sigh.

  I was about to try and fill the gap with more conversation when I finally saw the building, an old colonial looking building with white walls and black tiles. A paved parking lot was in front of it, with a few cars sat beside each other, and a small dirt road went behind the building. I perked up as I saw it and, gesturing over, told the man, “drive around back.”

  Andrew complied, and we drove behind the building, finding a small grassy clearing where a dozen or so trucks and cars were parked. Everything from small little electric cars to overly large trucks with Confederate flags on the back, it was a sign some would find strange and others see as a sure sign of who this bar was meant for.

  “Well, some questionable flags here,” Andrew admitted, frowning as we pulled to a stop and climbed from the truck. I led him toward the building, and he looked around hesitantly as he asked, “is it…I don’t know, safe here in general?”

  “It’s neutral ground as far as that goes,” I admitted with a small sigh, not liking the aspects he was talking about as much as anyone, “hunters come from all sorts of places. Most of them are old blood, for a matter of phrase, people whose families have been doing it for decades if not centuries. Sometimes people find out though and take it up, and the people who do and get shooty about it are, well, you can guess not the most accepting types. It’s better to give them information networks and teach them the ropes though, stops them jumping to the wrong conclusions and getting innocents killed.”

  “What about your family?” the man asked, sounding genuinely curious. Well, maybe concerned was the better word, “which one was your dad?”

  I chuckled a moment at the question, shaking my head with a smile as I did brag, “supposedly? German mercenary corps during the twelve-hundreds that practiced monster hunting. They disbanded during the Renaissance, and individual families took up the mantle and, well, continued onto me. My dad has a family journal that’s from like the early 1700s, one my ancestors made a catalog. We adapted a lot more though, our techniques aren’t even close to what my ancestors used.”

  “That’s old I take it?”

  “Yeah, you hear all sorts of stories for how families started,” I admitted, trying to think of a few examples, “found out about them during world war one, protected towns in the wild west, heard a lot of stuff about people finding out in the fifties when the Purists gained a lot of power.”

  “The fucking fifties?” Andrew asked with a small snort, “I knew a lot of the older werewolves said they weren’t as common until recently, but I thought they were supposed to be old.”

  “I’ll explain that one to you when we have more time,” I said, gesturing to him to stop as we reached a small stone staircase going down into a basement. “For now just act…normal.”

  Andrew nodded, and I walked down to the steel door at the bottom of the steps where I knocked a few times. A small eye-slit on the door slid open, and a man asked, “how can I help you?”

  “Safety and belonging, my friend,” I answered, hoping that I remembered my father’s words close enough to how he’d said them. I’d been more excited my few times here about being in a bar, even if just to sit in a corner when he talked shop or to celebrate my fifteenth birthday, than excited to hear the code for it.

  There was a long pause, and the man seemed to whisper to someone before telling us to wait as the panel shut. The wolf wanting to run and hide before we got killed for getting it wrong until eventually the door was slowly opened.

  We walked in, and the bar was relatively empty as early as it was at the moment, with most of those there for some quick purpose before missions. A mostly stone room, it bore a few cobbled supports between which wooden tables laid. A few booths were against the walls, which a good portion of people squeezed into, and a bar along one wall had several bottles and a large mirror. All of it smelled like beer and sweat, with just a few tinges of other scents below that.

  I was more interested in the half-one woman behind the bar though, an older woman with long blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail. She wore a loose fitting flannel shirt and dirty looking jeans with a new to me gold ring on her finger, and was in the middle of cleaning glasses as she walked up, smelling of sweat and grease. Leila nodded at us suspiciously as we approached, and I smelled the gun oil under the counter her eyes glanced toward as she asked, “y’all new around here aren’t ye?”

  “You could say that,” I admitted, leaning on the counter as I told her, “we’re looking for someone I used to be close with. Martin Jameson, from the Taylor line of hunters.”

  “Yeah, I know who you’re talking about,” the woman admitted, frowning as she leaned forward on the counter, “what business do you have with him?”

  “We had a misunderstanding, I’m here to explain it to him,” I said, looking behind the counter before asking her, “you all still do food here?”

  “Ain’t done food here in years,” the woman snorted, grabbing a bowl of pretzels she moved over in front of me, “you wanting something to sip on?”

  “Rum and coke?” I asked, and the woman nodded as she fetched the items, glancing to Andrew behind me who I answered for him, “he’s the driver.”

  “Want a temple?” Leila asked in a mocking tone, raising an eyebrow at the question.

  “I’ll take whatever,” Andrew said, sitting beside me at the bar, “I got dragged here by her. I’m just along for the ride.”

  “Do you know if he’ll be here?” I asked, leaning forward with a frown, “this is best to solve quickly, we got into a bad disagreement and I need to settle it.”

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  “That so?” Leila asked, sliding my drink over as she started on Andrew’s. She frowned a while, looking at me in confusion, and after a moment asked, “have…we met before? What’s your name if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “Mary.”

  “Marianne?”

  “Just Mary,” I said, not sure why she’d assumed the longer name, “can you help me?”

  “Yeah, sure, I’ll pass on the message,” the woman said, passing Andrew a bright red drink he seemed to genuinely appreciate before simping, “I’ll call him at home and see if he’s up, he’s been pretty hard pressed the last few days. If he can make it here, I’ll tell him you’re wanting to have a talk with him.”

  “Alright,” I said, nodding as I picked up my drink and looked around, “I’m gonna sit down for a moment. Can you just let us know what he says?”

  “Will do,” Leila said, furrowing her brow in deep thought as she watched me and Andrew walk over to an empty booth in a corner and sit down.

  I sipped my drink nervously, watching the woman pull out her phone and make a call as she glanced repeatedly towards us. My ears twitched, and I tried listening to what she said as she started speaking, unable to cover the distance and other conversations around us.

  Andrew for what it was worth, seemed to catch onto my nervousness, and I felt him reach out to touch my arm as he asked in a whisper, “you knew her too didn’t you.”

  “Yeah, I had a crush on her as a kid,” I admitted, feeling a small laugh escape my lips at the memory. The idea almost felt ridiculous to say now, as long as I’d been disconnected from this world, “my dad teamed up with her family when I was…oh, twelve I think? She’s a good ten years older than me, I know that much. She was really athletic, wore tank tops all the time and liked practicing her knife work all the time in the backyard. So yeah, a twelve year old me really liked getting to learn monster hunting from her.”

  “I can see why,” Andrew admitted with a brief look back at her. His expression turning a bit sad as he sipped his drink and asked me, “what was your dad like, if you don’t mind me asking? Like, how are you expecting this to go?”

  “I…really don’t know,” I admitted, sighing at the thought, “I guess I don’t really know my dad like I thought I did, just with everything with my mom, but…well, I don’t know how this will go. He always hated werewolves and refused to let me think of them as human growing up, but…” I whispered the last part, “well, he seemed to be fine with my mom, so what do I know? He’ll like you at least.”

  “You think so?” Andrew asked, smiling at the thought, “I’m a…well, you said it.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not what I meant,” I said, trying to think of how best to explain it, “you’re…you’re the son he would have wanted, if we’re being honest. He would have helped you repair that fucking truck in a fucking instant, he would have liked his son dating someone like Tara, he would have liked his… his son.”

  “And you’re afraid you’re…well,” Andrew observed, punctuating his point as he gestured across my entire body, which about summed up my thoughts, “look, Mary, you got this okay? He’s going to have a lot to deal with, but I think he’s gonna be happy to see you’re alive so we got that going for us.”

  “Thanks, Andrew,” I said, a small smile crossing my lips, “maybe…maybe this is the best time for this to happen, honestly.”

  “You think so?”

  “I’m out of the-” I stopped a moment, about to say Purists before I remembered where I was. Instead I shook my head and told him, “well, you know. On top of that I’m…I’m acting more normal, I have something that’s basically an office job, I have a lot of friends, I…I even have a date on Wednesday…I think.”

  “You think?” Andrew asked, chuckling slightly at the lack of confidence, “well, I was kinda annoyed with you earlier, and you can expect Tara to want gossip when things are better, but I’ll play nice. Who is this girl anyway?”

  “Sigyn’s friend, Barbie,” I admitted, smiling softly as I brushed the hair from my face even as I felt an unexpected warm across my face, resting a hand on my cheek as I sipped my drink, “I was modeling that painting for her and… well, she asked if I wanted to go to the park or a movie sometime.”

  “Hey, good for you, Cannibal,” Andrew said, leaning forward to slap my shoulder, “getting the girl.”

  “Yeah, I just wanted to…” I stopped myself, having not realized I wanted to do anything until the words had left my mouth. A sigh escaped my lips, and I admitted, “I wanted to make sure it was okay with you. I mean, we’re pretty close and I know we kinda agreed we weren’t really like that but-”

  “Tara will be disappointed, I personally don’t care,” the man brushed off with a chuckle, “I’m just glad to see you doing well. Was starting to worry you were gonna keep locked up in your room reading erotica every night until the end of time — Tara at least keeps a balance with doing other shit alongside that.”

  I nodded, and was about to try defending my taste in romance when a man stepped up next to us, scraping a chair to settle next to our table. I jumped, surprised I hadn’t seen him, and a familiar looking man sat down next to us.

  He was a half-one around my age, two years my senior to be exact, and had short cut dark brown hair and a clean shaven face. The man wore a pair of jeans and a loose fitting black t-shirt and smelled vaguely of gun oil and silver over his own, strangely familiar but stronger than remembered, scents. He had a revolver strapped to his thigh, cocked and unsecured with one hand resting on it and he leaned back and asked, “and to what do we owe this dubious pleasure tonight?”

  “We’re looking for Martin Jameson,” I said, frowning as I resisted the urge to get angry about the gun. He didn’t know who I was, he had no reason to trust me, and he was obviously trying to play up a role. “we’re friends of his.”

  “Oh, I don’t think you are,” Percy said, shaking his head as he nodded at both of us, “now, Leila and Martin, they’re good folk. They were supposed to be having a nice celebration these couple weeks, and you really put a damper on their good times. Coming here, apparently having owned his coat, you’re really just asking for a bullet between the eyes, aintcha?”

  “You’re not going to shoot us,” I said, sounding a bit more confident than I genuinely was, “you would have shot us while we were talking if you wanted to kill us. We both know no one in this bar would have stopped you.”

  “Confident weasels aren’t you?” Percy asked with a chuckle, and the way he was leaning into the character did grind my gears a little, “alright, I’m gonna bite. I’m questioning how someone like you could kill that man’s son, take his coat, and then once you’re caught come back asking for a parley. Martin’s been up nights trying to track you down, going to resources he swore off, and you come crawling in with a code we haven’t used in a few years. You here to finish that nice man’s family off?”

  I considered telling him the truth, saying then and there who I actually was, what I was, and let that create the peace.

  It was a bad idea though, all things considered.

  Mary hadn’t fucking existed five years ago, no one had any reason to think I’d been trans that wasn’t a hindsight situation. Hell, no one other than my dad would have a reason to think I’d turn out to be a werewolf. If I said “I’m his daughter” then and there, I was likely to get fucking shot for the insult.

  “Things aren’t what they look like,” I said slowly, trying to think of how to phrase it, “he doesn’t know what actually happened, and I’m here to explain. I don’t want blood, I don’t want to kill anyone, I’m just here to talk.”

  “And why would I talk to you?” Percy asked, his grip adjusting on the revolver at his side, “how could things be anything but what they look like?”

  My mind raced a thousand miles per hour, and shaking my head I answered, “he’s still alive.”

  Andrew glanced over at me, and I forced a small smile as I saw Percy’s face turn to confusion. The man tilted his head a moment and, briefly moving his hand off the revolver, asked, “how do you expect me to believe that?”

  “The boy’s room, there was only a little blood, and several times more vomit than blood,” I said, shivering at the memory of that night and the disgust of referring to myself as a boy. Not even in the Purists had I ever felt the need to think of my disgusting days as a half-one as being as a boy. “Just enough that a few scratches on the arm and a bit of nerves could leave it. Nothing that looks fatal on its own, right?”

  Percy nodded, and I leaned forward confidently on the table, not sure where I was going with this. The hunter paused for a long moment, glancing down at my hand which he reached out and rested his own on. I bristled, resisting the urge to growl or attack the man for the unwanted touch even as he reached out and slid my dress's sleeves up a few inches. My heart raced like a rabbit, and he shook his head as he revealed the start of the scars that marked my body.

  “You know, my own dad taught me that you can’t reason with werewolves marked like this?” the man tsked, tapping a leaf with some disappointment, “you expect me to believe Martin’s son joined up with Purists? That you just so happened to have had his jacket and he’s lived with human murdering monsters for six and a half years? I knew him, he wasn’t the type to go running off like that with monsters. I ain’t saying he was the brightest fox in the hen house, but he was in there all the same, you understand?”

  He had a good point, if a bit flowery in delivering it and… okay, maybe a bit insulting, but I nodded all the same as I tried to keep a straight face and answered, “we’re right about the same age, you could say we get along pretty well with one another. He gave me that jacket right about the time he faked his death, those hunter techniques really came in handy for keeping the packs safe. He has it right now, was going to add some patches for me.”

  “You’re Purists,” Percy answered, rolling his eyes as he rose to his feet, once more gripping his revolver and looking ready to draw it then and there, “last I heard Purists don’t ‘mate’ with humans as you like referring to it, even hunters know that much about those cultists.”

  He was going to kill us, he wasn’t fucking believing me, and he thought I was making a much larger claim than I was. I watched him, resisting the urge to turn and attack him, rip his throat out, when a thought occurred to me. The Lady had refused to say anything about her, but she had told me one critical detail.

  “Maybe you should ask Martin about that.”

  “And why would I do that?”

  “Because,” I started, rising to my feet and slapping a hand on his shoulder, Andrew following close as I stepped past, “maybe he can answer whether Purists ever mate with humans. Like I said, I’m here to have a talk, not let anyone die.”

  Percy looked wide-eyed, and for a moment he muttered, “he wouldn’t have, not with…” before stopping. He sighed and, shaking his head, answered, “you know the Hunter codes, and how we work.”

  “Outdated, but plenty,” I admitted with a shrug, “so can we talk?”

  Percy nodded, and after a moment he announced in an almost deadpan tone. “Thursday, nine PM, at the burning grounds. You and Hawk come, and come alone.”

  “We both know you’re going to have guards there,” I answered, trying to ignore the name I hated as I thought on the offer for a moment, “Three people each side?”

  “Three people each side,” Percy said with a nod, “you better be telling the truth.”

  “Martin’s child will be there,” I answered honestly, “we just need to keep even heads.”

  The man nodded, and Andrew and I left the bar with what felt like a dozen eyes watching us the whole way. I remained calm, even as we went to Andrew’s truck and I sweeped its body for bombs before climbing in. It wasn’t until we were on the road, and I had Andrew take several random paths and back roads to make sure we weren’t followed, that I let myself relax.

  Only as I finally announced, “I think we’re safe now,” that the first few tears started to finally show in my eyes. My attempts to hold them back futile, and the first croak of a sob all it took to break me into an incoherent mess as I held myself tight. Andrew driving the way with one hand resting on my shoulder in that silence until we reached home.