'Would you complain if I became a wolf now?" Sarah all but begged Kim as they walked to Thomas's hotel.

  ?Kim was intrigued. "I mean, it's a public street."

  ?"Yeah, I guess," she complained.

  ?"What's wrong?"

  ?Sarah shook her head. "It's not like camp. I guess I thought it would be more like camp. Now it's just itchy clothes and strange smells. And everyone is on their phones. I hate the phones!"

  ?Kim felt for her. "Is that like a werewolf thing? Because I hate the phones too. And if I keep wearing sweats I may as well have boy repellent written on them."

  ?"I don't know exactly. I know as a rule most of our kind don't like anything that's been mucked around with too much. And those things they carry with them just feel like black magic to me. Mom has one. But I've never seen her use it."

  ?Sarah was obviously having trouble. She'd seen her like that at camp. It was then she would get her emergency meds. But this wasn't camp.

  ?"Tell me about your mom," Kim asked. Distraction had helped before. And she was genuinely curious.

  ?"I don't know. She's been around a long time. Seems to spend as much time as a human as she does a wolf."

  ?"Is she in charge?"

  ?"No one's in charge of my Dad!" Sarah scoffed. "She's just his mate."

  ?"Just?"

  ?"Well, I mean, it's not as bad as that sounds. But Mom was, I think, the first female werewolf. And she's been around for over two thousand years. Maybe longer."

  ?"There aren't many of us. Female werewolves, I mean. I'm the first to ever be born. And you're the first to be changed since Mom."

  ?Kim almost laughed. Sarah wasn't beating around the bush, but her way of dropping random details left Kim with the same problem: she didn't know enough to even begin asking the right questions.

  ?"Okay... how old?"

  ?"Oh, I guess that's important. Werewolves don't die of old age or disease. So unless you get stabbed in the heart with a silver dagger or get your head taken off, you're gonna be around a while."

  ?Again, Kim should've been shocked. But emotionally she was flatlined. "How old are you?"

  ?"Thirteen!" Sarah was starting to tug at her clothes. She had the uncomfortable in her skin look that Kim knew too well. And then there was fear.

  ?She wasn't afraid of outliving everyone she knew. Or some murder monster coming after her. But Sarah’s discomfort worried her.

  ?"I'm sorry," Sarah apologized. "I don't like being human. Humans are cruel and confusing. They lie and smell bad!"

  ?"You can go home, Sarah. Thomas can help, I'm sure," she told her gently, knowing how sensitive she could be to anything she perceived as rejection.

  ?"No!" She seemed to steel herself against whatever was bothering her. "I just need a good hunt and to get out of this body."

  ?Kim thought about her friends. The ones in Alden. The ones in college. Suddenly the idea of Sarah "hunting" did concern her. Not for herself. But she didn't want to give them up. And she didn't want Sarah to accidentally kill one.

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  ?When they came to the hotel, Sarah ran into the room. Kim strolled in behind her. Thomas was at the desk reading. Sarah had disappeared.

  ?"She's in the washroom," he said with a kind of quiet detachment. "I guess you and I should talk."

  ?Kim looked at the washroom and back at Thomas. He raised his hands as if to calm her. "She's fine. She just has a hard time adjusting to being human this long without medication. She should be okay if she hunts something tonight."

  ?Kim sat down and shook her head. "I guess that only leaves me with more questions than answers."

  ?"You think?" Thomas’s response was biting, though not unkind.

  ?"Mary wanted me to help. But the Wendigo has taken so much of my time since I got here, the opportunity never presented itself."

  ?"Oh well, thank you for sending Sarah to do that. It's been delightful," she said sarcastically. "I have so many questions I don't even know where to start. And while I love that girl, getting a straight answer out of her is like hunting for unicorns!"

  ?Thomas didn't offer a defense. He just started talking. "What do you want to know first?"

  ?"Why is she an emotional rollercoaster while I'm basically flatlined? I don't care about 90% of the things I used to care about. And the other 10% seems to happen at random."

  ?"Well, I can tell you what Mary told me about when she transformed. She was young too. She says she just stopped caring about things that she only cared for out of fear. You don't care about school or the opinion of random people, any more than a lion cares about the opinion of sheep."

  ?"Werewolves are the Apex Predator. If it cares about something, it's not because it cares about the future. Who's gonna tell a werewolf where to live? Or what they do for food? Or even sex."

  ?"Sex? How many werewolves am I supposed to service exactly?"

  ?Thomas shook his head. "Werewolves mate with humans or wolves. The ones who spent their lives as wolves tend to stay with wolves."

  ?"So am I going to start finding dogs attractive?"

  ?"No more than you're going to start finding chimps attractive. You could ask Sarah about that when she gets back."

  ?"Back?" Kim knocked on the bathroom door. When no one responded, she opened it to discover Sarah's clothes on the ground and the bathroom window open. "Is she going to go kill someone?"

  ?"No. Despite what you've been through, they actually aren't aggressive towards humans unless they have to be. Or they've been starved."

  ?"She just needs game. Wild meat she actually has to stalk and kill. Probably deer."

  ?Kim should have been uncomfortable with the description. But the idea of stalking a deer and killing it—eating the meat while it was still warm with life—made her want to jump out the window after her.

  ?"You're not going to be like Sarah, Kim. She grew up a wolf. She prefers the pack. Her interest in humans is passing at best. Mostly encouraged by her mother and by you."

  ?"Mary sent her to camp to help socialize her. Mary does a lot of work with humans. Because she's able to. If her mate came, it would be a disaster."

  ?"Males are much more powerful." He seemed to shudder as if from a memory. "It's rare they can manage among humans. Mary has served as a liaison since as far back as my Order has records. My old Order, at any rate."

  ?"So Mary came to me for a favor. I owed her one, and this camp... thus you. And well, here we are."

  ?Kim didn't know how to process everything. "So I will change into a wolf more than monthly?"

  ?"As a werewolf, you can change into a wolf whenever you want. Or into a human. The most famous form is the hybrid of both. Most only change into that form on the full moon. Or when they're hunting something other than game."

  ?She looked at him as if asking him to go on.

  ?"The world is an evil place, Kim. And if you're evil enough, it rewards you with power. Vampires, zombies, witches, Wendigos. All monsters in their own right. They started human. And they just did enough evil that it caught the attention of some demon. It gives them a portion of its power. And they use that power to do evil. Which in turn gives the demon power."

  ?"Werewolves are the white blood cells of the planet. They keep them in check. When the populations get so big or so dangerous that it draws their attention, they come out of the mountains and forests and they cull them."

  ?"The religious among them, like Daniel and Mary, call themselves the Hounds of Heaven. Either way, it's good practice not to get their attention. The cure is often worse than the disease."

  ?"Why don't more people know about this?" she asked after a long enough pause.

  ?"Lots of reasons. But mainly because when it used to be common knowledge, it was all too common for humans to seek out that power."

  ?"Wizards, witches, hell, Satyrs! There have been times when they've been common. But you can't run a world that way. So governments generally hide the knowledge. I mean, if people knew every serial killer could become some kind of immortal killing machine, it would be a very different world. Plus there was Ragnarok. Fenrir and his pack killed all the Nephilim. Or at least most of them. And they were the source of most of the power."

  ?"Was he the Alpha of his day?"

  ?Thomas laughed. "No. Surprisingly. Mary can tell you his story someday. He was just a stubborn son of a bitch."