In the Woods Ch1

Sorry that it's been so long since an update, things are kind of crazy over here.  I'm hoping to have a soft return to art posts in December and then a more complete return in January/February since I'm still struggling with tendinitis.

***

In the days after Jo’s death, Koz had struggled to keep himself busy. Seraphina kept him on his toes, but tending to her needs had become second nature to him long ago. He had to push himself harder, find something else--something more to focus on or else he’d start to think and feel--and thinking and feeling hurt. That was how Koz had ended up a hunter. He needed to be kept busy, and Astor appreciated the assistance, especially considering his experience in police and detective work. By the time he’d stopped pushing himself to stay busy, three years had passed. He’d burnt out all his leads on the White Wolf and Seraphina was more attached to her babysitter than she was to him.

By then, the pain had lessened significantly, and he was able to step back and become a father again.

Now that he’d left Seraphina, he found both he and Jack were implementing his old method of working around the pain. Unfortunately this was easier said than done. There was little to do at the cabin. It was only one room, so it didn’t take long to clean. They got most of what they needed through Koz’s storage locker or the Whitestown grocery so they didn’t need to forage for food or water.

The only amenities they didn’t have were a laundry machine and a dishwasher. They didn’t have all that many clothes or dishes to clean--but they relished the opportunity to clean the few they had just so they had something to do.

Koz hesitated to even leave the cabin, knowing that after the incident with Jack’s sister, North and Bunny would most likely be combing the woods for wolves. They’d been lucky until now for two reasons. The first was that, shortly after they’d left the scene at Jack’s house, a storm had rolled in and washed away a good portion of the evidence they’d left behind. Their second stroke of good fortune was that the Burgess authorities had handed the case over to animal control--the police department might have been thorough enough to find their tree stand, but the local animal catchers were more concerned with what was on the ground. He and Jack had cleared it all out the next night. There hadn’t been much sense watching the house--Annie Overland and her daughter had left to stay with a relative until the town had settled down once more.

They didn’t catch any sign of Manny or his pack.

As the days passed, Koz would exercise just to pass the time. Other times he’d wander far from the cabin, searching for signs of hunters or werewolves. Often times he’d bring Jack along on these little ventures, for no other reason than because if he didn’t, the boy would just linger around the cabin with nothing to do. He and Jack hardly spoke to one another most days.

They established a silent routine. Each day they woke and whoever slept on the bed (since there was only the one twin) had to make breakfast, while whoever slept on the floor put their bedding away. They ate breakfast in an awkward silence, then washed and dried the dishes. They showered if the fancy took them, but neither felt terribly compelled to get cleaned up when there was no one to impress.

They spent of the rest of their days walking the forest, edging the area that Koz was starting to consider their territory. It was a path they’d followed enough times that a decent tracker would be able to tell exactly where they’d traveled.

They’d return home toward evening, go to sleep, then start it all over again the next day.

Koz suspected Jack resented him, or else was just too miserable to speak. Koz felt similarly, and the silence only gave him more time to think about how much he’d rather be at home with Seraphina. He’d lay awake at night, restless from a long, boring day, and think of her opening the letter, cringing at what he remembered of his writing. He knew what he’d written by way of apology and farewell was not enough. Not nearly enough. All he could do about it was watch the shadows shift on the ceiling and sink deeper into his shame.

As the days passed the nights grew colder. Sleeping on the floor became less and less comfortable as the chill seeped through the floorboards. Some mornings there was frost trimming the window panes. It made Koz nervous. They were going to have a rough winter, he could already tell.

It was on one of these brisk days that their quiet, miserable lifestyle came to an abrupt end.

They were making their way around their territory. They’d started to complete their usual circuit around the area well into the day and the path they took was increasingly obvious. Because of this, Koz had elected to make a new path, heading further from their usual border.

He’d grown so accustomed to trees and branches, the corner of a tent peaking out between foliage stood out like a sore thumb. He slowed his pace and silently gestured toward the tent, as Jack slowed behind him.

“Are we near the campsites?” Jack whispered, his tone laced with doubt.

Koz shook his head. He was perturbed, but ultimately knew it didn’t matter. They’d simply have to turn around and be wary of running into the campers.

The wind changed, carrying with it the biting scent of winter and the sickly sweet smell of decay.

He straightened from his crouch and made his way straight to the tent.

“Koz?”

“Stay there, Jack.” Koz suspected he was about to see something distinctly unpleasant and he didn’t want to expose Jack to it as well. He cleared the brush line and found he was unfortunately right.

The campsite looked calm and normal. The tent flap was open, lazily shifting in the breeze while a fire pit simmered, the last of its embers finally dying in the cold air.

At the end of the clearing, a body lay face down on the ground. It was quite dead, nearly entirely stripped of flesh--muscle and viscera included. Shredded clothing lay around and tangled across the skeleton, soaked red and difficult to distinguish from the equally shredded flesh that had somehow escaped.

“Oh my God.”

Koz whirled to see Jack standing just behind him, his eyes wide and face turning nearly green. “Don’t look,” Koz said, stepping toward him.

“I can’t stop,” Jack moaned, his eyes fixed on the corpse as Koz put a hand to his shoulder and gently pushed him back. “God, it smells.”

Koz frowned as the boy continued to stare, unmoving. He looked back at the body once more. “Yes, it does.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Jack glance his way. “It’s probably worse for you,” he said after a moment.

Koz shrugged. It was. It was awful. “I’m more accustomed to it.” He took a few steps toward the body and sniffed, wincing as the stink seared its way through his senses. “I don’t think it was a werewolf,” he said, rubbing his irritated nose and blinking his watering eyes.

“Do you think it might’ve just been . . . a bear or something?” Jack asked, voice as doubtful as it was hopeful.

“Could be.” Koz’s nose crinkled in disgust and he ended up approaching the body with his fingers tightly pinching his nostrils shut. He heard Jack take a step back, then several more, and then several more. He thought maybe Jack was going to be sick, but instead he spoke.

“Uh . . . Koz?” The younger man spoke in a tone that implied you needed to turn around immediately or be eaten.

Koz whirled to see Jack standing far, far back, his head tilted up and his expression horrified. Koz hurried to his side and followed his gaze. The hair stood up along the back of his neck as his eyes focused on a set of bloody--and incredibly human--hand and foot prints going up the side of a massive oak overlooking the camp.

“You don’t think . . . he just got attacked by something and then he tried to climb away and fell?” Jack offered.

Koz looked down at the body, his stomach turning. “Not unless he put his shoes on afterwards.”

Jack looked from the shoes just barely on the skeleton’s feet to the bare footprints on the tree trunk. “Okay,” he licked his lips. “I’m ready to go now.”

Koz shook his head. “I’ve got to examine the body.” He approached the still form.

“Uh--Koz, what if whatever did this comes back?”

“The longer the body is left out like this, the more likely we’ll lose any useful clues as to whatever killed them.” He nearly gagged as his proximity to the body threatened to smother him. “There’s several supernatural beings that could leave human-like hand and footprints. It could even be a harmless one that just happened to discover a dead body.”

He breathed sparingly through his mouth as he crouched beside the mess and tried his best at an examination. The limbs were all dislocated--but this probably happened as the carcass was picked over. The head was intact--but the neck was snapped. There was nothing to suggest any other cause of death other than the broken neck--and there was no guarantee that whatever left the prints had killed the camper.

The ribs were broken and almost all were pulled out and thrown about, stripped of flesh. He was thankful for this--he could look at the teeth marks left on the bones without staying too near the body. He gathered a few shards of ribs and hurried back toward Jack, where the air wasn’t quite so foul.

He held the pieces up to the light seeping between the tree branches and felt a pang of longing sudden and fierce. North could take one look at teeth marks, claw marks, or paw prints and instantly tell what had made it and how old it was. He wished the old Russian was here, all he could discern from the bones was that the bite marks were too big for a coyote.

He flipped through the bones he’d gathered, aware of Jack watching him uneasily. He turned one rib this way and that and let out a heavy sigh. He turned the bone for Jack to see, pointing out a thin, curved line scratched into the surface. “Do you see these teeth marks?” He asked.

“Don’t tell me,” Jack swallowed. “Human?”

“Human-shaped doesn’t always mean human,” Koz tossed the bones away. “I still don’t know what it is though.”

He stood, his stomach churning from the stench as he thought aloud. “It definitely took a few bites out of him, but that doesn’t mean it killed him. A scavenger would be no threat to us. But it might’ve killed and eaten him--even then, depending what it is, it might be no threat. Some creatures are driven by anger or revenge.”

“Basically you have no idea if we should be scared or not?” Jack asked.

Koz frowned. “Better safe than sorry,” he said. “We’ll keep on our toes regardless.” He started walking away from the scene. “I want to go see Mr. Qwerty and ask if any similar attacks have been reported nearby.”

Just like that, Koz realized, his sense of purpose had returned and the boredom and frustration of the past few days fell away. “Does Burgess have an electronics store?”

“What? We have a Walmart? Maybe there’s something at the mall. Why?”

Koz nodded. A Walmart would do just fine. “I’ve realized things will be significantly easier if we have a computer.”

Jack stopped dead. “Are you serious?”

“Yes?” Koz said, completely bewildered.

Jack’s face crumpled and for a split second, Koz thought he was going to cry, but then instead his face split into a huge smile. “Thank God! I’ve been so bored! Can we get some DVDs too?”

“I need the computer for hunting purposes,” Koz said.

Jack’s face fell and Koz nearly laughed at how disappointed he was. “We’ll get a TV too,” he said.

Jack crowed again. “Let’s make a party out of it,” he said, “and get a coffee maker to go with it.”

“Now we’re on the same page!” Koz chuckled. He could feel a sense of life returning to him after these past few days; a lightness seemed to pour into him and while he should have felt dread at the thought of an unknown threat, instead he felt the first rays of hope.

*

Jack was the happiest Koz had seen him in weeks. Apparently it didn’t take much to lift his spirits, just a television, coffee maker, a DVD box set of the first season of Teen Wolf, and Chinese take-out. The computer might have been added to this lineup if it weren’t for one thing; they didn’t have internet.

“Dang,” Jack said through a mouth-full of take-out. Koz glared at his new computer’s screen. “At least we can play Solitaire?”

“Laugh all you like,” Koz said icily. “We don’t have the cable set up either.” He nodded toward the small TV set they’d bought.

“But it’ll still play DVDs.” Jack said with a triumphant smirk.

Koz grumbled as he powered down the laptop. “I’m not even sure we can get television or cable out here. I mean, we couldn’t get someone to come so far out--no one is supposed to live out here.”

Jack chewed thoughtfully. “Then how come we’ve got water and electricity?”

Koz frowned. That was a good question. Jack tipped the container of mushu pork toward him, eyebrows raised. He gratefully accepted it, although he frowned when the utensils handed to him were chopsticks. Jack had a good point and he brought up a question that had long been on Koz’s mind.

“I’m not sure how we have water and power,” he said, trying to pick up some greasy and absolutely heavenly smelling pork with his clumsy chopstick skills. “If John was the cabin owner and he died and hasn’t been paying his bills, presumably the city would’ve shut down his amenities.”

Jack swallowed half of a pot-sticker. “Where would his bills even go? It’s not like we get mail out here.”

“He could have used a P.O. box,” Koz said, pointedly ignoring the look on Jack’s face when a slice of carrot slipped free from his chopsticks and landed on the table. “But we are pretty out of the way . . .” He frowned, setting the carton and utensils on the table as he looked around the cabin. “We’re in a bloody state park, surely there aren’t any power lines out here?”

“Maybe we could look after dinner?” Jack suggested, wolfing down another dumpling.

“We might have to,” Koz said with a sigh. “But first, pass me a fork.”

*

There were no cables along the side of the cabin--nor pipes. But there had to be some sort of access area or fuse box! The less Koz found, the more sure he was that they weren’t connected to a grid. Eventually the setting sun forced them inside. Koz didn’t know what had killed the camper and he didn’t want to find out by running into it.

Koz wasn’t pouting per se, but he was certainly disappointed that his hunt had been cut short. He slumped on the bed, his shoulders wedged between the two corners of the wall, watching off hand as Jack scurried around the room, trying to set up the television so they could have a ‘movie night’.

Jack’s bare feet padded across the floor and Koz dimly noticed the sound striking a deeper beat as he walked across the floor panel where John had built his gun stash (now full of Koz’s weapons).

The boy walked over to the wall near the fridge, trying to find an outlet, when Koz realized his steps were making that same, deep sound.

He sat up, straining his hearing. He could hear the sharp squeak of Jack’s bare feet almost imperceptibly sticking to the cabin floor, coming free again, then pressing down and then, the tiniest of echoes going beneath the floor.

Koz stood up. Jack glanced toward him, confused as the older man came at him quickly. “Woah, what--” Jack took several steps back as Koz knelt on the floor and started rapping on the boards with his knuckle, listening to the echo.

Jack must have heard it too, for he fell silent and dropped down next to Koz. “Another trap door?” He asked just as Koz’s searching fingers found the seam and pulled the hidden door up and open.

He and Jack took a moment to stare in mutual surprise. The opening led to a large, dark hole. Jack hopped up and went searching for a torch. Koz didn’t need one, but he stood as well. From what he could see, the sides of the hole were uneven, it was more like a very wide crack--not man-made, perhaps part of a cave. He went to the bed and pulled his handgun out from under the mattress, then took the torch from Jack.

Koz lowered himself down the hole. It wasn’t very deep, but it did lead off away from the cabin. The air was cool and smelled like wet stone, he could hear the distant rush of running water. “It’s a cave,” Koz spoke up toward Jack, looking around himself. The space beneath the cabin was small, the size of a pantry, but at the back he could see a thin gap leading somewhere else.

“Koz?” Jack’s voice resounded hollowly, but it didn’t echo. The room beneath the cabin was too narrow for any real vibrations.

Koz turned to look up at him and spotted something he hadn’t when he was sliding down. A series of thick cords trailed from the space just under the cabin and lead down to the cave floor, fastened to the wall and heading out the narrow crack into the cave’s next room.

“Koz?” Jack whined.

“You stay there,” Koz said, “I’ll go check this out.”

“Koz, maybe you should wait until day time?”

Koz looked up at the younger boy with a teasing grin. “All the night-hunters are out hunting things--it’ll be more dangerous during the day.”

Jack groaned, his lip jutting out in a pout. “This is the plot of too many horror movies for my liking, Koz!”

“Then stay there,” Koz said.

“The person who’s too scared and stays behind always gets ganked!”

Koz snorted. “Then come with me.”

“I’ll also get ganked if I go with,” Jack said glumly. Frowning as his eyes roved around the space. “Did you forget that we found an unexplained corpse this morning? What if the thing that did it lives down there?”

“Do you really think we’ll be safe just because we put a few pieces of wood between our home and that monster?”

There was a pause and then Jack turned around and started climbing down. He landed beside Koz and shot him a fierce scowl. “If we die, I’m going to be pissed.”

“Where’s your sense of fun?”

“That line is literally said in every horror movie!”

Koz headed toward the narrow crack. He was smiling, but he still had his gun trained forward as he held the light at eye level. He tried to look through the crack before he attempted sliding through, but unlike the area beneath the cabin where there was light coming down through the trapdoor, beyond the crack there was only darkness.

The sound of water was much louder, that much he knew. Koz put the flashlight between his teeth to free up one of his hands as he squeezed his way through the narrow cleft, trying not to step on wires as he did.

As soon as he was on the other side he took up his torch once more and took a good look around. The ceiling was so low he had to stoop and an underground river flowed rapidly not two feet from where he stood. To his left, the river ran on, bending away out of sight. To his right was a large structure that he admittedly mistook for something alive and nearly shot until he realized what it was.

He peaked through the opening. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve found where we’re getting our electricity.”

Jack had an easier time getting through the opening. As soon as he stepped through, Koz revealed his findings with a flourish.

“What is it?” Jack asked.

“A water wheel,” Koz said, kneeling to examine the generator John had apparently jerry-rigged to the wheel. “This is how we’ve been getting our electricity.” He shone his light higher, illuminating a set of pipes coming down from above the wheel and disappearing behind it. “I think that’s our water.”

He and Jack pressed themselves to the wall to see the pipes running behind the water wheel, leading down into a small hole heading deeper underground.

“So we’ve been using well-water.” Jack summarized. “No wonder it tasted kind of funny.” He looked around. “I didn’t know there were caves like this in this forest,” he said.

“There’s one that campers can go to,” Koz said. “That’s by Claussen though. Used to take Sera-- ahem . . . went there a few times.” Remembering the field trips he’d chaperoned with Seraphina felt like a stab in the chest. He swallowed hard. “This might be connected to that one.”

Jack looked down the other end. “So all those nights I spent hiding from the Bennett’s I could’ve just walked out?” His voice was surprisingly thick.

“More likely you would’ve gotten lost and died in the dark,” Koz said with more force than he intended. He relented, putting a hand on Jack’s shoulder. “There was nothing you could’ve done.”

“Come on,” Koz said. “Let’s go have our movie night. I’m very excited to finally watch Teen Wolf.”

Jack let out a wet laugh and cleared his throat. “Yeah, okay,” he said, and they both turned back to return to the cabin above.

***

In the end, it took several days to get internet and cable at the cabin--a process which involved getting a P.O. box (so they could get their bills), getting two disposable cell phones (so they could call-in and harass the cable company with questions), several bribes to smooth things over about the many lies they were having to tell, and then a do-it yourself installation. Jack didn’t mind that part so much since it involved Koz attempting to climb onto the roof and falling on his ass several times.

Turned out, having internet wasn’t as convenient as either of them had previously thought. There were too many minute details about the attack that Koz didn’t know. Apparently even though he knew it was human-shaped and climbed trees, whether it climbed the tree because it lived there, hunted from there, or was retreating up there from some other animal all pointed to different creatures.

Then Jack got to listen bemusedly as Koz went on a tarrade about how this wouldn’t be half as much trouble if they were anywhere but America--where all the immigrants had--by accident or on purpose--brought along all sorts of foreign monsters to add to the native population so America’s supernatural creature population was as diverse as its human one.

Jack was frustrated too, though for different reasons. He’d spent his internet time reading Sterek fanfiction while Koz grumpily watched Teen Wolf (pretending he didn’t care about it even though he paid rapt attention). He was halfway through a very steamy alpha/omega fic before he realized that he now lived in a one room cabin with a roommate who would know exactly what he was doing if he snuck off to the bathroom to jerk off.

This frustration was only compounded on by his growing awareness that--for better or worse--he was probably going to spend the rest of his life with Koz. At least that’s the way things seemed to be headed. Even with all the drama and the trying to kill Jack and then lying about it, Jack had to admit it: he was definitely attracted to Koz, and forever was a time made even longer when you had to tiptoe around your sexual attraction to someone you were with constantly. This, coupled with the thought that, if asked, he wasn’t entirely sure Koz would refuse to suck him off, led to a very frustrating evening indeed.

Jack was still feeling off his game the next day as he and Koz returned to their usual routine of patrolling the forest. They kept an eye out for any sign of their mystery monster, but Jack was quickly discovering he was at a disadvantage here--Koz had an advanced sense of smell that Jack had yet to develop. He was still stuck on migraine-inducing noise levels, although he hadn’t had another sensory attack for a while now.

As it was, Jack wasn’t really paying attention on their walk, but instead was trying to think of a non-awkward way to tell Koz they needed to come up with a roommate’s signal for ‘gonna masturbate, please give privacy’ when Koz stopped dead in his tracks.

Jack nearly walked into him, then froze himself, looking around wildly up at the trees.

“Is it the monster?” He asked, voice low.

Koz shook his head minutely, his jaw setting in a way that Jack was beginning to recognize as his ‘about to unleash hell’ face. He listened intently and Jack followed his lead, focusing his hearing. He felt a mix of dysphoria and pride as he successfully extended his hearing to catch far off sounds.

What he found was mostly nonsensical. The forest was alive and living things made noise. The wind sent the leaves rustling and fluttering to the ground. Birds flapped their wings and chirped, late-season insects buzzed and clicked through the underbrush. All manner of animals scurried and trotted and slithered, their movements only slightly covering the sounds of their beating hearts and breathing. Dead leaves and twigs cracked and crunched; most were too far scattered to mark anything more than the path of squirrels or chipmunks. But then . . . footsteps. Whoever it was, they were bumbling and panting just enough that Jack wasn’t too afraid, but still he and Koz should probably avoid them.

Koz turned to him, his eyes taking in Jack’s cocked head and thoughtful expression. “You heard that?” He asked quietly.

Jack nodded. “Are they human?” He asked.

Koz frowned. “I can’t tell, the wind’s not blowing the right direction.”

Jack felt the breeze ruffle his hair gently and turned his face into it. They were lucky, the footsteps he’d heard were coming from the north, the wind was coming from the west. They couldn’t smell the strangers, but if the strangers were more than simple humans, they wouldn’t be able to smell Jack and Koz either.

“What do we do?” Jack asked quietly.

Koz pulled one of his guns from its holster and handed it to Jack. Jack took it with only a little hesitation. He wasn’t comfortable carrying a weapon yet, but it was still the middle of the day; he couldn’t rely on transforming if things got messy.

“Stay at my side,” Koz said. “Don’t raise your gun unless I do and don’t fire unless I tell you to. I’m going to see if I can catch a scent. If they are wolves, we might be able to surprise and subdue them without you having to fire a shot.”

Jack nodded. He’d like that.

Koz lead the way, heading eastward and keeping low and quiet. Jack followed suit. He knew if something tipped off the strangers to their location they could end up in deep water, so he tried to do as Koz did, taking slow, careful steps and occasionally straining his hearing to better locate their targets.

Luckily, the strangers were headed southward, and they soon came parallel to the waiting hunters. The wind blew their scent toward them and Koz grimaced. Jack raised his eyebrows in a silent question and Koz gave him a stern nod, his face dark. Werewolves.

They crouched down into the brush and Koz leaned forward and whispered into Jack’s ear. “I’m going to confront them, stay back until I tell you to come out.”

They crept after the strange wolves for a few yards farther. Jack felt a sense of surrealism creep over him. He’d once been the one unknowingly stalked, it felt strange now that the situation was reversed. They didn’t stay hidden for long though. The three strangers stopped, and Jack and Koz approached, close enough that they could catch their conversation without stretching his hearing.

“This forest is a lot bigger than I thought,” said a young female voice.

“Yes,” said another voice--this one definitely male, with the soft croaky, creakiness of a senior. “It’ll be harder to find them than I originally thought.” He sighed. “I hope this turns out all right.”

The girl chimed in quickly. “Jamie said they’d welcome us. We have to have faith--” she trailed off as if something had caught her attention. For a moment, Koz and Jack were frozen still, terrified that they’d been caught, but then she spoke again. “If they won’t let you join their pack, Nightlight, I’ll--I’ll spit on them!”

There was a snort of laughter--too youthful for the man, too deep to be the girl. The third stranger.

Koz nudged Jack and jerked his head up to signal his intentions. Jack nodded, his hands shaking on the borrowed weapon in his hands.

Koz stood up, gun raised. Jack stood behind him, raising his weapon as well.

“Freeze!” Koz barked.

Jack’s eyebrows rose as he saw their three targets. One was an old man in his late sixties at least. The other two were teenagers, probably fifteen or sixteen. None of them froze.

Instead, both teenagers put their hands in the air, both obviously startled. The old man flung his hands in the air, sending the map he’d been holding flying. “We surrender!” He nearly shrieked in fright. He lifted the back of his jacket and turned around to show where his scrawny back dipped into his corduroy pants. “Not armed!” He declared before he fell to his knobby knees. He lay on the ground, putting his hands on his head. “We are surrendering peacefully!”

The rest of them didn’t seem to know what to do with this. Jack--who was seriously trying not to laugh--looked to Koz, who just seemed confused. The teenaged boy looked alarmed and slightly stoned. The girl just seemed embarrassed.

“Ombic, how many times have you been arrested?” She asked, tone both loving and exasperated.

The old man--Ombric--looked up at her from under the rim of a straw pork-pie hat. He frowned. “I thought we were all going to drop down . . .” he said, “now this looks awkward.”

“You can stand,” Koz said. “But no sudden moves.”

“Actually I can’t stand,” Ombric said. “Bad back. I can get going just fine but once I stop it takes a lot to get me up and about again.”

“Help him up,” Koz ordered the boy.

The young man blinked owlishly in reply and the girl cast him an anxious glance before kneeling down to help the old man up.

Jack tried not to let his thoughts show on his face--they were trying to be intimidating after all--but he was finding it hard to see the three of them as a threat. Ombric was wearing that silly old man hat, a sweater vest, and a tweed jacket for Christ’s sake. He looked like a Mary Poppin’s character. The old man finally stood and promptly started brushing leaves out of his beard. Jack half expected him to pull hard candies from his pocket and offer them some, but instead, he pulled out a hanky and dabbed at his forehead under his hat.

The girl, meanwhile, had long, curly brown hair held away from her face by a plain headband. She wore plain jeans, flats, and a cream, knit sweater. She reminded Jack of the bookish but out-going sort of girls he knew from school--the sort who always ran for class council and weren’t popular enough to make president, but were universally trusted across the school and ended up as treasurer or secretary.

The boy was a bit of an enigma. His clothes seemed too big for him, as though he’d recently dropped a lot of weight. His hair was white--seemingly naturally. His green eyes seemed to have trouble focusing on anything. At first Jack had thought he was high, but now he could see the edge of a large gauze bandage hiding under the boy’s bangs.

“My name is Ombric,” said the old man. “This is Katherine and Nightlight--ahem, erm--Nick.” He tucked his handkerchief away. “We were hoping you might offer us sanctuary.”

All at once the bandage and Nightlight’s coloring tipped Jack off. The trust he’d been slowly willing to extend to the three vanished into mist.

“You’re the wolves that attacked my sister!” He snarled.

Katherine and Ombric flinched--Nightlight or Nick or whatever he was called--merely blinked.

Jack remembered him, the white pup who’d snapped at his sister’s heels until the store clerk put a bullet through his skull. It wasn’t a silver bullet though--and Koz had said werewolves could survive even a headshot if it wasn’t silver.

“We didn’t have a choice!” Katherine pleaded, but Ombric cut her off.

“Perhaps we could sit and talk,” he said.

Jack felt his hackles raise and then Koz spoke. “I agree.”

Jack started as Koz lowered his weapon. “Koz?”

Koz turned to him, a frown on his face. “Manny turned them out,” he said. Behind him, Ombric’s shoulders slumped and Katherine’s frown turned nearly tearful. “He mentioned that he’d abandoned a lieutenant I shot in the head--why would it be any different for an initiate?”

“Exactly,” Ombric said, sounding much too sad about it for Jack’s tastes. “We just want to talk now. Please.”

Koz offered Jack a placating look. Jack growled. “Fine.”

They sat in the little clearing where the three exiles had come to rest. There was a fallen tree across the clearing where Ombric sat, dabbing at his forehead anxiously. Koz sat just a few feet away, the only sign he wasn’t completely relaxed was that he still had his hand on his gun, which he’d rested on his thigh.

Nightlight plopped down on the ground and looked between the four of them as if he’d already forgotten who they all were. Katherine stood just beside him, eyes flitting from Koz to Jack and back again, wariness apparent in her tense posture and quick movements. She nearly jumped when Nightlight pulled on her pant leg and gestured for her to sit beside him. She glanced up at Jack, who was watching the exchange, before hesitantly crouching beside the boy.

Jack remained standing. He trusted Koz, but he wouldn’t sit with these people. He glared at each of them in turn. Katherine avoided his eye, while Nightlight watched the newcomers with unabashed curiosity, his gaze occasionally shifting out of focus.

Ombric remained oblivious. “It’s just as you said,” he started. “The Czar--”

“He makes you call him ‘czar’?” Jack cut in.

“Oh,” Ombric waved his hand. “He always insisted everyone call him Manny--said we were all family. But of course, we don’t think of him as family anymore.” He turned back to Koz. “The czar is selective about who joins the troupe. He likes to act like he’s a benevolent leader, offering a free home to stray lycans, but really he’s just a big knot of ego with a victim complex.”

Jack snorted. He got the feeling this was a complaint that had been repeated many times.

“Anyone over the age of fifteen has to succeed at an initiation test,” Ombric continued. “He says it’s a test of loyalty, and to some extent it is, but it’s also a test to see our skills and how far we’re willing to push ourselves for him. Depending on how well you do determines what sort of ranking you receive once you’re in. ‘Rankings’ determines how much food and supplies you get. If you fail the initiation or fall too far in the rankings, you’re out.” He sighed. “Some--like Sophie and Jamie Bennett--get several chances because the czar likes them.”

“‘Likes them’?” Koz quirked an eyebrow.

“Sophie hangs on to every word he says!” Katherine said, her tone laced with disgust. “So then he gives her and Jamie special treatment and that just makes her like him even more--”

“If it’s one thing the czar is good at, it’s grooming loyalty. To the point that his followers are more than willing to overlook his transgressions.” Ombric sighed again. “Miss Bennett agreed whole-heartedly that Nightlight no longer belonged with the troupe. So did most of the others.”

“What about Jamie?” Jack asked.

“He told us to find you,” Katherine said, wrapping her arms around herself. “He said you offered him a place in your pack if he ever left the troupe.”

“I did . . .” Jack said at length. He didn’t know if he wanted to extend that invitation to the wolves who’d tried to kill his sister though.

“So the two of you decided to leave with him?” Koz nodded toward Nightlight.

“Of course.” Katherine looked over to the young man, her eyes speaking volumes of her love and pity for the boy.

Ombric nodded, expression morose. “I’ve been looking after these two for a long time,” he said. “I didn’t care much for the czar before, but when he turned his back on Nightlight--that was the last straw.”

“And he doesn’t mind you leaving?” Koz asked.

Ombric shook his head. “He might not have let me go if he hadn’t got another doctor. There are some he might not let leave . . . If Nightlight were well, he’d want to keep him.” His eyes flitted to Jack. “He likes having other white wolves around.”

Jack shifted uncomfortably. “Do I want to know why?”

“He says because they’re pretty.”

Jack blanched, but Ombric held up his hands. “I don’t think that’s the real reason,” he said. “I’ve been with the troupe a long while and seen enough white wolves get shot or even killed to realize that he keeps so many around him in order to use them as decoys.”

“Ah . . .” Koz said thoughtfully. “That’s deviously clever. Most hunters in these parts have heard of the White Wolf--but not as many know he’s albino--or would be discerning enough to check each white wolf they saw for red eyes and a pink nose.”

“Exactly.” Ombric nodded.

“If he’s such a big asshole--why follow him?” Jack asked.

“Katherine was raised in Manny’s pack. Nightlight was abandoned by his human family. Luckily we found him before some hunters could.” Ombric frowned. “I suppose that’s the real reason I started following Manny. His pack is large enough--his net wide enough--that he manages to gather all the confused lycans who’d probably end up killed otherwise.” His frown deepened. “But he tends to absorb or destroy other packs that try the same thing. I can’t guarantee he won’t come after your pack if you let us join--he might see you as a threat.”

“We aren’t a pack,” Koz said quickly. “We’re just . . . two people.”

Ombric waved a hand as if to dismiss this. “Most werewolf packs are only two or three strong.”

Koz looked like he was going to argue the point, but Jack interrupted. “So you know a lot of werewolves?” He asked. “Good werewolves?”

Ombric blinked in surprise. “Of course!” He said, “We’re afflicted humans! And just like humans we have our good and bad!” He seemed ruffled, almost offended. He looked at Koz, seeking something.

Koz gazed back at him evenly. “Sorry,” he said, “but I haven’t met many good werewolves.”

“Of course you haven’t!” Katherine snapped, face flushing. “You’re a hunter! Even if you ran into a good lycan, they probably wouldn’t be good to you!”

“There are many perfectly decent people amongst Manny’s troupe,” Ombric said, “they’re just . . . they’re frightened and angry and it makes them stupid.”

“‘Perfectly decent’ like you?” Jack spat. “You tried to kill my sister!”

“We weren’t going to kill her, we were supposed to turn her!” Katherine said, her voice raising in volume.

“Sure--ruining her life so she’d have no choice but to join your band of psychopaths--that’s so ‘decent’ of you!”

“I was going to lose my whole family if I didn’t do it!” Katherine said.

Jack threw his arms out. “You lost them anyway!”

Koz tugged at his wrist and pulled his hand down. His expression was sympathetic and Jack felt himself shrink under the calm surety of his touch.

Katherine was glaring daggers at him, her eyes misty and the corner of her lips trembling in a way that threatened imminent tears. Nightlight gently touched her hand, cocking his head to the side in confusion. She blinked rapidly to clear her eyes as she turned to look at him.

“I can tell you the route Manny will take,” Ombric offered. “You can tell your hunting friends.”

Katherine gasped. “Ombric no--they’ll kill everyone! Jamie and Sophie and Fog and--”

“I don’t want to turn my back on them, but they’ve already turned their backs on us, Katherine.” He held his hands out, defenseless before Koz’s scrutinizing gaze. “We just need a safe place to stay where Nightlight can recuperate. Someplace where we won’t draw unwanted attention during the full moon.”

Koz was quiet a long moment. Jack wasn’t sure which of Ombric’s points was tugging at him the most, but he suspected it was Ombric’s mention of the full moon. Even if Koz didn’t care one bit for the three ex-troupe members, he cared if they were a danger to others.

“How do you know what route Manny will take?” Koz said. “If he had a predictable pattern, we’d have figured it out already.”

Ombric nodded quickly. “It’s not set,” he said. “He’ll often change course if he hears about a new wolf or a particularly troublesome hunter, but I know some cities he’ll definitely visit. You see, he always waits a few years after a werewolf refuses to join him, then he returns and asks again.”

“‘A few years’?” Koz asked. “You mean you won’t know where he’ll be for a few years?”

“No, no!” Ombric reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, leather bound journal absolutely stuffed with stray papers and so ratty and old it was held together with a rubber band. “I’ve been going behind Manny’s back for ten years now--I’ve got contact information for almost every werewolf we’ve met over that time. My list is even better than Manny’s! His is just a name and a city--I have up-to-date addresses and contacts and emergency contacts--”

“Why?” Koz asked incredulously.

“Oh! Well, Manny thinks isolating them will make them more likely to join him when he returns.”

“So you keep in contact so they won’t feel isolated and are less likely to join?”

“Well,” Ombric shifted. “Sort of. We certainly do that for the young people. The adults however . . . well, it’s also so that I can send them my experiments and test the results.”

“‘Experiments’?” Koz shifted forward, interested.

“Yes!” Ombric nodded rapidly, clearly trying to mask his excitement. “That’s another thing I wanted to tell you about--I’m developing a cure.”