A Curious Art

Goodbyes.

Feb 28, 2008

I spoke for nearly twenty minutes straight. Jared stood beside me, his hands in the pockets of his jacket, eyes on the floor. He would answer any questions Sarah asked him, but she didn't speak much because I was doing most of the talking. Sarah looked comfortable, kneeling on the floor beside the sofa that held the sleeping Ethan-wolf. Her eyes moved between me and the thrope as I hammered her with facts: when Ethan would change, how it happened, how defining a time would be difficult until he was older, the importance of a Richter Room, how to get one, what numbers to call, how Ethan's dietary needs were going to differ now, how he'd feel in the morning, etc etc etc. Information poured out of me like water from a bursting dam; I couldn't get enough facts between me and the sniffling, red-eyed mother in front of me fast enough. I was worried that Sarah might change her mind about the evening. I remember wondering if she was going to stand up, deny that the five foot long quasi-canine with his tail hanging off the side of the sofa cushion was her twelve year old son, and force Jared and I out of the house. She seemed to be taking it very well.

When I paused to gather my thoughts, her quiet voice broke my rhythm. "When I was a little girl my family had a German Shepherd...."

I glanced up at Jared, who was looking down at me. His shoulders raised half an inch in a subtle shrug. Then I looked back to Sarah.

"...He was a big dog, but very friendly. He kind of looks like a German Shepherd. His name was Shadow. Right here," she said, and her blunt fingertips were lost in the soft fur behind Ethan's ears. "He has the same fluffy ears just like my dog."

"Well," I replied, watching her hands and not her face, "yes, they're similar to dogs, but in reality lycanthropes have..." I trailed off when Jared's foot kicked the side of my ankle softly. I swallowed the rest of my speech and snapped my head up to him, mouth open. He was looking directly at me with an intense expression, eyebrows meeting over his nose, and his hands still hiding in his pockets. Then he pursed his lips and silently told me to shush.

I took the hint and looked back over to Sarah, who hadn't noticed any of our exchange. She was still stroking the side of her son's muzzle, her eyes distant but dry. "He'll be okay in the morning," she whispered. I realized my mistake; there was no harm in letting her compare Ethan to her family's dog. It was easier for her to do that than to compare him to a strange, biologically induced creature. She was seeking familiarity.

"Yeah," I said, wrapping my arms around myself. I wished I had chosen the armchair instead of the chaise to sit in, so I could lean into the soft backing, but I was stuck where I was. "It's really alright, Sarah. You'll see it's easy to work around."

She nodded and was quiet for a moment before looking up at Jared. "Your name was Jared, right? You must not be a lycanthrope if you're helping Dana this evening."

Jared blinked, apparently surprised that the focus of conversation was suddenly on him, and took his hands out only to put them back in when he couldn't find what to do with them. "Yes, ma'am. I mean, no, ma'am. Not a lycanthrope."

"Do you work with the same organization as Dana?" she asked, trying for a smile but not quite succeeding. "The one that assists new lycanthropes?"

"Yes," I cut in, before Jared was forced to come up with a lie, or worse, tell the truth. "He was a really big help this evening. I wouldn't have been able to do anything without him."

"Really," Sarah said, and this time she did smile. "Well thank you, Jared. You're a sweet boy to spend Christmas Eve helping strangers."

Jared was smiling now, and a trace of red was licking up past his neck and into his ears. "Thanks. I try."

Sarah went back to gazing at Ethan, so I took the opportunity to grin brilliantly at Jared. He looked down at me, glowing slightly, and then finally took a seat in the armchair beside me.

"So you said he'll be hungry tomorrow morning, right?" Sarah asked, pulling another tissue from her endless supply in her jeans pocket. Her knees popped when she straightened up and perched herself at the end of the sofa near Ethan's tail. "I'll make him a big breakfast. I can make all his favorite foods. Will he be able to eat?"

I laughed. "Oh, yeah. He's just going to feel a little sore." I checked my wristwatch. It was almost one in the morning. "It's getting late, Mrs. Cohen. Sarah."

She laughed and wiped her eyes one more time before putting her glasses back on. "I suppose it is. I'll walk you two out."

She hugged the both of us three or four times before we left, thanking each of us profusely. I managed to get in a few words and told her if she had any questions she could call me, or Ethan could call me, or whatever. I really wanted to speak to Ethan to ask him personal questions about the experience, but I couldn't bother her with that then.

Parker.

Feb 25, 2008

    My plan for the evening had worked out extremely well, especially considering I'd never really had an official plan. The only real snag happened when I had to bring Ethan back into his parents' house. I hadn't planned on showing them I had an accomplice. I figured the situation was a private one, and probably a stressful and embarassing one for the Cohens', and I hadn't wanted to trouble them further by sharing their pain with a stranger like Jared. Unfortunately, I wouldn't have been able to carry deadweight Ethan more than a few steps before my kneecaps ground into powder and I fell into a tangled heap with him on their walkway. Even with his small stature, Ethan was almost two hundred pounds, and two hundred pounds of limp werewolf is heavy.
    I'd wanted to wrap him in a blanket, as well, to soften the surprise when I stepped through their doorway with their furry son in my possession, but I'd packed light and completely forgotten it.
    "So I'm just going to carry him in for you?" Jared asked, pulling to a slow stop in front of the perfectly suburban home of Ethan's parents.
    "I didn't think this through very well," I replied, frowning at my cell phone as I searched for Sarah Cohen's last call.
    "I think this went really well, considering it was all just a lot of luck and running around in the dark cold," Jared said, turning around to look at Ethan.
    Ethan hadn't moved once during out entire journey home, except for when Jared was surprised by a red light and the hard stop caused him to roll off the backseat and hit the ground with a thud. Luckily, Jared slammed the car into Park and yanked Ethan back onto the seat by the time it took me to swallow my own heart back down. I blessed Christopher for supplying me with such good tranquilizers.
    I hushed Jared with a raised hand as Ethan's mother picked up the phone.
    "Hello?"
    "Mrs. Cohen? Sarah? It's Dana. We're back. We got him."
    Tears. I waited for her to collect herself, and then she finally spoke again, her voice full of snot and emotion. "Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you. Is he alright? Thank you, thank you. Are you alright? Thank you."
    "We're fine, he's fine, everything's fine, Mrs. Cohen."
    "We're?"
    Oops. "My partner," I said, and flashed Jared a smirk. He looked up from his own cell, where he was sending a text message, and returned a wide grin with waggling eyebrows. I rolled my eyes and looked out my window to the front of the house. Lights were going on everywhere on the downstairs level. "Mrs. Cohen, if you want to send your husband out here... Ethan's kind of heavy.."
    "Parker's not really.. feeling well," she said, and then she went silent for a second and I listened to my cell's own feedback. "He came back and has been laying down. What do you mean Ethan's heavy?"
    I licked my lips, wondering how to voice this, but she took the burden from me.
    "You mean he's still....in... "
    "Yes, Sarah." I held the phone a little tighter.
    "What?"
    I swallowed again and spoke louder, raising my voice above a apologetic whisper. "Yeah, Mrs. Cohen. He's still in his thrope form. The drugs are going to let him change back slowly, and by morning he'll look like Ethan again."
    "Oh ..."
    "We'll bring him up now. If you want to open the door and go wait in the kitchen, we can bring him inside and cover him up for you.."
    "No, no," she said, cutting me off fiercely. "Don't be silly. Just bring him in. It'll be fine."
    "Are you sure?" I searched for words to comfort her, to tell her that it was alright if she didn't want to see her only child after everything that had happened this evening. That it was normal for her to want to hide from the sight. "I've done this before," I lied, ignoring the way Jared's head snapped from his cell phone to me, "and a few times we just covered up the wolf and put him in his room so the parents could just check in on him in the morning. It's really alright, if it's too much of a shock." I searched for more words of comfort. "It's normal."
    There was a long pause, and for a second I thought I'd convinced her, but then her voice froze the line. "No," she said, and I could hear her inhale through a stuffy nose. "Just bring him in please."
    "We're coming up the walkway now," I replied, and snapped the phone shut.
    Jared, who had heard both sides of the conversation perfectly, raised an eyebrow. "You said you've never done anything like this."
    "I've gone after runaway wolves, sure," I said, shrugging, "just not twelve year old wolves with rookie human parents." I unclapsed my seatbeat and turned around to regard Ethan, who was on his back with his legs in the air. His tongue was still lolling. "We're just going to carry him in."
    "So I heard. By we, you mean me?"
    "I don't really have a gurney, so yeah."
    Jared grinned and shut off his car. "Sounds good, let's go then."

    I walked in front of Jared, gathering energy in case I needed to end a bout of hysterics from Sarah before we even got to Ethan's bedroom. Jared was two steps behind me, cradling Ethan in his arms gently and attempting to look like his lean, wiry form needed to struggle carrying two hundred pounds of werewolf.
    Sarah's silhouette appeared in the window, and as my boot touched her front step, the door flew open. Jared and I froze. She looked haggard, her nose red, eyes puffy and streaming, face pale. Her hair was clipped away from her face, wild black curls everywhere, but the rest of her small frame was repressed and conservatively silent.
    I spoke first. "Hi, Mrs. Cohen."
    She didn't look at me. Her eyes were glued on the wolf in Jared's arms. "Is that.."
    Jared didn't speak, and when I turned around to look at the two of them, I noticed all trace of humor was gone from his face. He was watching Mrs. Cohen with wide, curious eyes, his jaw tight.
    "Yeah, Sarah, that's him," I said, and then pushed my away into the house. Jared didn't wait for Sarah's permission but followed me, shifting Ethan once in his arms to make passing through the doorway a little easier.
    Sarah followed after locking the door behind us. "You can set him on the couch. I already told Parker, he said he'll be down in a moment." She hovered a few feet away from the sofa as Jared rolled the limp Ethan out of his arms and onto the thick gray cushions. "Oh, God," she said, and pulled a tissue out of her jeans pocket to dab at her nose.
    I watched her for a moment, wondering if she was going to get any closer to the couch, but then realized she wasn't; at least not yet. "He's not going to wake up for hours," I said gently, reaching over to touch her shoulder. I pushed a little warmth into her, easing her just enough to bring her back from the brink of another outburst, and felt my chest tighten as the exchange happened and I took in some of her pain.
    She took a step forward, and I realized her legs were shaking. Jared and I exchanged a look behind her back. He looked uncomfortable. I felt bad for him sudddenly; he hadn't signed up for this part of the night. In retrospect, catching the werewolf was probably easier for him.
    "How do I even know it's him?" Sarah asked, kneeling beside the sofa with her hands buried between her knees. She stared at Ethan's face, her eyes running over the pointed tufted ears, the long muzzle, the half-lidded amber colored eyes. "How can this be my little boy..."
    "A DNA test would prove it," I said, biting my lip, "but otherwise that's it. If he were awake he might recognize a scent, but for you, I can't offer you much else." I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my black cargo pants, feeling my thighs prickle against the freezing temperature of my fingers. There wasn't anything else I could offer Mrs. Cohen. I had found her kid. It was up to her to deal with the rest. I couldn't do that for her.
    To my surprise, she reached out and stroked her fingers over the side of Ethan's face.
    "He's soft," she murmured, and looked up at me with red-rimmed eyes.
    I tried to smile, but my face didn't want to work. "Yeah," I said, and my voice was as quiet as hers. "Look, Sarah, I think I should explain to you and Parker what happened tonight and what's going to happen later, so you can understand--"
    "Just explain it to me now," she said, her features suddenly losing their maternal softness. She pulled her hand away from Ethan to come to a stand, then changed her mind and crouched beside her son again. Her fingers returned to the soft fur at the side of his jaw.
    "Well it's probably better if I tell you both.." I said, looking towards the hallway that led to the rest of the house, and then back to her.
    "Parker's not coming downstairs." She turned her eyes from Ethan down to the floor. Her chin quivered and she set her jaw, glaring at the carpet. "He's not going to come down until morning." She said, and licked a tear off her lip.
    I closed my eyes against the icy feeling in my stomach. How could I have been so dense? There was a reason Ethan's father hadn't come running to the front door to see his son like his mother had: he didn't want to. He wouldn't want to, not until morning. She said he wasn't feeling well. Jeez, Dana, you're so stupid sometimes.
    "Oh," I said, suddenly feeling like I'd brought the proverbial elephant into the room on a leash. I rubbed my forearm through my sweater and then took a seat on the chaise near Sarah. "Alright then."

Homeward bound.

Feb 25, 2008

    Jared lowered Ethan into his backseat gently. I twisted around to watch in the passenger seat. "Pull his head up," I said, watching the small wolf's skull slide off the edge of the cushion. His jaws opened and his tongue rolled out, flopping harmlessly against a row of sharp white teeth.
    "You know, he's kind of cute when he's not snarling and growling his head off," Jared said, yanking Ethan's head up by the fur on his neck and then giving the thrope a rough head tussle, like he was a family pet. I couldn't really blame Jared; Ethan did look like a friendly sleeping pup in the back seat. The primal energy that had radiated off of him earlier was gone now, dissipated into the civilized background of the Ford Focus and lost in the freezing cold.
    "He's cuter when he has his glasses, sneakers, and fingers," I replied, keeping my eyes on the sleeping beast while Jared fell into the driver's seat beside me.
    "You can still think of him like that? Even after seeing him like this? There's no difference to you?" he asked. I settled back into my seat as the car began to move, then fixed my eyes on him. I hate looking out car windows at night if I can avoid it.
    "Of course I can. He's still Ethan. This is just a different side to him."
    Jared's breath fogged in front of his lips, and in a moment of contemplative silence, he pulled his gloves out of his jacket pocket and put them on while driving, using his wrists when he needed to maintain the wheel. "I know, but I mean, that's a liberated point of view. For a human. I'm not a lycanthrope and even I'm having trouble thinking of this guy playing video games and watching T.V."
    "You never saw him looking human," I said, once again looking back at Ethan. His chest rose and fell slowly, with the steady rythym of the heavily sedated. I smirked. "He's a lot less scary as a boy, I'll tell you that."
    "I'm a lot less scary looking as a jaguar."
    I smirked and reached over to pinch his upper arm. "This has been one hell of a Christmas Eve."
    Jared laughed. "Yeah, well, it's a worse Christmas for his parents, I guess. Imagine your kid turning furry and running out into the middle of the street like that? God. I'm so glad we don't have to worry about involuntary changes like that." His jaw flinched. "That's kinda awful."
    "Actually, I think his parents are Jewish, so they don't celebrate Christmas."
    "Well then I guess that means everything's just fine," he said, and laughed at his own joke.
    For a second I felt my defenses rise, but then I laughed, too. It felt good to share a joke. It almost made the rest of the evening fade into the background, like it had all been a bad dream. I clung to the feeling as long as I could and rested my head against the plush headrest of my seat. Jared's voice interrupted my coping session.
    "Now what?" he asked, watching my profile. "Take him home?"
    I rubbed my hands together and tried to get some feeling back into them. "I guess so. He's not going to change back until morning, though, and it's going to be a slow process."
    "Isn't the transformation for a werewolf generally like, a couple minutes?" Jared asked, darting a glance to me between lights.
    "Yeah, when they're awake. Not when they're filled with enough drugs to stop a mad hippo."
    "Ah. Whatever, his parents saw him like this already, right? You said the father was chasing him in his car."
    "Yeah.." I said, tearing my gaze away from Ethan, who was as long as the entire backseat, and almost a little too heavy to fit properly. Jared had had to curl his legs against him. "But this is different. This is going to be up close."
    "I'm sure they'll manage," Jared said, taking a turn when I pointed it out to him. "They're going to have to get used to it sometime."
    Sometime soon, I thought, but didn't answer him.

Bumrushed.

Feb 15, 2008

The only way behind the restaurant was the alley on the right. To the left, there was only a space of six inches, and neither one of us could get through, two legs or four. Single file, Jared and I pushed ourselves behind the restaurant. The alley opened up into a dead end. To our right was a wall, directly in front of us a fence blocking the homeless from getting into the dumpsters behind the eatery, and to our left: the only exit. We'd effectively trapped ourselves into a corner.

I screeched to a halt in front of Jared and pointed to my right. He stopped on a dime behind me, and I was suddenly glad of his excellent balance or else he'd have landed on top of me. Both of us looked to the far end of the alley where a pair of silver-white haunches and a long tail were sticking out of a pile of garbage bags.

I bulged my eyes at Jared and gestured with a flick of my head for him to move forward. I had to stay where I was. If I moved farther away to block the larger exit out into the street, Ethan might take a turn into the entranceway we'd just used if Jared spooked him too hard. Jared nodded, understanding, and reluctantly looked toward the young wolf at the end of the dark alley. It was too dark for me to make out much of anything, but I knew Jared could see better. I glanced out into the street before slowly sidestepping into the alley. A distant streetlight stretched and spilled over enough into the alley to allow me to make out their outlines.

Jared made it halfway between Ethan and I before he caught Ethan's attention. I sucked in a breath as the wolf yanked his head out of an open bag of half-spoiled food and stared directly at my werejaguar friend. Ethan was small for a lycanthrope, like I'd figured he'd be. He was about as big as a St. Bernard, just less friendly looking. His pointed ears were pricked high on his head, and with new interest he leveled yellow-brown eyes on Jared.

Jared paused, crouching, and the two stared at each other for a few painful seconds. Then, Ethan's ears pinned back and I saw his tail dip between his back legs. He didn't want trouble. Even his beast was a child. Jared, apparently familiar with the body language, took the opportunity to stand a little taller and take a step forward, to tell Ethan he was in charge. Ethan responded by lifting his upper lip, exposing a line of black gums and very sharp teeth. Shit. My hand moved slowly toward the gun pinned under my waistband. Not slow enough, the movement caught Ethan's attention. His focus shifted from Jared to me with the slightest swivel of his muzzle, and I realized he hadn't known I was there until he saw me move. He could have smell me and heard me, but he hadn't taken the time to process it. He was probably overwhelmed and frightened. My heart ached a little for him. Then I took out the tranq gun and pointed it at his face.

Realizing he was outnumbered, Ethan's let out a long, low growl and put his head to the ground, but his ears and tail remained glued to his body. He was still scared, but less willing to roll over and be devoured by Jared, who probably smelled a little different than any alley cats he'd terrified earlier in the evening. Jared stiffened at the sound and bent his knees. Ethan barked, encouraged, and his breath fogged in front of his narrow puppy-like muzzle. No longer interested in last night's leftovers, he was now ready to defend himself. Jared turned his head slowly to look at me over his shoulder, asking me what to do with his gaze.

I started pulling power from wherever I could find it. My fear, Jared's, even Ethan's. My vision blinked in and out temporarily, and I felt my eyes haze over with the regular azure light. As if I'd turned on a switch, Jared and Ethan's auras erupted in front of me. The darkness of the alley was no longer an issue. I could see each of them clearly, swathed in the emotional energy that wrapped around their bodies. Ethan's aura jerked erratically, switching shades as it dove between fear and aggression; Jared's stayed consistent: concentration and anxiety. Surprise registered on Jared's face when he saw the change in my countenance, but then he lifted his chin. I leveled the gun up. "Chase him out."

"He's ready to attack," he replied in a whisper, and the aura around him flickered.

I brushed my finger over the trigger. "No, he's not. Just bumrush him. He'll run toward me."

"Then he'll bite you."

"No, he won't."

Ethan growled again, obviously not impressed by our conversation (not that he could understand a word of it) and sidestepped, pushing himself against the dumpster to put distance between himself and Jared. He flashed his teeth once more, but his rounded spine and invisible tail told me he was still afraid.

Jared held in a breath. "Dana..."

"Just GO!" I snapped, and some of my power buildup trickled out and sent an empty bottle of wine rolling against the far wall.

Then everything happened at once. Jared whipped his head around and fell to the ground on all fours in one smooth movement. The alley echoed with a feline yowl and then he hissed, and even though it was a human sounding hiss, it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up.

Ethan's own growl melted into a whine, and in that instant Jared darted forward like a runner at the starting line. For a horrifying second Ethan seemed determined to stay and fight the oncoming werejaguar, but milimeters before Jared got to him, the wolf darted in the only direction he could: toward me. Jared pivoted sloppily, his sneakers sliding, and chased the wolf down the alley.

In reality I had about two seconds to aim, point, and shoot, but it felt much longer. Ethan and Jared seemed to come at me in slow motion, Ethan running scared, Jared behind him with flared nostrils and a furrowed brow.

The tranquilizer dart sank into the front of Ethan's right shoulder, closer to his chest. He felt it and started, with a sharp yelp, momentarily put out by the feeling of a needle in him. He tripped over his own feet, went down, rolled, sprang up, and ran past me toward freedom. It was all the time I needed. I dropped to one knee and hurled all the energy I'd gathered at him like it was a medicine ball. Light exploded from me and rocketed down the alley, and then Ethan was hit with all of my fear and apprehension in one hard blast. The wolf let out another yelp, this one more pained, and his steps began to slow.

Jared took up the chase again and whipped past me. "Block him off!" I yelled, but I didn't have to. He knew what he was doing. Jared darted around the staggering, drugged werewolf and pushed ahead. Ethan slowed to a halt. He was limping; he'd lost feeling in his right leg. The drugs are working faster than usual because he's so small. Jared stood with his back to our only exit, arms crossed, watching the wolf. He was slightly out of breath.

Ethan whined and turned away from Jared, who was now an imposing figure, and faced me. My magic clung to the tips of his fur, pale blue against his gray. He could feel everything I wanted him to feel, and then more, his own emotions piling on top of the ones I'd propelled into him. He whined again, long and mournful. His ears flattened against his skull and he started to turn in a slow circle, hopping on three legs, his tail pinned between his legs. He didn't know where to go or what to do. I waited.

"What's he doing?" Jared asked. Ethan licked his muzzle repeatedly, a nervous tick of sorts, and looked between us. He knew he was trapped. He turned in a circle again, this time in the opposite direction, head low, shoulders hunched. Then he fell over. He licked uselessly at the needle, but by the time he'd managed to remove it, he couldn't lift his head anymore.

I waited until his breathing slowed. He looked less imposing now, lying in the middle of the cold dark alley, his muzzle resting against the concrete, ears relaxed, eyes dilated. I looked at Jared and started yanking up the thin shields I used to block out my own power. His aura shimmered into nothingness. "Grab him," I said.

Running in the dark.

Feb 3, 2008

We must have looked pretty strange, Jared and I, wandering the streets on Christmas Eve, poking our faces in between buildings. Jared would disappear halfway inside a dark alley, cocking his head up to listen, and then step back out again and shake his head at me. Then we'd move to the next one. Things continued like this, our noses and fingers becoming a little more numb every time, for almost a quarter of an hour. We were close, but not close enough.

Frustrated, I ducked into the garbage filled alley between an old office building and a Starbucks. The brick was freezing against my back, but I didn't care. I stared vacantly at the yellow-white circle of light my flashlight cast on the opposite wall. Jared stood near watching me, but didn't come too close. He didn't have a flashlight; he didn't need one. His lips parted, but before he could say anything a muffled yowl of an alley cat came from our right. Quickly followed by the loud crash of a number of bottles, and then a quiet growl. Jared's head snapped to the left, and I jerked the flashlight across the street. Light pierced the parallel alley and I caught sight of a gray and white pair of haunches before they disappeared around the side of the building.

Jared and I shared a look before taking off at a run. "Go, go, go!" I hissed, yanking the strap of the flashlight around my neck so I could free up my hands. Jared pivoted on a heel once we were clear of the building and took off. Together we ran down the sidewalk, dodging a few straggling people trying to get places on the holiday. I could see the large furry outline of an animal running on the opposite side of the street, behind the buildings. I squinted my eyes to see if there were any people over there, but I couldn't make out anything in the dark. For a while it was like a comical race, and all I could see was a pattern of building, wolf, building, wolf, building, and then, as we were feeling the cold harden our internal organs, the pattern changed to building, building. We'd lost him.

My hand shot out and I snatched Jared's jacket, jerking him to a stop. He turned and looked at me, his eyes wide. "We lost him?"

"No," I said, pointing to the front of a Spanish restaurant. "He's behind there. He stopped there."

"Aw man, this place has great food. Really good shrimp." He cringed, withering under my stare. "Right. Going."

Cold.

Jan 20, 2008

As soon as we entered the park, conversation ceased. Jared pushed the button to slide his window down and leaned to the left, inhaling slowly with his lips slightly parted while we cruised the dark driveway inside the park. I huddled inside my layers, pulling the sweater sleeves past my knuckles. "Smell anything?"

"Not really." He bit his lip. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." I squinted out into the few trees and wondered if Ethan had found the park as uninteresting as most people did, and had moved past it into the streets. "We should probably get out."

"Can I park here?"

"No one is going to care, it's almost nine on Christmas Eve."

"Let me pull into the street. I can't afford a ticket." He squeezed himself into a space behind a beat-up looking van and put up the windows. Then he looked over at me and raised his eyebrows.

I smiled and held out a tranq gun. "Ready?"

He looked down at the weapon in his hands and exhaled softly, his breath fogging in front of him. "As I'll ever be."

Jared and I walked single file, him in front. Both of us had the guns hidden beneath our clothing. He might have looked peculiar, with his head hung low, sniffing the air, but luckily we didn't pass many people. Everyone was home, having a nice, safe dinner, watching bad movies and thinking about gifts and cookies. It occurred to me then that that moment was probably the strangest holiday moment I'd ever have. Beneath my sweater the cold plastic casing of the gun holding enough drugs to slow a hippo rested against the skin of my stomach.

"Anything?" I asked.

"Faint. Definite not-dog smell. Right through," Jared replied. He pointed across the park, down a path that led into the street.

"Fuck. He left the park?"

"After rolling in some garbage, yeah."

"You got to be kidding me." I shivered. "Alright, let's go."

Tracking.

Jan 15, 2008

Sarah Cohen had a pile of clothes ready for me. She’d folded them. I was worried she might keep me to ask me questions, but to my surprise and incredible relief she basically threw the laundry at me, repressing tears, and told me to please find Ethan. I assured her I would do my best and left, equally in a hurry.

Jared saw me speeding down the walkway and reached over to swing the passenger door open. I collapsed inside and slammed the door behind me, then adjusted the pile on my lap.

“You lucked out,” he said, looking down at them with flaring nostrils. “You got some blood.” See? Better nose than mine. I blessed Ethan for being a little boy rather than a girl. Little boys were always bleeding from random cuts and bumps.

“Alright, slight game plan, listen up. She said Parker – her husband – caught sight of him about a mile from here, moving towards the park. He got really close, but the headlights scared him and he took off like a shot.” I rolled my eyes. “So I told her to get her husband and his SUV back home. We’re going to drive through the park, slow, windows down. See if you can pick anything up that way. If not, we park and hoof it. I’ll pull off a spell as a last resort. Nine times out of ten when I try that, I can’t get it to work, which is why you’re here. We need to get him as soon as possible, before he hurts himself or worse, someone else.”

“You think he will?” Jared asked softly. “I mean, you think he’s going to be violent?”

I looked at him apologetically. “There’s a possibility. Especially if he’s scared. Sarah described him and through all logical purposes he shouldn’t really be as big as other lycanthropes’ beasts; more like a very scary-ass dog, but there’s really not too much logic to the freaking disease.” I scratched at my forearm until I felt the skin become warm beneath my fingernails. “Which brings me to the next part of the plan. It’s not even ten o’clock. There are still people out on the street, so we need to do this on two legs. Both of us.”

“I wasn’t going to..” he said, then trailed off looking worried. “What if he, you know, sees me before I see him. What if he attacks me first? How big is not-so-big?” A full size lycanthrope’s wolf could beat Jared’s jaguar form in any given day; full sized wolves ranged from 250 to 400lbs. I could understand why he was worried.

“Shift if you absolutely need to, but we can’t hurt him. At all. Ideally, I’d like to drug him before we even get that close to him.”

“You mentioned tranquilizers. How are we going to manage that, again?”

I shifted in my seat and brought the backpack around. “I have a tranq gun.”

“Are you serious?”

“I have two. One’s for you.” I narrowed my eyes. “Stop smirking!”

“I’m not!”

“You are.”

“I’m sorry. That’s just kind of cool.” He sobered under my glare and glanced over. “Is that get-up foolproof?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, but I knew what he meant.

“I mean, if this thing bites you, is a turtle neck and a pair of pants over some silver going to prevent you from losing a limb or worse?”

I unzipped my pack and started checking the guns. I’d only used them a few times, and I figured it was as good of a time as any to refresh my memory. “No. If I’m clumsy enough to let him bite me, and he’s determined enough to taste flesh past all the silver burning his mouth, I’m pretty much fucked.”

“You said you’ve met him a couple of times, been in his house. He won’t recognize you at all?”

“Probably not,” I replied matter-of-factly. He wouldn’t. Ethan was a young thrope; new wolves can never stay mentally human during a full moon.

We were both quiet for a while, Jared wondering when to speak and me waiting for him to. Finally he spoke. “Why do you do this?”

My stomach pulled in on itself a little. “Look, I’m really sorry I ruined your Christmas Eve. I’ll owe you one, okay?”

“That’s not what I meant. You know that’s not what I meant.” He reached out to gently touch my shoulder, his eyes stuck on my profile. I kept staring at the guns inside my pack. For a second I almost winced as he made contact, worrying about the silver burning his hand, but then I remembered jaguars don’t have that problem. He looked to the road and back in a quick snap of his head. “I mean… why?”

I opened the casement, checked the darts, then snapped it shut and slid it back under the band that held it in place. “It’s sort of complicated.”

Jared.

Jan 15, 2008

I folded myself inside Jared’s car in one clumsy, awkward motion and with a slow inhale, turned to him. He stared back at me with wide eyes, his gloved hands gripping the steering wheel at the proper place.

“Hey,” I said, flashing him a nervous smile. “Thanks for coming.”

“Hey,” he replied, not looking any more relaxed despite my grin. “So, do you have a plan, or..?”

I’d already explained most of the situation to Jared on the phone. I hadn’t given him a game plan over the phone because I didn’t really have one. I just knew I needed an animal to track an animal, and since I was all out of werewolves to assist, a werejaguar was my next best bet. I reached up to tie back my hair into a tail at the nape of my neck, sliding a band off my wrist with quick, familiar motions. “Ehm. Yeah, yeah I have a plan.”

“Alright, good, because I gotta tell you, I’ve never really tracked a baby werewolf before.” He snapped the signal on and pulled out of the space without much other warning. I buckled my seatbelt as we joined traffic.

“Okay, I lied, I actually don’t have a plan.” I winced.

“WHAT?”

“You can’t really develop a plan, Jared, when it comes to finding a confused, scared, and wandering wolf the size of a mutant Great Dane. You just go and do it.” I rubbed my hands together and blew on my fingertips. “Why is it so cold in your car?”

“Heater’s broken.”

“That sucks.”

“Sho’ does.”

I fished the folded piece of yellow legal paper out of the first pocket on my cargo pants that had directions to Ethan’s house. “Alright, we need to go to his parents’ house first. She’ll give us clothes you can use to try and pick up a scent. I know you might not need them, but I figured better safe than sorry.”

“His scent is going to be the same?” he asked, risking a glance away from the road for a second. “I mean, even on all fours?”

“No, but there’s always a trace, from what I’ve heard. It’s better than nothing. Besides, he’s not going to smell like any dog you’ve ever smelled. I was actually hoping to get a piece of clothing with blood on it so I could do a trace myself. I just didn’t feel like explaining that to her because I’m pretty sure telling mothers you want their sons’ blood to perform magic spells freaks them out.” I smirked wryly.

“Good call,” he said, and giggled. “I hope I can help you.” He sniffed the air. “It’s cold. It’s harder when it’s cold.” Jaguars have heightened senses much like lycanthropes, except their noses are not as good. Jaguars have great hearing and wicked balance, but lycanthropes use their nose for everything. Jared’s nose was still better than mine, though, and I would need him if I wanted to find anything in the dark streets.

“I’m really sorry to pull you out of your Christmas Eve,” I said, watching his profile’s shadows dance in the streetlights as we drove towards the suburbs.

“It’s alright, you sounded scared on the phone. I’ve never really heard you like that. I figured it was important.” He took a quick turn, and I reached out to hold the side of my door subtly. “We were just getting done with dinner, actually. We weren’t going to see Marjorie’s parents until tomorrow, so that crisis was averted. She was a little ticked I was leaving my own family party, but I can deal with it later.”

I smiled and closed one eye. Jared’s girlfriend was scary. I’d only met her once, and it hadn’t been pleasant. “Sorrrrrry.” He smirked.

“Did you tell her you were coming to help me with something?”

“Oh, God, no.”

I laughed, not taking offense. Marjorie knew Jared and I were friends. She also knew I was human, and therefore not fit to take up her boyfriend’s time. Jared’s family – and a lot of jaguars, actually – were a very elite bunch, and didn’t really appreciate Jared spending so much time with a human. I never took is personally. “Right, here,” I pointed.

I took the rest of the ride to explain the whole story of Ethan to Jared, starting from our first visit to the last, when I’d told the Cohen’s to invest in a Richter Room as soon as possible. Jared admitted he’d never heard of a lycanthrope showing symptoms that young, which only confirmed my suspicions that Ethan was definitely an oddity.

We pulled up in front of Ethan’s historically influenced home slowly. I turned to Jared, hoping I looked calmer than I felt, and said, “You should.. probably wait here. I’m not sure how I would explain you helping me.”

“How you gonna explain that outfit, G.I. Jane?”

I smirked and pulled myself out of the tiny Ford Focus. When I could stand up straight, I closed my eyes and let my arms dangle uselessly at my sides. My pack was still hung across my shoulders. I took in a deep breath, collecting my thoughts and confidence, and gently started pushing away negative feelings of doubt or fear. I needed a clear head if I was going to find Ethan, soothe him, tranquilize him, and bring him home to mommy. After a moment I heard a voice from behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Jared squinting out the passenger window. “You alright there, Dana?”

“I’m alright. Just.. gathering my head.”

“Alright. I’ll be here. Hurry up, it’s freakin’ cold.”

I shoved my bare hands into the pockets of my jacket and hunched my shoulders, bracing for impact. Then I marched up to the door.

(( apologies for the brief interlude - vacation! ))

Elevator music.

Jan 4, 2008

I was getting into the elevator when my cell phone rang. "Jared?"

"Hey, yeah, it's me. I'm downstairs and a few cars to what would be yourrr..hold on, I'm trying to twist against the seatbelt here...right. Your right."

I jammed the close-door button a few times with my thumb. "Alright, I'll be down in a bit."

The elevator ride seemed like it lasted an hour. I watched the numbers light up one by one, my hands twitching at my sides and my neck craned, until the car stopped on the fifth floor. The doors opened up to reveal Mrs. Rosenblatt, an elderly woman who is the only active member of the building's would-be board. The last time I met her (which was also the first time), she had caught me pouring a line of salt across my apartment's doorway to fix a ward. She was returning tupperware to the lady in 1214 when she stepped out of the elevator. Ever since then all I've gotten in reply to my greetings were sidelong glances and the occasional mutter.

She shuffled over and hit the ground floor button despite it being lit to show I had already pressed it, then moved back to the opposite corner. I swayed on the balls of my feet and watched her not-so-subtly sneak a peak at me. She took me in from the black turtleneck to the multi pocketed cargos, straight down to my black work boots.

When we reached the lobby, I waited until the doors opened to say anything. "Goodniiight."

"....Night," she muttered, giving me one last confused glance before hurrying away. I sighed and adjusted the strap of my pack. Inside I heard the glass bottles of tranqs clink softly against one another.

Tis the season for heinous lies.

Jan 3, 2008

Ten minutes later I was ready for action. Beneath all the layers of thick, dark material I felt itchy in my thermal pants and shirt covered in silver mesh. The "chainmail" outfit had been designed by someone Trixie knew, and I'd only worn it two times before. There wasn't a chink in it anywhere from offending wolf bites, and I hoped to keep it that way. I did some stretching to prove that the turtleneck and cargo pants over them wouldn't restrict my movement, then reached for the phone on the bed again. I felt worse with every ring until she picked up.

"Aunt Vicki?"

"Dana!" I could hear her kitchen behind her, the sink running and the small countertop TV blaring. "When is Jack's mom bringing you by?"

My stomach sank, and I ducked my head in shame and turned in place. "Uhm.. aunt Vicki.. there's a small problem.."

Her voice lost all of its cheer. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing wrong," I lied, and looked up to face my dresser's vanity mirror. My reflection stared back at me. I looked like a cat burglar wearing hand me downs. "I...I'm actually feeling kind of sick."

"Oh, I'm sorry honey. What's wrong?"

I couldn't take my eyes off myself in the mirror. I tucked a chunk of hair behind my ears. "I've just been throwing up all day. I told Caroline to not worry about driving me over. I don't even feel like leaving the house. I'll come tomorrow though, I should feel a little better. I'm loading up on NyQuil."

"I can come get you if you want?" she offered, and I heard her shut the water off. "Do you need anything? I could come there!"

"Oh, no, it's a mess," I said, picturing my pristine living room. "And my germs are everywhere. It's fine. I'll just have Jack drive me tomorrow morning, after he's feeling alright. Sorry, Aunt Vicki."

"Don't apologize for being sick, it's not your fault."

I swallowed and started opening drawers looking for my bottle of Wolf Spray. That's not the technical term for it. "Yeah.." a lump was forming in my throat and I fought to work it down.

"You can't help getting sick."

I grimaced and pushed my forehead against the edge of my wooden dresser. "I need to go."

"Alright. I'm sorry you can't come. We'll wait to open gifts until tomorrow then, when you get here."

"Okay. Talk to you tomorrow then, thanks."

"Feel better!"

"I will."

I waited for the click, then jammed the 'off' button and slammed the phone on the dresser top. "Goddammit." I stood straight again, bottle in hand, and started spraying myself from head to toe. When I was done, and slightly damp, I called Jared.