Chapter Four: Third quarter (waning)

The wolf is really, incredibly, horribly bored. It’s been a week. Seven days of watching Alejandro Cruz work, eat lunch at the same deli every day, spend three hours at the same bar every night, and go home to shower and maybe sleep for three hours.

Nothing else has happened. No one’s acted on the threat. James took the blood off his shower wall almost immediately, gave a sample to Jess, and set up twenty-four hour surveillance on the apartment. He followed Cruz almost constantly; keeping an eye on him and having Drake did it when he couldn’t.

Nothing. Happened.

A week later, James is starting to think that the message in blood and the wolf’s tooth left in the bathroom were just a prank. Cruz has some friends who’d think that sort of thing was funny, and besides, even a wolf doesn’t really have the patience to wait an entire week before attacking.

James should know. His wolf is ready to start climbing walls and he's trained for this sort of thing.

No one is after Alejandro Cruz. There just can’t be�"James hasn’t seen, heard, or smelled anyone or anything suspicious in something like 142 hours of surveillance. Octavian hasn’t picked up on anything either, though he’s hacked, hijacked, and reprogrammed every camera within five city blocks of Cruz’s apartment.

No one’s after Cruz, and the wolf is howling at him, demanding that he at least shift and chase a car or something.

Shut up, James mutters. It’s the waning quarter, the wolf shouldn’t be this wired.

Hunt-chase-move, it demands.

He ignores it, focusing instead on Alejandro Cruz. The man gets up at four-thirty every morning, showers, washes his hands, eats ramen noodles, dresses, and then goes to work. He’s almost ridiculously rigid about it, too. Alejandro has some serious control issues.

He never strays from pattern. He takes the same route to work every day, at the same time, with the same people. Just like clockwork. This makes it easy to tell if anyone’s following him, and as far as James can tell, he’s the only one.

He’s starting to think that Octavian messed up. Not that he’d ever tell him that.

Once his wolf comes in, he’ll stop thinking like that. Wolves are, as a general rule, pretty self-aware and pragmatic. Everything fails. Everything dies. The wolf knows this better than any human.

James’s phone rings, startling him out of his thoughts. He drops the binoculars, reads the screen, and smiles. Speak of the devil. “Octavian,” he says.

“James,” Octavian murmurs. “Good morning. How goes the surveillance?”

“Same as yesterday,” James says, and he’s not entirely successful at keeping the wolf’s boredom out of his voice.

“I think we can leave Cruz alone, for now.”

“You got a new number?”

“Yes,” Octavian says, and James hears paper rustling in the background. “Talia Mason, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal. She’s forty-seven, married, and has two sons in college.”

“A reporter?” James says, and the wolf perks up. Reporters are always in over their heads. They can’t seem to help it�"they attract trouble and enemies like werewolves attract fear and pitchforks. This job, at least, will be more interesting.

“Yes. She works at the main office and lives on Park Avenue�"her husband is a Wall Street executive. I’ll text you the address.”

“I’ll have Drake keep an eye on Cruz,” James says, already packing his equipment. “Just in case.”

“Sounds wise. I’ll text you the address.”

“Octavian, wait�"” But it’s too late. He disconnects the call, leaving James annoyed and with a dial tone in his ear.

Stubborn idiot. They haven’t talked about the wolf at all since Octavian let James bite him, and it’s getting out of hand. Yes, there’s still three whole weeks until the next moon night, but Octavian can’t keep avoiding it anymore.

He’s a werewolf now. He let James bite him. He made the choice to not die, and now he has to live with the consequences. Ignoring the problem is the quickest way to ending up moon-crazy, dead, or worse, caught and tagged and kept from running free ever again.

Octavian has to deal with this. The longer he waits, the more he pushes the wolf down, the wilder it’ll be when it comes up again on moon night.

And Octavian’s wolf is strong.

Octavian doesn’t remember turning last week because he was a newborn and in pain, but James remembers. He spent all night at Octavian’s side, keeping him under control and relatively contained. He’s got the scratches�"now only very faint lines, but still�"to prove it. That wolf is strong, and the longer Octavian ignores it, the stronger and wilder it’ll get.

The best way to deal with the wolf is to embrace it. James has heard all kinds of crazy things people do to keep theirs “under control;” they shove it down, box it in, and ignore it during the month. They refuse to listen to it and take care of its needs. They smoke wolfsbane (basically werewolf drugs) and drink themselves half to death, and then on moon night, they explode.

But if you just be with the wolf, walk with it, listen to it, let it play every once and a while, well, then being a werewolf isn’t so bad.

James doesn’t explode on moon nights. He just changes, like he changes any other time.

Maybe I’m doing it wrong, he thinks, leaving the empty building and mixing in with traffic. He’s never met another wolf like himself, unless he counts the purebreds, which he doesn’t because they’re just obnoxious, self-righteous a******s.

Most werewolves fight the wolf. Most are ashamed of it. James just… isn’t. Call it a personality defect or whatever, but he actually kind of likes his wolf, when it’s not being an annoying furball.

But, then again, he’s been a werewolf since he was eight, so it’s not really anything new for him. Most people are bitten as adults and don’t take it well.

Maybe I should give Octavian some more time, James thinks, weaving expertly in and out of traffic. The usual mix of smells and sounds makes the wolf twitch, itching underneath his skin, and he ignores it for now. Maybe tonight he’ll go run in the park or annoy Jess. That’s always fun.

James cuts across the mass of people, stopping in front of a tall, gleaming building right on the start of Wall Street. According to Octavian’s text, this is the building where Talia Mason’s husband, George, works, and he’s just arriving to start his day.

He doesn’t look much like a cutthroat Wall Street type, but then again, they rarely do. His wife is with him, interestingly enough, and they talk animatedly despite the early hour.

Talia Mason looks like a reporter. She walks confidently, with the stride of someone who’s seen the worst the world has to offer, focused ahead, singular, determined. Her hair is dark brown and she doesn’t look like she’s had any plastic surgery, though up closer he’ll probably see hints of Botox.

James falls in behind the couple, watching. Talia takes her husband up to the door, kisses him on the cheek, and then leaves, heading back down the steps to her car and slipping into early morning traffic. Her office isn’t far from here�"it makes sense that they’d carpool.

George watches her go and then goes inside, presumably up to his office.

Their place will be empty.

James turns around and hails a cab, settling into the seat thoughtfully. Wall Street executives and journalists both have a lot of enemies, so whoever was gunning for Talia, if she was the victim, could be her enemies or his.

She could just as easily be the perp, though. James has seen enough “front-line reporters” crush anyone in their way to have a healthy distrust, and Talia Mason has all the characteristics of a ruthless, soul-crushing glory hound.

The driver pulls up to the Masons’ Park Avenue residence and James steps out, breathing in the cold air. It’s not hard to get into the apartment, despite the security, and soon he’s rifling through their drawers.

The kids don’t live here, and haven’t for a while�"their rooms are stale and smell like dust.

There’s one gun under the master bed and another in the sugar jar in the kitchen, but neither are clean or smell like they’ve gone off recently. There are no hidden microphones or cameras; no one is watching the Masons.

James doesn’t find drugs or anything that usually causes a murder, so he can rule out Talia and George killing each other. In George’s study, there’s a sealed report that looks suspicious, and on Talia’s desk there’s a patchwork of small font and furious red circles. James takes both, tucking them into his coat.

Since he’s here he might as well stick a few bugs up, and so he does. Maybe later he’ll add a camera to the mix, but for now audio will be fine.

On his way out, he catches a glimpse of Talia Mason and a soldier, standing against a brilliant blue sky and harsh sand. Behind them is a frozen explosion, the edges boiling red. She was in Afghanistan, it looks like, or maybe Baghdad during the bombings.

The wolf growls thinly. It’s never liked reporters, especially ones overseas. It remembered hot sand and falling bombs, and knew that they were pain, not something to print and stick up on a wall.

James leaves, closing the door behind him. His skin itches. He still has work to do on the Masons, but the wolf’s scratching at the corners of his thoughts, demanding a quick run.

He checks his watch. He’s got some time, and besides, he has to see Jess anyway. He makes sure to stow his gear and new information somewhere safe, and kicks off his shoes.

And then, he shifts.

Octavian is quietly panicking. This is a fairly new experience for him, the panic, and he doesn’t like it at all, but he can’t help it.

He doesn’t know what to do.

The greatest number of werewolf suicides occurs between infection and their second moon night. It usually happens right after the new moon�"moon-dark, James has called it�"when the wolf is silent and the gravity of the situation can fully hit the human.

Octavian has spent hours online, reading people�"werewolves'�"last blog posts or YouTube videos or long, rambling emails to loved ones.

I won’t be a monster, they say. I don’t want to hurt anyone else. I don’t think I can control it. I can’t live like this, like I’m a prisoner in my own body. They’re taking everything from me. I’m not a monster. I won’t be a monster. It’s better this way.

It’s better this way.

He doesn’t know what to do.

He’s a werewolf now. That is finally starting to sink in. The two injuries he received last week, the gunshot wound and the bite�"are completely healed now, only faint, pale scars where, a hundred and sixty-eight hours ago, he was broken and bleeding. He can smell things now, very faint but still. He can tell what a person had for lunch and where they’ve been. And he can hear heartbeats, if he’s close enough, and the mice moving in the library walls.

Octavian is no longer human.

He should’ve talked to James last week. James will know what to do, how to handle it. James won’t be panicking because he's James, he always has a plan or the experience or the cunning to solve his problems.

Octavian wonders how long James has been a wolf. A long, long time, if his comfort with both shapes is anything to go by. He’s a wolf as often as he is human, wandering the city, hunting outside it, or sprawled on the library couch napping.

James will know what to do. He has to know what to do.

I should call him, Octavian thinks, pacing. He can walk a little easier now�"the muscles and bones in his back and neck are mending. He’s healing. He’ll be able to walk like he used to, in a few weeks. He’ll be able to run again, and jump again, and, and�"

It terrifies him as much as it overjoys him.

And it’s because he’s wolf that it’s happening.

He can hear it now, the wolf. It lives in a quiet corner of his mind, watching, observing. It growls whenever people get to close, snarls thinly when they make eye contact, twitches when they brush against him, on the street. It hums when he dozes in the sun, barks happily whenever James is nearby�"annoying, that�"and occasionally tries to convince him to chase after small animals and taxis.

It’s not strong, not yet. This is the waning moon, which means that its power fades nightly, until the new moon when he is the most human he will ever be. But it's there, and he can hear it.

This, again, leads back to him quietly panicking.

What does one do in this sort of situation? If the statistics are anything to go by, he has about a week before he snaps and kills himself�"it’s better this way�"but not all werewolves commit suicide. James didn’t. If he has James around to control his wolf, to keep it from hurting anyone�"

But that would involve telling James that he’s scared, and if there’s one thing Octavian does not do, it’s tell people when he’s afraid.

Telling James was not an option.

But maybe he could ask for help… A guiding hand�"or paw, as the case may be�"certainly can’t hurt. If he can control the wolf like James, he won’t have to worry so much. James only attacks if he has a reason�"he doesn’t go around mauling random people.

Yes, that’s what he’ll do. He’ll have James teach him to control it. They have another three weeks, and on moon night Octavian can always lock himself up somewhere. He can do this. He can be fine, even as a werewolf.

Calmed down somewhat, he goes back to his work. He’s still keeping a few mechanical eyes on Alejandro Cruz. James doesn’t think there’s a threat and Octavian himself hasn’t seen anything so far.

Right now, though, he’s immersed in the long, storied history of Talia Mason.

She’s a reporter, currently working for The Wall Street Journal. She has been to several foreign countries, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Somalia, and recently she exposed a drug cartel operating in a local school district.

Gang-related threat, maybe? Octavian flags that and keeps digging.

She married her husband George when she was twenty-one, young and just out of college. She filed for divorce once, nineteen years ago, but it never went through. Her two sons are away at college�"they’re not involved in this.

The husband is a chief executive at a brokerage firm, worth half a billion in stocks alone�" Octavian flags his bank account for later inspection�"and a former lawyer.

All in all, they have so many potential enemies it makes Octavian’s head spin.

Excellent. This means that he’ll be distracted.

Octavian quickly loses himself in the information, shifting through bank statements, credit card bills, security footage, and hundreds of online articles. After an hour or so, he rules out the threat coming in from George Mason’s side and zeroes in on Talia, particularly on her recent work.

Talia Mason has, in the last three months, published ten major articles, two on the presidential race, one on Mitt Romney, two on current werewolf laws, one on Al Qaeda, and four on a drug ring running drugs through a local school system.

Octavian clicks on that one, because drug lords are always near the top of his suspect list.

The ring, a small, locally-grown group of thugs, was pushing drugs through schools via poor kids and underpaid teachers. When Mason exposed them, they lost their product and several grand in profits. That’s enough to make any gang lord angry, and Octavian is willing to be that is where the threat will come from.

He’ll have James look into it immediately.

Octavian leans back in his chair, satisfied for now. He’ll have cameras online in the Mason apartment shortly, and James will no doubt supply him with more information later. The drug ring is their best bet, and James is exceptional at taking care of drug rings.

This number should be an easy one.

Now for Cruz, he thinks, going back to Alejandro’s file. The man doesn’t seem to be in a lot of danger but still, it can’t hurt to check on him…

Octavian clicks his keys a little harder than he needs to, and punches his fingernails straight through the board.

-------------------------

Jess really doesn’t need this right now. This is, in fact, one of the last things she needs right now, not that that counts for anything.

The entire police force is out in the city streets hunting a rouge werewolf with orders to shoot to kill. Anti-werewolf hysteria is at an all-time high and she, as a cop, is obligated to crack down on any and all mutts she comes across. She has a spray canister loaded with wolfsbane, silver-painted handcuffs, and a clip full of silver bullets on her. She’s arrested three wolves already this week.

And there’s a werewolf in her apartment.

The door was open when she came home, the edges scratched. A few stray hairs have gotten caught in her carpet, and her couch is clearly dented and slept on.

There’s a werewolf in her apartment, and Jess is seriously thinking about shooting him.

“James,” she says loudly, because he’s in here somewhere, she knows he is. Unless she pissed off some other wolf this week, in which case she is screwed. She’ll bet its James, though. Any other wolf would’ve killed her outside, in an alley or someplace where they could make a quick escape.

“James, c'mon, I know you’re in here.” Jess takes out her gun and, very carefully, sets it on the coffee table.

Please, please be James…

She sits down on the couch, hands folded, and waits.

She doesn’t have to wait long. After a few minutes, there’s a heavy sigh and the click of claws on a wooden floor. A long-legged wolf pads around the corner, blinks at her balefully, and hops up on the couch.

She tries to look annoyed, she really does. “Hey, James.”

The wolf sighs.

“That bad, huh?”

He gives her a long, suffering look, and this time she does smile because it looks kind of ridiculous on a huge freakin’ werewolf’s face.

This isn’t the first time she’s seen James as the wolf, but each time she notices something different. This time, Jess focuses on the silvery fur streaking his muzzle and tipping his ears, running down his back and dusting his paws. The rest of him is a dark, strong iron gray. Jess reaches out and gently brushes the fur on his shoulders.

“What’s up?”

His bright eyes flick back open and he studies her, head canted.

“Haven’t gotten the analysis back on your blood yet,” she says, making a guess at why he’s here. Usually he’d show up in her squad car or meet her in the back of some diner, so if he’s here, it must be important. “These DNA jobs usually take more than a week, even though I put a rush on it.”

The wolf nods, leaning into her hand. She inches up towards his ears.

“I finally got Ashley Tanner’s brother to talk to me,” she continues. Ashley Tanner was the woman who accused Alejandro Cruz of assault twenty years ago, when he was a kid with more money than common sense. She dropped the charges after a few days, then went home and ate a silver bullet. “She was a werewolf.”

James opens his eyes, ears flattening against his skull. He moves, getting out from under her hand, and disappears into her apartment. A door slams shut, and she waits.

A minute later, James walks out as a man, tugging a shirt over his head. (She rolls her eyes. Of course he has clothes in her apartment.) He’s human, but his eyes are bright and wolfish.

“Cruz’s victim was a wolf?”

Jess nods, standing with him. “Ashley Tanner was seventeen, a grade above Cruz. She was bitten a few months prior to the attack and was isolated in school because of it.”

“And the police didn’t look into it,” James muttered, in a tone she didn’t understand.

She shrugs. “Small town cops,” she says. “Cruz’s family is rich and the victim was a werewolf. Of course they didn’t look into it.”

“So she killed herself,” James growls. He paces. He’s angry, she can tell. Hell, she is too and she’s not a wolf. There never was a Civil Rights movement for the wolves�"things never got better. They’re still spit on, kicked around, and locked up. People hate them, and there’s nothing they can do about it.

“Yeah,” Jess says, instead of I’m sorry. "Her little brother, Sam, found her the next morning. Kid’s still messed up over it

. “

James lifts his head. "Is he a wolf too?”

“No,” she says, reaching for the file. “No, he’s human. They had him tested, when his sister died. Why? You think he’s the one after Tanner?”

James shakes his head. “No, not if he’s human. The threat came with a wolf’s tooth.”

“A werewolf’s tooth?”

He nods, pulling a long, sharp fang dangling from a chain out of his pocket. “Too big for a normal wolf’s,” he explains. “And it’s sharper.”

Jess takes it from him gingerly, turning it over. “You’re sure a werewolf threatened him? The teeth are probably hard to get a hold of, but it’s been a week since he was threatened and you haven’t seen anybody.”

“No,” he says, sounding annoyed. “Which makes me think it’s not a werewolf, or even a human. I haven’t seen anybody and I’ve been on Cruz all week. I’m starting to think that Octavian’s�"”

Jess can’t help it. She leans in; hoping to finally, finally learn where James and his partner get their info, but the man catches himself, changing whatever he was going to say.

“�"information was wrong,” he finishes, looking pleased with himself.

She glares. “Still not gonna tell me where you get these names, huh?”

He shrugs broadly. “No wolf has the patience to wait a whole week, especially with the moon in waning. It’d make more sense from the wolf’s point of view to kill him quickly, while it’s still strong, so he doesn’t have the chance to notice that he’s being hunted.”

“He hasn’t noticed you,” she points out. “Maybe the other guy knows he’s not very observant.”

James grins at her. “I am very good,” he says. “Cruz is never gonna see me, unless I let him. Another wolf, though…”

“So, what, you’re thinking it’s just a prank or something?”

“Could be. He’s got the kind of friends who’d think that’s funny.”

“I thought you said it was human blood on his wall?”

“It smelled human,” he says, with another shrug. “But it could be human or pig blood. Both smell pretty much the same.”

Ew, thinks Jess, wrinkling her nose. “So we’re just gonna chalk this up to a prank and let Cruz go?”

“Sort of,” says James. “There’s a new person we’re looking in to. Her name is Talia Mason, she's�"”

“A reporter, yeah, I’ve heard of her.”

“I’ve been to her apartment on Park Avenue,” James says. “There’s nothing suspicious in there, and both she and her husband are pretty clean�"well, they’re both having affairs, but that’s nothing new�"as far as I can tell. I’ll do some more digging, but we need you to check the databases, look for any sealed records.”

“I thought databases were your partner’s thing.”

James winces, and her eyebrows go up. That’s a new thing. She’s seen him shot and he hasn’t winced. So what’s up with his partner? Is he hurt or something? He limps, she knows, but he seems fine otherwise.

Huh. She files that away for later, when there isn’t a werewolf who can probably smell the changes in her emotions standing three feet away.

“I have to go,” he says. “I’m still going to keep an eye on Cruz, just to be safe. When that blood comes back, call me.”

“What, too much work to break into my apartment?”

He grins at her, fangs flashing.

“Hey,” she says, before he can disappear. “Be careful, okay? Don’t go wandering around as your wolf. We’ve been given orders to shoot to kill if we see any wolves out and about.”

He smiles wider.

“I’m serious,” she warns. “The city’s in an uproar over Sarah Greene’s death. Anyone out in wolf shape or outside their designated area is considered a threat.”

“I’ll be fine, Jess,” he says, eyes glittering. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’m not worried, a*****e, it’s just,” she starts, but before she can finish he’s across the room and out the door.

She rolls her eyes.

She manages to (barely) stop herself from banging her head against the wall.

How did this become my life, she wonders despairingly, beginning the hunt for the vacuum.

-------------------------

Run-men-guns, the wolf howls, and throws itself forward. Bullets whiz by, zing-flash-crunch. Ping off walls. Shower the wolf in dust and dirt.

It runs.

Pain-in-shoulder�"it’s been shot. Silver clogs its nose. Humans-are-close. Run.

Men scream. Give chase. They can’t catch a wolf. Blood drips. Warm-sticky-pain. Keep running.

This way, James urges, pulling the wolf. The wolf goes. It trusts him. James doesn’t want to die.

Cars-people-screams. The wolf is there and gone, a flash, uncatchable. Screams fade. A single bullet, silver-stinking, shoots past. Crashes into a wall. Safe.

The men aren’t fast enough. Human-fear-scent fades, replaced with alley-scent of rat and trash and human-pain. Drops of blood here and there, some human, now some wolf.

Safe now, James says, pushing down. The wolf calms. It is safe. It twists, looking at the silver-bullet-wound. Blood sizzles, poison-black. It licks the wound roughly, ignores the pain. Silver-wounds will kill. Big silver-wounds are dangerous. But this wound is small.

The wolf will live.

Keep moving, James growls. He is wolf too, sometimes, and the wolf listens. James guides them through the maze-of-city, keeping hidden, keeping safe.

The wolf relaxes, lets James take some control back. They are safe. They are not in danger.

They lope through the city, following the wolf’s instinct and James’s knowledge. It doesn’t take long to end up outside a familiar building, and they slip inside.

No one screams because no one sees them. They are a shadow. Invisible. Strong.

They shove open a door after climbing some stairs, and they prowl inside. The air smells stale and like silver and blood. They ache.

They pad into a room, and then, they change.

It takes only a second, the change. Bones crackle, fur disappears, claws and teeth shrink away, and in a moment, the wolf is a man.

“Ouch,” James mutters, examining the wound. It still sizzles faintly and it hurts like a b***h, but he’ll live. Its large amounts of silver that kills wolves, or silver too close to the heart. He was shot in the arm and it’s a grazing wound anyway. It’ll hurt for a couple of days, but it’ll heal.

He grabs a pair of pants and a t-shirt from the closet�"good thing Alejandro Cruz is about his size�"and tugs them on, wincing at the silver wound.

He’s glad this place was close by; otherwise he’d have to limp all the way across Manhattan to get to one of his hiding places. That would’ve sucked.

Damn cops, James thinks. He should’ve listened to Jess, maybe. He didn’t think they would shoot him in broad daylight, in the middle of a pedestrian zone. That was just crazy. But they did, and now he’ll have to be even more careful because the cops will be on the lookout for a big, dark grey wolf with a limp now.

Damn it.

James wanders out of Cruz’s bedroom, rubbing his wounded arm irritably. It was a rookie mistake, one he hasn’t made in years, and he’s mostly just pissed that he let himself get shot at.

-------------------------

It won’t happen again.

He makes it all the way to the kitchen before he notices the smell.

Silver f***s with a wolf’s nose�"its overpowering stuff, even for an older wolf, and it has the tendency to cover up everything else, even the stink of fresh blood.

The wolf snarls, and James unhooks his claws.

He turns and pads carefully through the apartment, back to the bedroom and the master bath, where he pushes open the door with one clawed hand.

“Oh s**t,” he mutters, and the wolf snarls furiously.

Blood soaks the floor, splashes up on the walls, drips of the mirror. Wolf fur is caught in the door hinges and scattered among the pools of sticky red. A hand, bloody and gnawed on, dangles over the edge of the bathtub.

James backs out slowly, fur bristling, and swears.

Alejandro Cruz is dead.