Charlaine Harris - Wolfsbane and Mistletoe

We looked at each other, then simultaneously at one of the neighborhoods we had just rejected. A short distance from my own house, separated by large parking lots and a playing field, was the middle school, now empty for the holidays.

It’s not that we need the moon to shift, though that helps. It’s easier to run around as a wolf when there aren’t many people around. It’s easier to pick up a faint trail with the dust settled from the day. It’s not that we need the moon, but somehow, it makes it easier for me, the same way the sun takes the poison out of vamps like Claudia. You’d have to talk to our scientists who are working out exactly how we Fangborn work, but if you think of it like a vulture’s bare head helping to kill the bacteria they pick up, or photosynthesis, taking nutrients from the sunlight, that’s probably close. All I know is that Claudia couldn’t taste the blood and clean it, cauterize the wound, and numb the memory without sunlight to charge her up. And in the same way—don’t ask me how, I’m not one of the geeks—I get recharged by the moon.

Plus, lots of bad guys also wait for night to work. Makes it easier on us all.

The moon was full and low on the horizon as we parked down the street from the school. We ran down the plan again: check the school and then call the cops if we find anything.

Simple, if we were right. If we weren’t already too late.

“Got the gear?” I asked Claudia.

She nodded, held up the leash—her excuse for being out with a very large dog—and a charged cell phone. As for me, while I hate what people inflict on their pets—birthday parties, pedicures, Halloween costumes—I will always be grateful for the dog-clothing craze. And grateful to the guy who invented stretch fabrics: my Lycra doggie track suit makes it a heck of a lot easier if I have to Change back to human and don’t want to be buck-naked.

Claudia doubled the knots on her bootlaces, tied her hair back, and we went into the schoolyard.

The bus was there, all right, on the side, cold and silent as an empty grave. Sure, school was out and it was night, but who notices a school bus outside a school? The schoolyard had been badly plowed, so there were no clear tracks, but it only took me a minute to find the basement door they’d used, the lock broken.

The reek hit me as soon as we got the door open. This time, I didn’t resist the Change.

The rush of adrenaline and endorphins and other hormones blotted out whatever pain shrieking bones forced through evolutionary growth in an instant might bring. Nature wouldn’t be so cruel as to put this burden on us without compensation. The bloodlust didn’t hurt, either, and it was only Claud’s warning hand on my back that reminded me not to howl with the delight of it. Smith’s spoor was worse than any I’d ever smelled, overwhelming the traces of new linoleum, old wax, and textbooks. It was nearly unbearable to my vulpine nose, but one thought, a bloodthirsty, simple joy, cleared of all human doubt and fear, overwhelmed even that:

It was time to track and to tear .

I stepped out of my boots and glanced up at Claud, who was down on one knee; the reek was hitting her just as badly. It was always harder for her; vamps don’t have the same chemical buffer that protects wolves. Her skin took on a violet cast visible even in the shadows, and her eyes were wide and bright. Her facial features broadened, her nose receded, and her fingers lengthened.

She stood up, shook herself, and nodded. As she packed my boots into her backpack, I saw the gleam of her viperish fangs extending, the glint of a streetlight on the fine pattern of snakescale, an armor of supple, thickened skin. Snakes have always been associated with healing and transformation—there’s a reason they’re on the staff of Asclepius—but they’ve got a rep for danger, too.

I whined and stared at her neck. Her hand went up, and she found the pearls she’d forgotten to take off.

“Thankths,” she said, with a slight hiss. Still largely humanoid, fangs and a forked-tongue make speech awkward, but not impossible. She stowed the necklace in her bag, and nodded.

I led the way, as stealthy as a shadow. I cast around, stopped, panted, and tried again, but with no luck. There was no one single track to pick up. Smith’d been here long enough for the basement to be so saturated with his stench that I could barely breathe.

I couldn’t detect the children. I hoped we weren’t too late.

Claudia nodded. She pointed at the first door, and we both listened. Nothing.

She tried it; locked solid.

The next was an unlocked closet. The stink was there, too, but less. The bus driver was stashed in there. There was a pulse, faint and fading.

Claudia fanged down, called 911. We continued.

The next door opened silently; I could smell WD-40 recently applied to the hinges. No way to tell Claud, but she pointed to the duct tape across the lock, and I nodded. We went in.

The children were there. Even under Smith’s foulness, I could tell they were alive. I felt a surge of delight.

They were drugged, only half-awake; a light on the playground offered just enough illumination for a normal to see forms without detail. My nose told me of full diapers, fear, and baby shampoo.

Smith was nowhere around. We went quietly, just in case.

“Hang on,” Claudia said. She Changed back about halfway, just enough to keep her powers on deck, but not so far that the first thing the kids saw was a pale purple lady with no nose and very big teeth.

She went over to them quickly. “Hey, you guys? Let’s get you fixed up and we’ll get you home, okay? My dog Chewie is going to do some tricks for you. He’s really big, but he’s really, really friendly. Chewie, come!”

That was my cue. I knew to play it dumb and sweet over in the faint light so the kids would focus on me. That way, they’d be less afraid and they wouldn’t notice Claudia practicing her leech-craft. I spend my time fighting evil, not practicing party tricks, but whenever I fell over, the kids laughed, so it was okay. And as soon as Claudia got one kid untied, her razor nails dancing scalpels over the duct tape, I was there, his new best friend, and they were so busy patting me they forgot to be afraid. Under the guise of inspecting their wounded hands, she got to work, biting their wrists, narcotizing the pain, neutralizing their terror, sucking out Smith’s drugs, dimming their memories. I could sense her body reacting to the blood and emotion she was taking in, her muscles rippling, nearly all trace of humanity lost from her features even as she healed the little ones.

She’d just finished the last one when he was on her. Even as I picked up on the fresh scent—snow mixed with spoiled milk and rotting fish heads—Smith rocketed from the shadows, moving faster than anything human.

If I knew he was there, it meant Claudia knew, too. She shoved the kid toward me as Smith landed on her. She rolled with him as far away from us as she could.

In spite of Claudia’s ministrations, the kids whimpered. I grabbed the last one by the hood of her jacket and gently pulled her the rest of the way to the group. I stood between them and the brawl, nudging the kids to stand behind me, thankful Disney had removed their fear of large wild animals.

It took everything I had to keep from jumping in and ripping Smith apart, but I had to keep the children safe. And there’s not much that can stop my sister when she’s pissed and Changed; for all her tweedy skirts and bookishness, she’s as much a warrior as I am.

Smith was putting up a pretty good fight and the sonofabitch knew how to use a knife: Claudia would need a week on the roof to recover from this. I was glad of the dark, that the children’s eyes weren’t as sharp as mine, that they couldn’t see the amount of blood that Claudia was letting.