Wolf for Hire

Chapter Thirty One

We perched atop a double-stacked row of shipping containers at the heart of the Norfolk Southern Rail Yard. The air was cool and heavy with the smell of steel, grease, and old rust. From here, I could see the whole system sprawled out below me like a breathing machine—the CSX and Norfolk Southern mainlines intersecting and splintering into more than two dozen tracks, all curling around the depot like a steel spine. Most of the tracks were full—freight cars lined up in rows, rusted, graffitied, and waiting.

The depot itself lay nestled in a crook between those sprawling tracks and the wide, steppe-like clearings that ran between the mill and the North Charleston Port Terminal. It wasn't just a depot. It was the epicenter—not the point where the city's veins met, but the heart from which they branched out. This was where rail met road—where cargo flowed into Charleston and back out into the world. You had the port, which fed the industries, which in turn fed off the port. Supporting them were the fleets of logistics companies, mechanics, truck yards, chemical processors. And past them, stretching outward like a floodplain, were the neighborhoods. Whole subdivisions built around the people who made this system run.

Even the military had a foothold here. Just beyond the northern terminal sat the grounds of the US Army's 841st Transportation Battalion and Reserve Center—a reminder that even Uncle Sam had skin in the logistical game too.

Everything, all of it, was all about logistics.

And I'd chosen this spot for a reason. It was central. A vantage that gave me a full view of everything: the industrial stretch of Virginia Avenue on one side and the sprawling patchwork of North Charleston and Hanahan on the other.

It felt like Pride Rock from The Lion King—if Pride Rock had been made from rusted old shipping containers. The wolf stood at the edge, her posture proud and commanding, overlooking her steel and concrete savannah. All that the sodium lights touched.

It was the perfect spot.

I let the wolf take the honors. Howling was more her thing anyway. My focus was on the compulsion, the call. But even as I tried to channel it, I couldn't stop thinking about JT—the way he'd commanded those dogs with nothing more than posture and tone. Just a single word. Not one he projected into their minds, but spoken aloud, and that was all it took. They responded like disciplined soldiers, yielding to their commanding officer. He hadn't coaxed them like I did. He didn't lure them with redirected instinct or careful nudging. They obeyed him—immediately, instinctively—because they acknowledged his authority.

Was that the trick I was missing? Authority?

My own way of influencing animals had always been subtler. More surgical. I redirected their intentions, bent their instincts gently—never forced them outright. JT's method was blunt. Do as I say. No questions. It worked because he believed his words were law. Belief that his commands, his magic, was absolute.

So what authority did I have to command anyone? Dog or otherwise.

That question was one which had an obvious answer.

I was a werewolf. The apex of apex predators. A fusion of two dominant species—human, the cerebral conqueror of the planet, and wolf, the instinct-driven pack hunter. Beast and brains. Sharp in mind and sharper in tooth and claw. I could run as fast as a car, jump small buildings in a single bound, and despite the muck, grime, and unmentionables currently matting my fur, I could still confidently admit: my hair was perfect. Long, thick, smooth, and the color of night.

Like everything else about this form, it was both feral and refined. A contradiction, and a crown.

Just needed some pina colada from Trader Joe's to complete the image.

Ah-hoo, werewolves of Charleston.

But conviction? That was harder. I'd never been good at absolute belief. Even going to my stepmother's Baptist church every Sunday until I left for college hadn't instilled me with any such unshakeable faith. I doubted myself too much, second-guessed everything. Even my supposed principles—like the whole vegetarian thing—fell apart the first time the wolf got hungry. I wasn't a paragon. I was petty, uncertain, and painfully aware of my own hypocrisy.

But the wolf? She had no such reservations.

She didn't wonder if she had the right to lead. She simply did. She was Queen of the Moonlit Night, and her reign was absolute.

That was the balance between us. My role was to question. To think, plan, second-guess. Hers was to rule.

So, yeah.

She could handle the howling. It was her shtick after all.

The wolf drew in a deep breath and howled—long and loud. A sound so raw and powerful it seemed to shake the steel beneath our feet. I howled with her, channeling every thought, every fragment of intent into a single, simple, undeniable compulsion:

Come.

No flourish. No ambiguity.

Just the call.

The sound rolled across the depot like a wave, spreading outwards into the city, only to be joined in by countless others. More and more dogs joining the howl, their collective voices swallowing the sounds of the city, the clack of distant rails, the groans of parked train cars, even the sporadic crack of fireworks from the suburbs. It rippled outward like a signal flare, a reverberating noise carried by the night wind.

And then—stillness.

The kind of quiet that prickled against your skin. Like the whole world was holding its breath.

First came the wings.

Dozens of them.

Owls. Hawks. Night herons. Nocturnal raptors of every shape and size glided out from the marshes, the suburbs, the wooded creases of Charleston. They perched along the rail yard's edge, atop containers, in the trees, silent sentries drawn in by the power of the wolf's compulsion.

Wasn't aiming for birds, but hey—bonus points. I was becoming a right a proper Disney-fucking-princess.

Then came the footsteps. Paws

They trickled in first—soft pads crunching across gravel. A few sets at first. Then more. And more. From the treeline came the rustle of leaves and brush, the shuffle of paws through grass and undergrowth. The sound of panting. Collars jingling. A slow, swelling tide of movement drawn from every corner of the city.

Dogs. Dozens upon dozens of them. Domestic and stray. Even a few wild coyotes slinked in, hanging at the edges like wary cousins. They came from all directions, filtering into the depot with cautious purpose. Some limped. Some barked. Some paused to sniff or circle. Most looked disoriented, but determined—pulled by something deeper than what they could hope to understand.

The wolf leapt down from our perch and strutted among them, tail high, posture regal. A queen returning to her court.

And all of them came to her.

They drew near, hesitant but compelled, surrounding her in a loose, respectful ring. None came too close. Heads dipped. Tails lowered. Submission, not fear. Reverence. The wolf towered over nearly all of them—powerful and undeniable. All except one tall, lanky Great Dane who stood a good head higher than her. But even he knew his place.

Some of the dogs began to act up—growling, barking, not used to being packed this close to others. The wolf silenced them with a deep rumble in her chest. A low, vibrating warning. She demanded order.

Then she spoke.

Not aloud. Not like JT had. She projected her thoughts outward, clear and strong. Asking questions and scanning their thoughts.

Had they seen Boden? Coy? The cologned man?

None had. Not directly. A few recognized Boden's scent, confirming what we already knew: that he'd passed through Park Circle

None had encountered the man in cologne, but several had caught his scent—strong and lingering in a parking lot not far to the west. Odd. Suspicious. Was he staging something different tonight?

The wolf shifted focus. She searched for the curse's scent. Most of the dogs couldn't detect it—but we could.

It clung to some of them. We saw the bite marks. The wounds.

The ones it touched stood tense, on edge. Wounded. Bite marks. Gashes. Still healing. Still infected.

That was how it spread.

The bite. The blood.

She called them forward. They came. Not eagerly, some even resisting, but each obeying all the same—the tug of the curse being overwritten by something greater, more immediate. The wolf. The strings of the puppeteer might have still been there, faint and coiled through their minds, but they weren't strong enough. Not here. Not now. Not with the wolf standing before them in flesh and fang. Her presence alone was a gravitational pull—one too strong to resist. And even a curse knew when it had met something stronger.

She projected again, pushing deeper into their minds. Forcing them to remember. To share. To show her who had done this to them.

Flashes. Thoughts. Smells. The scent and figure of a large dog, one that had chased them, run them down, and bitten them. The one responsible. That was all the wolf needed.

Now she had targets she could hunt.

We began searching the crowd, searching for traces of that scent, looking for the ones who wore the magic like a second skin.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

The search didn't take long—because while we were hunting them, apparently they were hunting for us. We who'd yanked on all of their strings.

Three of them. Three curse bearing dogs. They'd circled around the wolf, and closed in from all sides. Larger than the rest. Muscular, snarling, eyes wild with rage. Primed to attack—but something held them back. It felt like standing in front of a tripwire, or staring at a loaded gun, ready to fire.

The puppeteer hadn't pulled the trigger. Not yet.

The curse-bearers stared us down—eyes locked onto the wolf like they were reading more than just my posture. Their gaze wasn't wild. It was precise. Focused. Like they weren't just watching me.

Like someone else was.

A presence behind their eyes, listening with their ears. Someone using them to study the wolf in turn. A puppeteer peering through their marionettes, waiting. Gauging. Planning their next move in this game of cat and mouse and wolf.

I had to take the initiative.

Even with the yards between us, the magic radiating from the curse-bearers still reached the wolf. I could feel it filling her with that same unnatural rage—boiling, directionless. We had known this would happen and she'd relinquished the wheel, moving to the passenger seat. It would've been safer for her to shut herself off completely, wall herself away where the curse couldn't reach. But I needed her. Needed a co-pilot for what I was about to do.

I didn't want to hurt these dogs. I wished I could save them. But I wasn't a wizard—I was a werewolf. My magic, if you could even call it that, wasn't a tool for miracles. It let me talk to dogs. Share thoughts and feelings. Barely more than emotional telepathy.

And that magic told me there was no saving these three.

I could sense it in their minds—the curse burning through them, consuming everything insider. Rage so intense it had hollowed them out. And once extinguished, there'd be nothing left but ash and instinct.

But the others—the dogs who'd only been nipped by the curse, the afflicted who hadn't been remade by it—could still be saved.

I had to make a choice.

Sacrifice the few for the many.

There were three dogs and one me. But such favorable odds weren't going to save them. This was the eve of the full moon after all. I had all the strength I needed. And by allowing the wolf's rage to bleed into my own, I didn't need to fake resolve.

I moved.

Not as the wolf.

But as a werewolf.

Bet the puppeteer didn't expect that.

The wolf projected her will, compelling them to sit, to stay, to freeze in place, as I sprang forward—our body reshaping in the blink of an eye. I didn't go at them with tooth or claw. That wasn't the goal. I needed it to be clean. Bloodless.

If the curse spread by drawing blood, then I couldn't risk slipping a single drop.

A blow to the back of the head to stun. A twist of the neck to end.

One down.

The second, still held in place by the wolf's compulsion, hadn't even time to flinch. And was dispatched just as swiftly.

The third, breaking free of the wolf's hold, lunged.

But I was already moving.

I caught him mid-air and drove him to the ground. Before he had time to recover, I took his back and locked my arms around his neck. A textbook rear naked choke—Muerte del León

Just like Candace had taught me.

The chokehold allowed me to control the head and worked on anything with a neck—would have worked on Monty too if she hadn't launched me into a pool. The choke itself didn't crush the windpipe but compressed the arteries to the brain, cutting off the blood supply. No pain, just a gradual fade into black.

And it bought me time.

The dog thrashed. Growled. Clawed.

But I held on.

And as I held, the wolf and I focused together. Forcing our way into the cursed dog's mind. The curse's rage surged between us, a shared heat just beneath the surface, clawing for control. Even now, I could feel it boiling in her veins, echoing through mine.

We didn't go in gently.

So we forced our way in—no surgical finesse, no subtle touch. Just brute force.

But, then again, it's not like you can go gently into an inferno.

The dog's mind felt like a forest razed by wildfire—memories like charred fragments, scattered and flickering. I searched, sifting through the ruin, hunting for the one moment that mattered. The moment it had happened. The moment the curse took hold.

And then I found it.

That memory.

I seized it. Peered into it. So that I might see the face of the one who had cursed him. Know their scent.

But the face I saw was familiar.

Too familiar.

The face of the dog's owner.

I knew this, because the dog knew this—his own thoughts etched into the memory. It was the face of the one he was bound to in loyalty and love. The one he trusted. The voice he obeyed without question.

But something was wrong. Even in the memory, even through the haze of affection, there was a scent. One that I myself could identify.

It wasn't his owner's scent.

It was foul. Metallic. Off.

Like old blood.

The person bore the face and the voice of the dog's owner, but not their smell. And they had hurt the dog. Forced him to ingest something. Something that burned in his throat, in his stomach. And then burned throughout his mind and body.

And something else, a smell of the place he had been. A sulfurous stench—stronger and sharper than the usual rot of the pluff mud. It was refined. Industrial. Processed and acrid.

The smell of the papermill.

But that smell shouldn't have been there.

The mill hadn't been active in months.

So how was this memory only a few days old?

There was nothing else I could gleam from the dog's mind.

The memory started to fade. The dog's body slumping in my arms. He wasn't struggling anymore. Just drifting.

In a single twist, it was over.

I released the dog, his limp body falling from my arms. Even before I stepped back from the three curse-bearers, I could feel it—the curse fading. Like a tide retreating from the shore, the curse receded from the surroundings, withdrawing into the motionless bodies of the three who had borne it most deeply.

I turned to the others—the crowd of gathered dogs. They'd stood back while their regent wolf eliminated the threats before them. Many of them, the ones wounded and afflicted with the curse, now seemed dazed and confused, as if just waking from sleep into a place they didn't recognize.

That was how it worked. The curse-bearers weren't just controlled. They were contagious. They carried the magic out like a disease, spreading it in droplets of fury. Creating a daisy chain of influence for their puppeteer, each new link bound with that singular burning emotion.

But cut out the source, and you broke the curse.

I felt it in the silence. In the stillness. The fury had drained from the air.

And with it, so had mine.

I staggered back, leaned against the side of a container, and slid to the ground. The fire inside me had burned itself out too, leaving only a vacuum. An aching emptiness.

I buried my face in my hands and breathed. Slowly. In and out.

I'd done the math. Weighed the risks. Even if I could have subdued and captured the curse-bearers—potentially trapping them in a container alive—that wouldn't have solved anything. The puppeteer would still have control over the afflicted, could just call more to their side. Twisting and changing them into more of the cursed.

I hadn't wanted to do this, but it had been the safest path forward.

And now the other dogs were safe.

They came to me—collared and stray alike. Sniffing. Nudging.

Dozens now safe.

For the price of just three.

I scanned the thoughts of the dogs that had been bitten and found the fog in their minds lifted.

No strings left to pull.

None of the other dogs approached the three I had slain. Seemingly aware that something was off about them, that they weren't safe to approach.

I directed my attention to the gathered dogs, and barked an order: Go home, all of you.

It wasn't a command command, more of a request, one imbued with my desire to see them return home safe. Return to where they were meant to be.

Some seemed to listen, seemed to know where to go, had faces they wished to see, voices to hear, a scent they knew. They slipped away, into the woods and the fields around the depot.

Some stayed, perhaps strays with no place to call home, or dogs still eager to spend the night out with their kin.

I didn't care which. Now I just wanted to find Boden and Coy and go home. To be done with this night. This had been more than I asked for. Was over my head.

I was only meant to pet-sit, how did it end up like this?

Why did I think I was cut out to hunt some faceless magic practitioner who seemed to use some kind of mind magic with a splash of blood sorcery on dogs, to do... what actually?

I still didn't even know what the point of all of this was. What the puppeteer was up to, or why the cologned man was after him. I'd literally stumbled upon all this while in search of just a dog.

I felt something move on the back of my neck, and reached back to cup Elmo in my pawed hands. Once again, he'd hung on for the ride, nestled himself in the thick fur of my mane. I stroked the back of his fuzzy red body while many of the dogs sniffed at him curiously. Once he'd gotten his fill of attention, he proceeded to scuttle up my arm and atop my head.

In the distance, the birds began taking flight, returning to the trees and the marshes they'd been summoned from, in a slow, trickling wave of flapping wings.

I sat there for several minutes. Just listening. Just breathing.

Then came a familiar scent.

Boden. And Coy.

Relief washed over me, lifting me to my feet. The wolf, who had stayed silent to give me space, shared in this subtle joy—her own tension ebbing in kind.

They were approaching from the south end of the depot. Together. The wolf and I set out to intercept them. To lay eyes on them. To know that they were safe.

I let the wolf take back control, and we shifted back into a wolf. I was tired, and she was eager enough for the both of us.

We found them, trotting side-by-side. Between them, held in their jaws, a long, heavy stick. More accurately, Boden was carrying the stick, and Coy, who was trying to hold on, was being dragged along as well.

Off having fun are we.

The wolf ran to them, checking for wounds. Checking them for traces of the curse. Of that foul magic, and finding none. Yet finding the smell of a different kind of magic instead. This one less of a stench and more of a fragrance. Like incense.

It was coming from the stick.

The wolf and I examined it.

The stick was polished. Shaped like the kind of stick you'd use for hiking. Etched along its shaft were symbols. Symbols that resemble many of the ones I'd seen in Sandy's book.

And it reeked of magic.

Where did you get this? I asked Coy.

From Boden, he answered.

Yeah, no shit Sherlock.

I sighed, directing my attention to Boden.

Okay Boden. Where did you get this stick?

Boden replied with a thought. An image and a smell.

A man.

One wearing too much cologne.

Of course.

The cologned man was also a practitioner.

A magic cat chasing a magic mouse.

And I was a wolf that had no business dealing with magic of any sort.

Yet again, things had gotten far more complicated. But that didn't matter anymore. The wolf and I had Boden now. And Coy. Nevermore wasn't with Coy, but that didn't surprise me. He was a big bird. He could take care of himself. Meanwhile, the rest of us could go home. Trot our little tails back to my car and be off.

Leave the rest to the wizards or warlocks or whatever the fuck they were.

I didn't need to be part of this anymore.

But something didn't sit right.

Boden, I asked, why did you take his stick?

So he'd follow us, he thought.

The wolf and I both stilled.

Our ears flicked forward.

In the distance, we heard it. An engine. Four cylinders, by the sound.

Boden had led him straight to us.

Shit. Neither the wolf nor I had planned for this. We thought that by finding the man, we'd find Boden. Not the other way around.

And he was a practitioner on top of that.

We had to scoot. Now. Before he arrived. Before I got caught up in any more bullshit tonight.

I'd already filled my quota.

But... then again. What if I didn't leave? What if I stayed?

You two, hide now, I said to Boden and Coy as the wolf and I slunk into the shadows between the cargo containers. I'd decided that after everything I'd been through, that the wolf and I had been through, from the moment I'd awakened on Sandy's guest bedroom floor, to this very moment, I wasn't going to leave so empty-handed.

I was going to stay. Just long enough to confront this man.

And get some goddamn answers.