Wolf for Hire

Chapter Thirty Two

The truck was an old brown two-door, boxy and square-edged—the kind of steel-brick machine that looked like it had been rolling since the Clinton administration. A mid-90s Ford Bronco—from the era when the model still resembled a hard-topped truck before Ford lost its way and turned it into a bubble-nosed jeep. The paint was dulled and chipped in places, with countless dings and dents along the paneling. The vehicle was outfitted with various utility accessories: a cable winch up front, along with a bull bar, roof rack, and a detachable antenna on the back.

The belt gave a sharp, whining squeal as the driver stirred his way into the depot—probably had his AC cranked all the way up—brakes grinding like nails on a chalkboard. Both sounds merged into the mechanical sigh of a truck that had seen too many miles and too few oil changes. The collective sigh of worn-down parts begged for a tune-up. A tightened belt. New brake pads. Fresh oil.

Maybe even a driver who knew the basics of car maintenance.

Which begged the question—why a Ford Bronco? I couldn't help but wonder.

Don't get me wrong—Broncos weren't bad cars. My brother had one, a newer early-2000s model, but that was his hobby car. One he worked on and drove for fun. Not one that he used for work.

Broncos were the kind of vehicle you owned because you enjoyed being under the hood on a Saturday afternoon. There was something rewarding about coaxing a smoother ride out of a box of bolts and stubborn engineering. Broncos weren't just transport—they were commitment. They gave back if you gave first: time, attention, and a willingness to learn their quirks and speak fluent socket wrench.

Which, in my opinion, was basically the factory standard for all Ford cars: manufacture a product that worked well only so long as you gave it regular maintenance—or bit the bullet and bought the extended warranty. The hidden cost of all Ford models.

It was like dating someone who introduces themselves with, "I'm a lot to handle," on the first date—and then made good on the promise.

They were passion projects—rolling proof that some folks preferred grease-stained hands over sanity. Or reliability.

And honestly? I firmly believed Ford fans were basically a cult.

Which is why this didn't add up.

The guy behind the wheel didn't strike me as someone who spent his weekends swapping out spark plugs for fun. Hell, it didn't even seem like he paid someone to do it for him.

Yet there he was, behind the wheel of what was pretty much a collector's car—the sort of Bronco you'd see buffed to a mirror shine at Charleston's Cars and Coffee weekly meetup, or being auctioned off after a painstaking restoration.

But no. This Bronco wasn't a showpiece. It was patched, not polished. Modded for utility in ways that felt more desperate than deliberate—like someone making do, not showing off.

And all the attachments didn't match. All from different manufacturers: the winch looked to be Northern Tools, the bull bar bought off Amazon, and the rack probably salvaged from a scrapyard—none of which matched the trim. The antenna looked like it was cobbled together from parts from RadioShack or Hobby Lobby.

It looked less like a project car and more like a last resort—the kind of ride you used because it was what you had, not what you'd pick if you had the time or the options to be choosy.

The Bronco groaned into the depot, headlights sweeping across the cargo containers like searchlights. The beams caught the reflective glint of dozens of eyes—furred and feathered alike. Some of the dogs lingered out in the open, while others hunkered between containers, half-hidden in the shadows. Birds perched along the edges of the steel boxes and in the treeline that fringed the perimeter, wings rustling, crows cawing, owls hooting softly.

And through all of them—every eye, every ear—the wolf watched. And listened.

We'd tucked ourselves out of sight on top of one of the double-stacked containers, far enough back so we weren't visible to anyone on the ground, all while listening in on the thoughts of the animals nearby.

Dogs. Birds. The occasional possum. We saw the world through their perceptions—countless points of view filtered through dozens of little minds, each with its own unique senses and insights. What they noticed, we noticed. A continuous highlight reel.

I'll admit—the night critter surveillance system left a lot to be desired. Most of what the animals noticed were, well, other animals—assessing each other for threats or companionship. Most of those that lingered had stayed for the after-party, to meet and mingle while the night was still young.

Several were already taking it to the next level, which saturated our surveillance feed with content the wolf found a little too engaging.

I had to regularly remind her to stay focused on the task at hand. Or at paw, I suppose. The wolf was captain once again, and she needed to act like it.

Besides, I wasn't about to play co-pilot to a fledgling voyeur. Not tonight.

We needed to figure out what our cologned magic man was up to, and what he was capable of. Did he possess some sort of sixth sense or danger magic? Could he feel it too—the sense of someone watching through borrowed eyes, the way I had felt the puppeteer watching me?

Answers to those questions would help us decide whether our approach should be diplomatic—or teeth-first.

But most of all, I needed to see who, or what, he really was. And why he was here.

I knew now that he was a practitioner, like Sandy and like the puppeteer—which didn't tell me a whole hell of a lot.

Frankly, I'd never properly met another practitioner. I hadn't even met Sandy in person since discovering she was a witch. JT could use commands, but that didn't make him a practitioner. Hell, I could use commands, and I didn't know shit about magic.

The only proper practitioner I'd met would have to be V. I was sure she was a witch too, but—V being V—she knew how to keep her secrets.

Which left me exactly where I started: no damn clue what a proper practitioner could actually do.

And, even with countless eyes on the man in the driver's seat, I couldn't make out his face. The headlights had blinded many of the animals, and those that could still see him weren't exactly skilled at identifying human features. So all I got were impressions—not real images.

What I needed was to get the crows to focus on him. Crows could recognize faces easily. But damn if they weren't too busy harassing the other birds—pulling on tail feathers or cawing obnoxiously at any bird that came too close to what they considered their airspace.

Nevermore had been right: crows were assholes.

The wolf didn't care about faces, though. She wasn't trying to identify anything—she just wanted to move. To pounce. To close the gap as quickly as possible.

I could feel her growing restless, tugging at the leash between us. To her, this wasn't about caution. The man was just an obstacle in her path.

It took effort to keep her still. Repeated assurances. To make her watch. She wasn't wired for patience. Not in the way I needed her to be right now.

The truck rolled up on the bodies of the curse-bearers. He dropped the high beams, illuminating the area around the dead dogs.

I'd decided to leave the dogs out in the open—to make sure he'd see them. I wanted to observe his reaction, and ensure he knew the threat had been taken care of.

Hopefully, he'd get the message. This was meant as a peace offering. An olive branch.

As if to say: See? I took care of your problem. So maybe don't shoot me.

Because I knew he had a gun—and good aim. And odds were good he'd be twice shy after being bitten last night. Reasonable to assume he'd be on edge, quick to panic if he saw another big, burly dog approaching.

God forbid a giant wolf showed up out of the blue.

The wolf, of course, didn't quite grasp that. She wouldn't hesitate to walk right up, ears forward, tail high, practically daring him to take the shot.

It would be shoot first and ask questions later.

And I'd already dodged four bullets thanks to Carl. Pretty sure I was running low on luck.

And her confidence wasn't bravery—it was ignorance. And if she got me shot, she wouldn't be the one filling out the paperwork.

Because getting shot, it wasn't just painful—it had complications. The kind of injury that came with not just hospital bills, but with a police report. All hospitals were required to report gunshots. I'd have to explain who shot me, where I was when I was shot, and why.

So, I'd not only rack up more debt, but also have yet another chance to incriminate myself.

Perhaps if I could simply talk to this magic man, I could avoid the impulsive discharging of firearms. But that had its own complications. I could only speak in my more humanoid werewolf form—and it wasn't lost on me how suspicious that would look. Especially now, when we were dealing with a curse spread through bites and mindless rage.

Practically the hallmark of lycanthropy.

He might very well think I was the perpetrator.

And even if he believed I wasn't, he might shoot me on principle. Werewolves weren't exactly beloved in myth and folklore. Always the dangerous ones. Always the monsters.

The benefit of the doubt? Yeah right. I wasn't even in the running.

Better to keep the werewolf part hidden and convince him I was just a normal wolf. Or maybe a familiar, like Boden or Coy. Make him think we were all on the same crew.

Though, getting Boden and Coy to vouch for me felt dubious at best.

And while the wolf found part of this plan appealing—playing the innocent, winning the man's trust, getting close—I couldn't trust her not to blow it the moment things got tense.

She too was trigger happy.

I just had to hope he wouldn't interpret the dead dogs being left out as a threat. Like heads on stakes. A warning to make him back off.

That would certainly complicate matters.

The truck shifted into park. And, not a moment later, there was Boden—trotting up from the shadows, tail thumping against the door with soft, rhythmic thuds. Boden apparently hadn't understood my order to hide. Coy, on the other hand, took the order as permission to join the other dogs for social hour—probably planning to bamf around the neighborhood later, making house calls. See if he got lucky.

Boden didn't have the staff anymore. I'd taken it with me. The plan was to wait and observe the man, get a feel for how he might react. Then, when the time was right, I'd approach him as a wolf, the staff in my jaws—the only reasonable way I could carry it—as a show of goodwill.

As if to say: Be not afraid, magic man.

The wolf didn't like this idea. It was too... submissive. And it gave too much control to an unknown party. She wanted a more assertive approach: freight-train the man like I'd done with JT, and take away any weapons he might have.

Only once the man was pinned and disarmed could true diplomacy begin.

And, considering that the wolf was the one with executive privileges on the matter, things weren't boding well for the man.

I'd managed to convince the wolf to hold off on going in teeth-first—not because I felt any less antagonistic toward the man, but because the wolf's approach lacked caution and professionalism.

Though the world may strip me of my dignity, I was nothing if not professional.

I cared about my work ethic.

The Bronco's window creaked down slowly, and I saw the man's silhouette rocking. He was manually rolling down the window.

Wow. Honest to God—manual windows. This guy was driving an antique.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

Once the window was down, the man fumbled with something in his pocket and brought it near his mouth.

A cigarette, perhaps?

Then the sound hit.

It was sharp and exceedingly high-pitched. A dog whistle. The noise pierced not only my ears, but all the ears I was listening through.

The sound was like a siren going off in my head. A skull-splitting shriek.

But there was more to the sound. Beneath the shrill whine was something deeper—coiled and sharp. It didn't just hurt. It hooked. It grabbed hold of something primal in me and the wolf alike, threading terror straight through our spines.

A compulsion. To run. To flee. To vanish

Great. Magic man had a magic whistle.

The dogs scattered, yipping and howling, and birds exploded from the trees. All of their panicked thoughts I'd been attuned to, cracked like glass in my skull. Each shatter sent splinters through my focus, ripping apart the fragile web of awareness I'd been clinging to. For a second, I couldn't think—couldn't see—through anything but noise and chaos.

The wolf and I might have run too—God knows I wanted to get away from that sound—but the sensory overload had given me a full-fledged migraine and seemed to have blown a fuse within the wolf.

The wolf recoiled instinctively, scrambling for control, but the sound had short-circuited something essential in her. She wasn't thinking anymore—just reacting. Run. Run now. No pride, no pack, no plan.

And if she had been behind the wheel, I had no doubt we'd already be well on our way to the next zip code. But I was behind the wheel, and I elected to slam on the breaks.

As if to add insult to injury, scaring the shit out of a bunch of birds also had a foreseeable consequence. They relieved themselves of excess weight. There was a pitter-patter like rain as they crapped on everything—the containers, the truck, some of the dogs...

And myself.

On top of everything I was already covered in, I was now covered in actual shit.

The man engaged the windshield wipers on the truck, smearing the bird droppings across what remained of his windshield. It appeared his car was low on wiper fluid, and I heard him cursing. Something told me he hadn't properly thought this through.

He probably hadn't meant to target the birds at all. Just the dogs.

My ears rang. My brain rang. My spies had all scattered. No more eyes but my own.

I crawled forward on my belly, peeking over the edge of the container.

All the dogs had scattered. All except for Boden, still parked by the door. The sound didn't seem to have affected him. He was still there, tail beating against the side of the truck with the same happy aloofness that seemed his default state.

The whistle had bounced right off him like everything else in life. No fear, no panic—just vibing. As if what he didn't know really couldn't hurt him.

Coy had been affected, though—I couldn't detect him or his thoughts. He'd either bamfed off into Abandon to escape the sound, or taken off with the other dogs, chasing tail.

The man shut off the engine but left the lights on. Then he stepped out of the vehicle.

Or, at least, he tried to. As soon as the door was open, Boden flowed into the cab before the man could get out—the oversized pup squeezing himself, not so gracefully, into the driver's seat. Expanding into the man's space like a furry, 90-pound deployed airbag.

His tail wagged like a metronome, thumping against the half-open door to a steady beat, while he shoved his big, fluffy head right into the man's face. The kind of greeting that said it had been months, not minutes, since their last reunion.

The man responded with sudden, pained surprise. Boden had probably planted his weight squarely on the man's crotch.

Despite my ringing headache, I found it rather endearing to watch—now that I wasn't the one being squeezed like a tube of toothpaste.

"No! Get down! You're going to get stuck again!" came a muffled voice from inside the cab.

The man wrestled to extricate himself from the seat while Boden pinned him down.

I watched as he fumbled in one of his pockets with his left hand, eventually fishing out, of all things, a bone-shaped dog treat. A Milk-Bone. He waggled it near Boden's face to get his attention before tossing it out of the car. Boden followed.

I wondered if the man had gotten the treats before or after encountering Boden, but it seemed pretty clear now why Boden had so enthusiastically lingered. He'd made the fundamental mistake of using food to get a dog to behave. The result? He was now rewarding Boden for bad behavior.

Amateur.

Magic whistle or not, the man clearly hadn't learned rule number one of dogs: food could buy loyalty, but it didn't buy manners.

Boden wasn't following orders—he was freeloading.

Coy had likely figured out the man was an easy mark for food too.

I watched as the man extricated himself from the truck before Boden could inhale his treat, patting off the hair—the vestiges of Boden—that still clung to him.

And I found myself looking at the face of disappointment.

Magic man didn't look like the wizard I'd been expecting.

No robes, no beard, no fancy hat.

He looked like, well... an average dude. Instead of robes, he wore a baggy canvas jacket and jeans. Unshaven, but no beard. And instead of a hat, he had a mop of black hair that looked finger-combed.

But he did look a little haggard. Had a rumpled, bargain-bin appearance. Not slovenly, but my money was on everything he wore being secondhand.

The wolf and I caught the scent of his cologne, but also soap. Freshly bathed.

Oh. Good. He'd found time for a shower.

His jacket was half open, revealing a red flannel shirt beneath. I instructed the wolf to look for a gun holster—but with our animal spy network scattered, we didn't have a clear view anymore. We'd have to get closer to confirm. Which neither of us was eager to do.

The wolf caught sight of a splint on the man's right wrist, freshly bandaged. Seemed Tyson hadn't just drawn blood—he'd either sprained or even broken the man's hand.

The question was: which hand was his gun hand? I wasn't about to leave whether or not I got shot in the ass up to a coin flip.

Who knows? He could be ambidextrous.

Boden bounced happily up to his side, and the man crouched—only a little—to greet him, ruffling the fur on the back of Boden's head with his good hand. Boden nosed at the inside of the man's jacket, then proceeded to stick his entire head inside, likely looking for more Milk-Bone.

The man pushed Boden's head away.

"No, only if you behave," he said, zipping up his jacket. But not so quickly that I didn't finally catch a glimpse of what I was looking for: a gun holster under his left shoulder. That meant he drew with his right hand—the one in the splint.

That didn't bode well for him. But it was good news for the wolf. Trigger-happy or not, he'd be slow on the draw.

After a moment, the man straightened, squaring his shoulders as he turned toward the three dead dogs laid out nearby.

"Stay here," he told Boden, then moved to inspect the bodies.

He clumsily drew his gun, keeping it trained on the corpses. Boden remained seated by the car, watching obediently as the man approached the nearest dog—the first one I'd taken down—and prodded it with his foot.

Once satisfied it was properly dead, he holstered his gun and crouched beside the dog.

The wolf peeked her head over the edge of our perch to get a better look at what he was doing.

The man's smile had faded. The easy affection vanished, replaced by something harder. Quieter.

Pensive would be my word of choice.

He laid a hand on the dog's side, perhaps feeling for body heat—a way to gauge how long it had been dead. Then he drew a small pocketknife from his jacket and made a small, but deep, cut along the dog's flank. Closing the knife and returning it to his pocket, he produced a piece of paper, using it to dab up some of the dog's blood.

From his bandaged hand, he awkwardly fumbled for a lighter. After struggling to light it, he switched hands, using his left to strike the flame. He held it beneath the blood-soaked paper, setting it alight.

The orange flame crackled and popped. I heard him muttering something under his breath—words I couldn't identify—but one word repeated multiple times. As he chanted, the flame flashed a deep green, consuming the paper instantly, like flash paper.

Under normal circumstances, I might have assumed that's all it was. Just colored flash paper. But given the context? No. Magic man had a magic stick, a magic whistle, and, apparently, magic paper.

Probably had all sorts of magical dipshittery tucked away in those pockets.

And yet, it wasn't the potential junk drawer worth of enchanted crap that worried me.

It was how smoothly he used them. Like they weren't special—just tools. Like this wasn't his first corpse-side ritual.

The man continued inspecting the body, lifting its legs, rolling it over, searching for something. Eventually, he focused on the neck, feeling the disks of the spine—the ones I'd snapped.

A pang of apprehension gripped me. He wasn't supposed to be that thorough. He was supposed to take one look, nod, and move on—not go running his finger along every vertebrae to ascertain the cause of death.

Admittedly, Nevermore had suspected that the man might be a detective of some sort.

Now, it seemed likely he'd figure out that these dogs weren't killed by another dog.

But if not a dog... Then what?

He stood suddenly, flicking his left hand, and something thin, carved, dark appeared in his grasp.

Another stick—but much smaller than the staff. A wand?

He'd had it tucked up his sleeve.

So, he was a dual-wielder: gun in the right for blasting, wand in the left for casting.

Practical magic at its finest.

His eyes swept the yard, scanning the open space. Posture tense, head on a swivel—looking for danger. Expecting it.

After a moment, he thought to look up.

But I'd already urged the wolf to pull back from the edge, leaving only the smallest peek of our head exposed. With the headlights still in his face, it seemed unlikely he'd notice a single dark, furry ear against the night sky.

Then a soft pop cracked through the stillness.

The man whipped around, wand raised, eyes scanning for the source—muscle memory snapping him into motion.

Coy had reappeared from behind the Bronco, sauntering into view like he'd been there all along. Tail high, tongue out, he trotted up to Boden's side.

Seemed his date had struck him down.

The man's shoulders eased. His grip on the wand relaxed. He exhaled the breath he'd been holding, then lowered the wand and turned back to the dead dogs.

When Coy bumped against his leg, the man crouched again, reaching out to greet him, running his hand briefly along the mutt's back—fingers light, but familiar.

"Alright, you two troublemakers. Where'd you hide my staff?" he asked.

The two dogs looked at each other, then back at the man.

The man sighed and produced two more Milk-Bones.

"Bring me my staff, and receive your reward."

Boden and Coy hopped to their feet, tails wagging excitedly.

And I realized—those little bastards were about to sell me out.

Traitors. Tail-wagging, milkbone-bribed traitors.

If they led him to my perch, the wolf wouldn't hesitate to act—and neither, I suspected, would he.

I had to make a decision quickly.

And, unfortunately for the man, I found myself leaning toward the wolf's preferred course of action.

The wolf's irritation was simple and primal. She had been fuming ever since it became obvious how much Boden adored this man—how eagerly he obeyed him, how completely his loyalty had been redirected. To her, Boden was one of the pack. Her pack. She did not like to share.

For me, though, the resentment ran... differently.

It wasn't just the migraine the man had inflicted on me. No, this was something older, more ingrained. I'd caught the northern edge in his voice, pegged him for upstate New York. Not the city, but somewhere like the Hudson Valley. Definitely not from around here.

In other words: the wizard was a Yankee.

And yeah, I knew that word didn't really mean anything anymore. "Yankee", for me, was just mental shorthand for an annoying northerner. The title I bequeathed to anyone who'd earned my southern ire.

You see, although Charleston thrived on tourism, there was an implicit agreement when tourists and newcomers arrived here: enjoy the charm, soak in the culture—but respect the locals. Don't be disruptive.

And this man had been disruptive.

You see, we locals—we native-born South Carolinians—were slowly becoming a minority in our own state. The booming economy and cheap housing had lured outsiders by the thousands, gravitating to major cities like Columbia, Greenville, and, of course, Charleston.

Day by day, the city grew more crowded. In my lifetime alone, I'd watched my quiet hometown of Mount Pleasant transform from a sleepy township to a noisy, congested extension of Charleston proper, packed with tourists, traffic, and relentless construction.

Streets once safe for biking had become clogged expressways. Peaceful mornings shattered by the noise of lawnmowers and hedge trimmers, as landscaping kept lawns pristine in accordance with new HOA policies—all to ensure rising property values.

And with the influx came skyrocketing housing costs. I'd been priced out of my own hometown. Forced to live farther and farther away from where I'd grown up.

So, yeah. I liked to think I was open-minded, but that creeping resentment was real.

This wasn't about losing my job to an alien, or other such nonsense. This was about other people—affluent and well-off—expecting to be accommodated without effort to assimilate. They got under my skin.

I could tell myself I had reasons. Logical ones. But deep down, this wasn't logic.

This was frustration. Pride. The creeping sense that the city was slipping through my fingers, and this man—this stranger—was just the latest in a long line of reminders.

He might not be affluent, but he was more than an annoyance. He was part of a larger pattern, and right now, he was a very personal threat.

His arrival had sent my life spiraling. The wild goose chase, the repossession of my car, Judge Childs wrecking hers, and now me—gallivanting around the city with a feral wolf behind the wheel.

Whether he meant to or not, he was upending my way of life. Pushing me out of my city. Maybe even toward jail or worse, if my little werewolf problem got out of hand.

But maybe this was just the wolf rubbing off on me, and I was just learning to be territorial.

My resentment might not be what you'd call rational, but that didn't change the fact that this man screwed me over. Didn't change the fact I was starting to lean toward the more paws-on approach—the wolf's preferred flavor of diplomacy.

To show our northern guest the taste of real Southern hospitality.

How this thought translated into me throwing the man's staff at the back of his head might not have been my soundest demonstration of reasoning.

The idea itself had been more of a quip. Something along the lines of, Oh, you want your staff back, Magic Man? Here you are. Go fetch.

But throwing the staff far away could have been misinterpreted as overtly hostile. So I opted to throw it toward him instead.

And in the brief moment between the thought and the action, a part of my brain voiced concern: what if throwing it too hard at the ground damaged it? The staff seemed sturdy, but if magic items were as fickle as electronics, it could've been deceivingly fragile.

So, in my infinite wisdom, I decided to aim for the man. Planning to use his ass as a backboard—something that could cushion the impact.

That seemed diplomatic enough, right? Not aggressive, not dismissive.

Just some benign, yet considerate, violence.

It might have made more sense if I'd remembered to say, "Here! Catch!" But I had a bit of a brain fart.

As for how I expertly beaned the man in the back of the head with his magic stick—that could be solely attributed to the wolf. Our momentary like-mindedness allowing her to influence my actions.

Out of spite for the man who had stolen the affection of her packmates, she tweaked my aim. Just a smidge higher.

And, she had me rotate the staff so that instead of hitting him lengthwise, it flew more like a javelin.

She took the role of dog-mom very seriously. Wasn't going to let any man influence her pups.

Not without consequences.

The result? I unintentionally speared the man in the back of the noggin.

He crumpled to the ground like a sack of potatoes. The two dog treats he'd been holding fell from his hands. Coy caught his midair and while Boden eagerly searched the ground for the other, inhaling it along with a tongueful of dirt.

The two dogs then turned their attention to the man, now face down on the ground.

Boden sniffed him, then licked his face with a dirt-coated tongue, curious about his odd behavior.

Coy, the less scrupulous of the two, nosed through the man's jacket pockets, on the hunt for more treats.

Well, I thought to the wolf, I hope you're proud of yourself.

The wolf glowed with self-satisfaction.