Wolf for Hire

Chapter Thirty Five

I hit the ground on my side with a solid "oof," the air knocked out of me as gravel bit into my ribs. Boden landed beside me more neatly, on all fours, his whole body quivering, shaking from the force of his own tail—the oversized pup brimming with energy, ready for something exciting to happen.

Eugene's staff had clattered to the ground in front of us, the spell he'd been using to suspend us falling with it. I didn't hesitate. I lunged for the staff, seized it, and flicked it into the air toward Boden.

"Fetch!" I barked, while mentally suggesting he play a game of keep-away.

Boden didn't need much convincing. As soon as he caught the staff, he bolted off with it.

Good boy.

I turned my attention back to Eugene. Blood trickled down his face—from his nose, freshly re-broken. Judging from the panicked flailing, it wasn't hard to figure out why.

Just moments earlier, Elmo had been latched to his face. A fuzzy red facehugger with an appetite for attention. Like so many before him, Eugene had underestimated how fast a creature of Elmo's size could move. He'd swatted instinctively—a perfectly reasonable reaction, to be fair—but, like so many before him, had only succeeded in hitting himself.

In the nose.

Again.

Elmo had evaded the blow by skittering up and over Eugene's head, down the back of his neck, and straight into his jacket.

Seemed it was Elmo's turn to tickle.

Much like the poor worker behind the chicken wing joint, Eugene didn't take well to having a plate-sized tarantula attached to him. Much less a plate-sized tarantula with inch-and-a-half-long fangs down his shirt.

He broke into a storm of profanity. His expletive of choice? A rapid-fire barrage of "Shit, shit, shit!" while spinning like a dog chasing its tail. Unable to reach the spider now crawling down his spine, he crossed his arms, grabbed the hem of his jacket, and yanked it up over his head—flinging it off in one frantic, yet fluid, motion.

Apparently, Eugene had practiced the art of rapidly removing his clothing. A peculiar skill to be sure.

The jacket hit the ground with a heavy thud—far heavier than a normal jacket had any right to be. Magic pocket for magic junk.

But in doing so, Eugene had exposed his back to me.

Neuron-activation.

Both the wolf and I saw an opening we could exploit. I closed in fast, hesitating only to make sure I didn't accidentally squash Elmo in the process.

"Forpelo!" Eugene shouted, still focused on the spider, not on me. A shockwave blasted from his body like a pulse of compressed air. The force buffeted my face and mane, but didn't push me back. Seemed better suited for very close range.

He'd come prepared—had a spell in his back pocket just for any creepy critters that came a-crawling.

My heart lurched.

Had Elmo been hurt?

I scanned Eugene's back, his shoulders—no sign of Elmo. I hadn't seen him go flying either; a giant fuzzy red projectile would've been hard to miss. That meant he had to have been netted by the jacket when Eugene flung it off.

Thank God.

Well, this just made my job easier.

Time for Eugene to join JT on the list of people freight-trained by a werewolf.

The wizard detective let out a sharp gasp of surprise as I plowed into him, driving him into the ground, gravel grinding beneath us. This would've been a fine time for the wolf to strike at his neck, but we'd already agreed—we wanted him alive.

See, the wolf was having one of her strange moments of clarity. An out-of-wolf experience. She'd not only been able to fathom why killing someone might be detrimental to her goals—her ability to wander freely with her pack, find good-tasting food, sleep soundly without being hunted—but it had also occurred to her that understanding the bond between her and her other—me—was important.

Her other could be ever-presence by choice, whereas she always felt weak and tired after the moon set and the sun rose. She didn't understand why, and wanted to change that.

Her other wanted more control over their—our—relationship, and so did she.

And this man, who smelled like too much cologne, knew things that could help.

So, she needed to help her other keep him alive and mostly unharmed.

But, maybe soften him up a bit first.

Before Eugene could recover from his quarterback sack—assuming he hadn't been knocked out cold again—I rolled the two of us over, bringing him on top of me. I locked his chest in a tight seatbelt grip: my right arm looped over his shoulder, my left tucked under his armpit, wrists clasped across his sternum. Then I hooked both legs around his waist and yanked him flush against my chest.

Textbook back control. The good ol' BJJ position known as "backpacking."

If pinning Eugene to the ground earlier had put him at a disadvantage, he was basically fucked now. I had him strapped down like carry-on luggage: he wasn't going anywhere.

And he was in the perfect position for the tried and true rear naked choke.

Even if it was his job to identify supernatural threats for the state government, he'd gotten a little too cocky about it.

So a lesson in humility would do him some good.

I was basically doing him a favor.

Magic man, meet muscle magic.

"Coy!" I barked, even as I tightened my grip. "Wand!"

I figured Eugene must've summoned it when he tried to expel Elmo, even though I hadn't seen it. Better to be safe.

Coy moved, searching for his prized chew toy.

I went for the choke, but Eugene managed to defend against it, tucking in his arms and bringing his chin down, digging the point of his jawbone into my bicep. With one hand against his face, he guarded the side of his neck, while his other gripped my wrist, trying to keep me from finishing the hold.

This told me two things.

First, the good detective hadn't summoned his wand. Coy would have already found it if it had been dropped.

Second, he knew his way around a mat.

Or, at the very least, he understood the first rule of Brazilian jiu-jitsu: keep your enemies close—and your elbows closer.

At best, he'd bought himself a few seconds. Because even without a proper lock, I still had the raw strength to force the choke. While I might not be the strongest werewolf that ever walked the earth, I was still much, much stronger than gangly ol' human me.

And, unfortunately for Eugene, he was using his right hand—the injured one—to guard his neck.

Which meant I was currently cranking down on that bad boy.

Poor bastard.

While choking him out wasn't actually my goal—it was more of a distraction, really—it still felt good to make him squirm.

Teach you to taze me in the ass.

"You know," I growled, "this could've all been avoided if you'd just stayed out of my personal life. But no. You had to play the nosy little detective."

Eugene muttered something—either a curse or the start of a spell.

I squeezed harder. He hissed in pain.

"Try that spell again, Eugene. I dare you. Vorpollo, or whatever it was. Bet it'll launch you straight into the air if you tried it now."

"You know," he shot back through clenched teeth, "you really shouldn't cross your feet when you take someone's back."

"What?"

Before I could figure out what he meant, Eugene demonstrated.

He locked his legs into a figure-four around my crossed ankles and flexed his hips.

Pain shot up my legs like lightning as my ankles were driven together and hyperextended.

I'd walked right into it—left myself wide open to a textbook counter: the ankle crush.

In my defense, Cadence never really drilled ankle locks with me or the other women in our jiu-jitsu-focused self-defense class. It wasn't that they were niche or ineffective, but that they were hard to practice safely. Ankles being rather flimsy little things—too easy to twist. To snap, crack, and pop.

So while we were familiarized with the techniques, we never really put them into practice. Let alone learn how to defend against them.

We were being trained for self-defense, after all. Not competition.

I'd once let Cadence demonstrate one on me.

Just once.

And let me tell you: they hurt like hell.

Imagine, if you would, sitting criss-cross applesauce on a hardwood floor, with your ankles stacked one atop the other. Now imagine someone coming along and jumping down right on top of them with all their weight.

The feeling of all those little bones being crushed together—hence the name.

And you might think having digitigrade feet would've protected me in some way.

And you'd be wrong.

If anything, it just meant Eugene had more leverage. With all that extra pressure focused into a much smaller cross-section of bone.

It would seem that, aside from silver, a werewolf's Achilles' heel were, in fact, their heels.

I howled with pain and let go of Eugene with my feet, giving him enough room to twist out of my grip and escape the chokehold.

But that was okay. I'd gotten what I was after.

We rolled to face each other, rising to our feet, barely an arm's length apart.

I reached for Eugene with my free hand, trying to prevent him from putting any distance between us.

But Eugene shouted, "Forpelo!" Casting his spell again.

To be fair... I had asked him to do it.

And now I was in ideal blasting range.

That said, it seemed my hypothesis—that some Newtonian physics still had a place in the application of magic—was, in fact, spot on.

Without his jacket, Eugene and I were nearly equal mass—with maybe a dozen or so pounds on him to account for all the cheeseburger dinners.

Which meant that instead of the blast launching me away from Eugene, it launched the both of us away from each other.

Me into a nearby cargo container. Him into the side of his truck.

Two big bangs as equal and opposite idiots collided with their respective objects.

Stunned, but still kicking, we scrambled to our feet.

Two fighters still in the ring.

We drew on each other.

Eugene brandished his wand.

And I brandished his gun.

Surprise, motherfucker.

His eyes widened. "How the—?"

"Sticky fingers," I grinned—a truly toothy smile.

While my fingers were, in fact, still sticky with residual barbecue sauce, I was mostly referring to my own deft sleight of hand. I hadn't bothered to complete the chokehold, because it was only meant to distract Eugene from the fact that my other hand had been busy unclipping his gun holster.

Eugene had promised not to shoot me, but that clause was non-reciprocal.

"Do you even know how to use that thing?" he asked warily.

"I have a concealed carry permit, Eugene. Not to mention, I was taught to shoot with this very model," I said, flicking off the safety and cocking the hammer. "So no more funny business or spells, or I swear I'll cast gun and send you to God."

I took a slow, deliberate step forward.

"Now drop it," I said, nodding towards the wand.

He dropped the wand, and Coy—who'd been eagerly awaiting this moment—snatched it from the air.

"Oh! Son of a—" Eugene cursed, turning towards Coy.

"A-ah, put 'em up."

Because I wasn't stupid, I flicked the safety back on while Eugene's attention was fixed on Coy, resting my finger on the trigger guard.

Sure, I was still pissed, but I wasn't reckless.

At least, not when it came to guns.

My dad had drilled the importance of firearm safety into my brother and me as if it were the fear of god. You always assumed a gun was loaded. And if it wasn't, a bullet would still magically appear in the chamber—and would then go off the moment you got careless. So: constant muzzle awareness.

And God knew Eugene had probably enchanted his gun with some bullshit magic.

Better not to take chances.

Considering the mountain of borderline criminal activity I'd already amassed tonight—which would surely come back to haunt me later—the last thing I needed was to accidentally shoot someone. Even if that someone was Eugene Desmond.

Eugene turned toward me, hands raised above his head.

He was a pitiful sight. The blood that trickled from his nose was now trailing down his chin. His hands were covered in abrasion after being sandpapered by gravel. His mop of dark hair hung across his forehead, his face matted with dirt with raccoon-eyes due to bruising from the repeated nasal trauma.

"All right," Eugene said carefully, "how about we talk this out?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, that's what I was trying to do," I snapped. "I was just going to return your damn stick and ask a few questions—to try to figure out what the hell is going on."

"Given the context," he replied, cautiously, "surely you can understand why that wasn't going to work."

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. I'm a big scary werewolf—"

"—Little on the short side, really," he muttered.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"—So I figured you'd be a little trigger-happy, what with the thralls attacking you. Which meant I had to be more direct."

"By bludgeoning me in the back of the head?" he said, dryly.

"And I apologized," I shot back. "Hell, I even gave you useful intel to make up for it. But no, you had to be a nosy little prick who thinks he's entitled to personal secrets."

He opened his mouth.

I cut him off.

"No. I got the conch now," I said, wiggling the Colt in my hand. "So I'm the one who speaks. Don't you realize that you getting all magical with me just validates my concerns?"

"And my concerns weren't?" he interjected.

"They were until you decided to be an entitled prick about it."

Eugene made a move like he was going to say something again, but stopped—averting his gaze.

What was this? Did I smell a concession?

"I… may have taken things a bit too far."

It was a shit apology, if ever I'd heard one—but I had more pressing matters.

"How about you do what I asked earlier and release Nevermore?"

Eugene sighed. He snapped his fingers and, through the open window, I heard a faint clunk. And I could see something dark and feathered thudded softly to the truck floor.

"Really?" I said. "More showmanship?"

"It was convenient," Eugene said.

Nevermore alighted onto the window frame, eyes glittering. "Behold!" he crowed—and then immediately launched into verse:

"There once was a man from Milwaukee, Whose hat tricks were slick and quite gawky. Once on a dare, he vanished a chair, and—"

His beady eyes flicked between Eugene and me.

"Oh? What do we have here?"

He cleared his throat, adopting a more professional tone.

"Ah, Miss Allison! I see you've made the acquaintance of the good detective." He eyed the gun pointed at Eugene. "I take it you two got off on the wrong foot."

"Ixnay on the upidstay, Nevermore," I hissed.

He blinked. Looked at me. Then at Eugene. Then at the three dead thralls still splayed in the glow of the Bronco's headlights. Then back to Eugene. "Am I missing something?"

"I don't think you were supposed to use her actual name," said Eugene.

"Ah. Right. Aliases. What should I have used?"

"I think she called herself Andy."

"Andy? That's just…" Nevermore gave me a disappointed look. "Couldn't have been an ounce more creative?"

"I was on the spot," I retorted.

"This would've been a great opportunity to go with something like, oh, I don't know—Virginia."

"Why the hell would I call myself Virginia?"

"Virginia Woolf?" Eugene offered.

Nevermore looked at him, then back at me. "See? He gets it."

"Don't enable him," I snapped at Eugene.

Eugene shrugged without lowering his arms, hands raised in an expression that said, "what did I do?"

"You know… Andy" Nevermore said playfully, cocking his head, "one wonders why are you pointing a gun at the detective?"

He glanced at Eugene's empty holster. "His own gun, if I might add?"

His attention shifted to Eugene, his voice bright with curiosity. "I'd love to hear this one."

"Yeah, Eugene," I said, raising an eyebrow. "You tell him why I'm pointing your gun at you? I'd love to hear your explanation too."

"Ooh, a strategic deflection," Nevermore said, pivoting dramatically between me, and back towards Eugene. "Seems you stand accused."

"What makes you think I'm the aggressor here?" Eugene protested, gesturing to his face.

Nevermore turned back to me. "You have to admit—he looks even more rough-and-tumble than before. Did you do all that to him?"

"He did that to himself," I said, getting defensive in turn. "He got cocky with his own magic and smacked himself in the face with it. Literally."

"I was defending myself," Eugene argued, shifting slightly. "After you attacked me."

"I accidentally hit you with your staff," I snapped. "And I apologized."

"You gave me a concussion, then pinned me to the ground and interrogated me under duress."

"Oh please, like being licked by Boden qualifies as duress."

Boden's head appeared around the side of the Bronco at the mention of his name, Eugene's staff in his slobbering jaws, followed by the steady thunk thunk thunk of his tail beating against the tailgate.

Oh! The duress.

"I was referring to the part where you disarmed me of my tools and weapons—and bared your teeth at me."

"Aww, did I menace you with my pearly whites?"

"Yes, you did, and now you're menacing me with my gun."

"Because you tried to taze me in the ass with a coin!"

"Ahem. Children, please," Nevermore finally interjected, spreading a wing like a referee stepping in.

Eugene and I both shot him a look.

"Oh, don't give me that," he huffed, his theatrics replaced by his own mild indignation. "I'm older than the two of you combined. I assure you. This isn't my first life, after all."

He flapped his wings, placing himself on the ground between us, puffing his feather. "And it is painfully obvious to me that the two of you are at unnecessary odds with each other."

Turning in a circle to face us both, his tone softening, like that of a well-meaning diplomat, he added, "So why don't you let me broker a little peace between you."

"God help us all," muttered Eugene under his breath.

Nevermore shot him a sideways glance. "You do realize this could have all been avoided if you hadn't locked me in the glovebox."

"You know damn well why I locked you in there. And you were the one that left out the part about your master being a werewolf?"

"Wait, you two talked about me?" I said, narrowing my eyes at Nevermore. The little bastard had definitely been up to something.

"I'd say you can't take a joke," Nevermore said, ruffling his feathers, attention still on Eugene, "but I see you can make yourself one just fine."

Eugene opened his mouth for a rebuttal, but Nevermore let out a loud, echoing caw. He spread his wings wide, and the air around us dropped several degrees in a moment. Cold sweeping over us just like when I'd summoned him in Sandy's pet cemetery.

Seemed he could be melodramatic on command.

While I didn't think much of it, Nevermore's theatrics left Eugene in stunned silence. Nevermore gracefully perched himself on the Bronco's side-view mirror, just beside Eugene.

"Detective Desmond," said Nevermore, in a direct, albeit polite, tone, "you are currently in a compromised position. You are injured, disarmed, and at odds with a potential benefactor. Let me—"

"Benefactor?" I cut in, throwing out a hand, palm up. "What makes you think I want to help him?"

"Because neither you nor I know how you were turned into a werewolf, nor where to start," he replied with practiced calm. "And while Sa—uh, your employer—may be able to help you manage your condition, I doubt they have the means to properly investigate its cause either."

He turned toward Eugene. "Whereas Mr. Desmond here, despite his... disheveled appearance, is a competent diviner, who—"

"Oh really?" I said, hand on hip now. "A competent diviner? Then how come I beat our diviner to the finish line?"

"Oh? You have, have you?" Nevermore turned to Eugene, his eyes glittering with curiosity. "Is there truth to this?"

"No idea," Eugene said, glancing away. "I haven't had the opportunity to verify—"

"Ha! She did! Didn't she? I can see it in your face," he cackled. "So what did she find? Our missing cache? The perp's hideout?"

"A slip, I think," Eugene muttered.

"Oh, now that's promising," Nevermore said, flapping excitedly.

"What's a slip?" I asked, puzzled.

"An entrance into the Abandon," Nevermore replied, waving a wing as if it were obvious. "Now hush."

Nevermore turned back to Eugene. "This supports the point I was trying to make. Your quarry has taken great lengths to thwart your methods of divination. You verified it yourself with your ley compass. But..."

He turned to me again. "Ms. Allison—uh, I mean A—you know what, no, I'm calling you Virginia. It's a better alias and you know it."

Now I opened my mouth to protest, but then I shut it.

He was right.

Virginia was a better alias.

"Virginia here," continued Nevermore, "is able to track our quarry through more traditional means—ones our target seems to have overlooked."

"Why do you keep saying 'our'?" I asked, arching a brow. "When did we agree to help him?"

"Well," Nevermore said, fluffing his wings innocently, "you gave Coy and me the night off. And after we located Boden and the detective, I elected to offer my services to Mr. Desmond here, in exchange for his services."

"By getting yourself locked in a glovebox."

"Yes, I tried to lighten the mood with a little poetry and... well. He didn't appreciate it. But that's beside the point. Detective Desmond has the means to help you. You have the means to help him. So... how about you give the detective back his gun, and we discuss how we can be of mutual service to each other."

"Not happening," I said. "Not until he apologizes for trying to use that coin of his on me—and promises, and I mean properly promises, to stop prying into my personal life."

Nevermore turned to Eugene. "What is this coin she keeps talking about?"

"It's on the ground over there," I said, gesturing. "It's a silver dollar he enchanted to absorb moonlight. Said it could 'reset' my transformation. Was gonna prod me in the ass with it."

Nevermore gasped melodramatically. "You were going to discharge a moonwrought token on the poor girl? For shame, Detective. One would think you bore a grudge."

"Whatever gives you that idea?" said Eugene, giving Nevermore a flat expression.

A flat and battered expression.

"Besides," he continued, "I needed to verify who she was. I can't just take her word for it."

"Still, don't you think it's a bit much?" Nevermore asked, tilting his head.

"I may have overreacted. Alright?" said Eugene, growing frustrated. "But it wasn't wholly unjustified."

"A cross between a cattle prod and a branding iron, he said," I muttered.

"Look, that was just an exaggeration to get you to talk," Eugene said. "It's not actually that painful."

"At least, it shouldn't be," he added, almost sheepishly.

"What do you mean 'shouldn't'?"

He shrugged. "I've never had the opportunity to use it on a werewolf before."

"So you planned to use me as a guinea pig? Is that it?"

"Think of it more like two birds with one stone," he said. "I meant it when I said I wanted to examine that tattoo of yours. If it's related to your lycanthropy, I should be able to tell you."

"Does that mean you can identify who made it and what it does?"

"No," Eugene admitted, "but I have colleagues who would know. There's a chance they'd recognize the penmanship, or find a match in the archives. Magic tattoos are like fingerprints in many ways—they can be traced to the artist."

"Alright," I said, "but I still demand an apology."

"For what?"

"I apologized for hitting you, and you still tried to prod me in the butt. I don't care if this is your job: you want to be treated like a professional, then you should act like one. That means, for starters, giving me a professional apology."

There was probably a healthy dose of hypocrisy in what I was saying, but I was pretty sure I currently had the moral high-ground.

And I had a gun.

Eugene paused, then took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry," he said in a flat tone.

I frowned. "That doesn't sound very genuine."

"What do you expect from me?" Eugene snapped. "My face is a mess, my head is pounding, and you threw a goddamn spider at me. I'd say we're even."

My eyes widened.

I'd been so caught up in our little standoff, I'd forgotten something important.

"Shit! Elmo!"

I dashed over to Eugene's jacket.

"Don't you fucking move, Eugene," I barked, flipping the jacket open. "If you so much as hurt a single leg—"

"You threw it at me!" Eugene said indignantly. "What if it had bitten me?"

"Then you'd have gotten what you deserved!"

I looked through the jacket's interior and searched the sleeves, finding them empty.

Panic bubbled up inside me.

"Wait, where is he?" I said, lifting up the jacket and shaking it.

Damn, it was much heavier than it looked—probably all the magical nonsense he'd stuffed into the pockets like some kind of spell-slinging hoarder. But, in a weird way, it seemed almost buoyant. As if only some of its mass was affected by gravity.

Would bet my ass it had something to do with more fucking magic.

"Pretty sure it slipped into one of the deeper pockets," Eugene said, tone dry and faintly repulsed.

"Nevermore, keep an eye on him," I said, spreading the jacket on the ground and kneeling beside it.

"Make sure he doesn't do anything stupid again."

I placed the gun in my jaws to free my hands.

"I'm barely keeping the wolf from biting his head off as it is."

Turns out, when you have wolf-like jaws, speaking with a gun in your mouth was surprisingly manageable—like talking around a pencil.

"Must you cover everything I own in dog saliva?" Eugene bemoaned.

I ignored him and started digging through the jacket.

"Speaking of the wolf," Nevermore said lightly, "wasn't the whole point of you racing home and locking yourself away to prevent yourself from wandering the city all big, hairy, and scary? I mean, it seems to me you have rather good control of your faculties."

"Look," I growled, "the wolf and I are working together, right now. But she's got the final say. And as I've tried to explain before: I didn't mean to assault Eugene. I was trying to find a way to approach him without getting shot. I threw his staff at him to return it, but the wolf corrected my aim and, well… I domed him."

"This wolf. Can you elaborate on what you mean exactly?" Nevermore asked, his tone more clinical now.

"Yeah, my, um… my wolf. She's kind of like an alter-ego. She's normally the one in control during nights of the full moon."

As I spoke, I searched the jacket for pockets I'd missed earlier. There were the two standard outside pockets, normally for one's hands, with two interior pockets for things like a phone, a wallet, and keys. Each of which went far deeper than should have been physically possible.

But as I investigated further, I only found more and more pockets. As if someone had created a bargain-bin jacket equivalent of a Victorian writing desk. More than a dozen hidden compartments, each deeper than the last.

"How deep do these go?" I muttered, wedging my hand into one of the inner pockets, the opening easily sliding up to my wrist without my hand ever touching the jacket's lining. Hell, without even touching the ground beneath it.

I took my hand out and looked inside the pocket.

And saw, well... just a normal pocket. With gas station receipts.

An illusion?

"And you're consciously aware of this alter-ego?" Nevermore asked.

"Yeah. You remember when I was eating that dog food? That was to get her to cooperate. So I could shift back," I said, sticking my hand back into the pocket.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't rifle through my stuff," Eugene interrupted, sounding none too pleased.

I gave him a withering look. "Oh, that's rich—coming from you."

First my hand. Then my wrist. Then my forearm. Then, before I knew it, I was shoulder-deep.

"What the Mary fucking Poppins is this bullshit," I muttered, twisting my arm around.

I felt dozens of net-like pouches, as if Eugene had gotten one of those over-the-door canvas shoe organizers, wrapped it into a tube, and used it to line this pocket space.

And all the pouches were full. With... things.

I grabbed one of these things and pulled out what appeared to be a box turtle shell.

Weird.

"How do you find anything in here?" I asked, sliding the shell back into what was probably the same pouch I'd taken it out of. Or, at least close to it.

"I keep a good mental inventory," Eugene replied with a small shrug.

"So how do I find what I'm looking for?"

"Guess you'll just have to feel around. Just try not to touch anything dangerous," he said, only half-joking.

"So, you can communicate with your wolf?" Nevermore pressed, trying to steer things back on topic.

"Basically," I said, reaching into another pocket. "It's not that different from talking to any other dog. Except this one lives in my head."

To Eugene, I asked, elbow-deep in his jacket, "How do you even clean this thing when it gets dirty? Is it, like... washer machine-safe?"

"Sort of," Eugene said. "I enchanted the wells to repel unbottled liquids. And it works... most of the time."

The way he said it made me wonder if he'd learned this the hard way. Considering the sheer vastness of some of these pocket spaces, his jacket could easily hold a backyard swimming pool's worth of water. Suck up like a multi-dimensional sponge.

And he said 'unbottled' liquids.

Did that mean I could fill this jacket with water from a hose?

Was there a science to this magic?

Nevermore continued with his line of inquiry. "And your wolf? You said she made you hurt Desmond?"

"Yeah," I replied. "She was mad at him. Thinks he intentionally stole some of her packmates."

"Oh, come on," Eugene protested, exasperation bleeding into his voice. "That's not my fault."

"Hey, I didn't say it was," I shot back. "I'm just explaining."

I grabbed hold of something furry, hoping it was Elmo, and gently pulled it free from the pocket.

It was... not Elmo.

Whatever I was holding looked kinda like a ferret. Or maybe a squirrel. Something in that general rodent-adjacent family. But the poor thing had either been badly taxidermied or left to mummify in the jacket's enchanted crawlspace. Its fur was patchy, limbs stiff, and its eyes long since shriveled into sunken hollows.

I held it out to Eugene. "Is this supposed to be in here?"

"It's a dehydrated vermisprex," Eugene said quickly, recoiling slightly. "Put it back."

Neat.

I wrinkled my nose and slid the thing back into the pocket, doing my best not to shudder.

No telling if Eugene had been serious, or if "dehydrated vermisprex" was just his way of covering for the fact that some unlucky woodland critter had wandered into his enchanted clothes and died.

Then again.

It had had six legs.

"Wait—" I paused, a worrying thought occurring to me, "—is there air in these pockets? Elmo's not going to suffocate in here, is he?"

"No," Eugene said. "Only the pocket with the ziplock tab is airtight. I use that one to store anything that, uh... smells a bit pungent."

Now this? This caught the wolf's attention.

She liked pungent smells.

Which meant I proceeded to locate the pocket in question—on the inner right side—and, at the wolf's behest and my own morbid curiosity, I unzipped it and stuck my nose in.

The scent rushed out in layers.

I caught dried sage and rosemary, something like bay leaf but with the faint odor of mildew. There was the thick aroma of frankincense, mixed with something vaguely sweet and peppery—maybe anise or clove. I caught the tangy bite of vinegar, followed by something distinctly medicinal—iodine and rubbing alcohol. Definitely some formaldehyde.

Another edge rode up through my sinuses after that, something acrid and gassy, like floor cleaner and other ammonia-laced solvents. Metallic hints surfaced the longer I sniffed—like iron filings and oxidized copper. Deeper still, I caught the funk of old mushrooms, something damp and earthy, and, just under that, a soft whiff of sulfur that clung to the back of my throat.

It made my eyes water.

Yet, out of all the smells, one stood out above all the rest.

I pulled my nose out, sneezed, rubbed my eyes, and then reached into the ziplocked pocket.

And pulled out a McDonald's cheeseburger.

Still in the wrapper. Still warm.

I'd even smelled fries in there somewhere too.

I held it up to Eugene. "You use it as a lunchbox?" I asked, sounding more appalled than I'd intended.

"No. Not if I can help it," Eugene said with a grimace. "Again, please don't actually touch my things."

"You sure it's safe to keep food in same place you store formaldahyde?" I asked, being careful not to place the burger near any of the chemical smells I'd identified. By the rosemary and sage should be fine.

"It's the only place your damn dogs can't sniff it out," Eugene muttered.

"So, if I may paraphrase," Nevermore interjected smoothly, "it seems your inability to control your wolf's impulses led you to injure and become at odds with Detective Desmond."

"Inability?" I snorted, rubbing my nose as I turned to face Nevermore. "I shouldn't even be in control right now. Not with the moon up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to convince an irrational creature to behave rationally?"

"She asks," Eugene muttered, "while waving a gun around."

Nevermore fluffed his feathers. "So, you're saying this wolf—this alter-ego of yours—is agreeing to behave?"

"Sort of," I said. "She..."

I paused, tuning in—turning my attention inward, focusing on the wolf.

Her emotions swirled in the background—agitated, wary.

"She can't make sense of most of what's going on, but she knows I can. And now that Eugene's yielded—" I gestured at Eugene, battered and with his hands still raised, "—she's letting me handle things. Still on edge, though."

Nevermore pivoted toward Eugene. "Do you typically see this with lycanthropes? This split in personalities?"

Eugene shook his head. "Can't say I have. But lycanthropy is more of a symptom than a cause. Like pneumonia—lots of things can trigger it. It could be the result of a psyche fractured due to the same magical trauma that turned her into a werewolf. Or, she might be possessed by a wolf-like spirit such as an amarok or a barghest. There's also the possibility she was naturally predisposed to psychiatric disorders, which became exacerbated when she acquired her abilities. That could also explain why she can't control them very well."

"Would you stop diagnosing me like I'm not in the room?" I growled, irritation bristling up my spine. "The last dickheads that did that said I had PCOS and put me on birth control."

Eugene and Nevermore looked at me, then back at each other.

"Perhaps we can leave speculation for another time," Nevermore said, smoothing his tone. "When we have more concrete facts at our disposal."

"Fine, fine," Eugene relented. "I only meant to say that lycanthropy is not a singular phenomenon—more of a broad classification."

Well, that was a long-winded way of saying: it's complicated.

He looked at me. "So—uh... Can I put my arms down now?"

"No," I said. "Besides, keeping them raised will help with the swelling."