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“Might could be, if you and the partner you’d been sexting were feeling springy.” Pressing the doorbell, he leaned against the siding with a coy smile. “Tell me, Miss Davins, did nudes hit your bucket list because you haven’t but want to, or because you want one more go before cheating yourself out of a shiny new life?”
Heat rushed into my cheeks. “I’ve done nudes, in nonsexual context.”
He rang again. “You being creatively inclined, I’ll wager you were an art model?”
“Bodypainting gigs and drawing classes in college. Helped cover rent.”
In a flurry of wingbeats, a pair of cardinals abandoned a nearby shrub. I froze; Caelan pushed himself from his post.
“Which door next, deputy?”
We tried multiple homes: looked in windows, jiggled handles, tested a few garages. Not a soul emerged to greet or scream at us. After the search for a cell signal forced us to walk back beyond the gates, we learned not a single Metacomet pack member had requested assistance from the CPA or local station in the past twenty-four hours. Not unusual, but given the silence of the community, troubling. Caelan requested backup.
Help, however, would arrive slowly. According to Lieutenant Mishra-Anderson, while we had been signal searching, Jaz reported a body. On Calico’s orders, he and a few pack mates had headed to the slaughterhouse to search for clues pertaining to Stephen’s death, to instead discover a headless woman hanging from rusted hooks.
Not Lisa, Caelan assured me.
Upon failing to reach the associate professor, Mr. Dhruv Kulkarni, who lived near the community gardens further in, the sheriff turned for the truck. His eyes gleamed as we passed in and out of streetlights.
“Watch my back,” he instructed as we returned, tossing me first the keys then his coat.
“Thought you could handle yourself?”
“Trust you more today than yesterday.” With a smile he pulled off his shirt. “Also, rear left tire is slashed.”
Frowning, I shoved the keys in my dress pocket and draped his coat over my arm. “Do you have to?”
“Until we find someone, everyone is missing.” He wiggled his nose. “And this handsome asset of mine receives a serious upgrade.”
At my apprehensive agreement he stopped, looked from the gun in my hand to his coat in the other. His eyes, warm amber, had lost their humanity.
“I won't hurt you, Marcy.”
“No, you're saving me for later.”
His laughter strained into a growl.
I waited until he’d undressed in full to snatch the rest of his clothes and toss them in the backseat. Having seen enough last time, I turned toward the flickering dance of the fountain and the glimmer of stars over the hills to thus limit his shift to the sound of wet cracks and scraping claws.
The sprinkler's steady tcht-tcht-tcht sputtered into a frenzy. I spun and there he was, a huge wolf of mottled blacks and greys, chasing the sprinkler's path until his pelt was soaked. Remnants of the shift dribbled in dilute, pink pearls down his lighter throat and belly. His head swung around to nip a patch of gore, then with a wag of his tail he was off in a series of bloody skips and leaps, shaking the worst free.
“Caelan?”
He bounced to a halt, ears curved forward, eyes bright above a lupine grin. The stream of water caught him across the snout. I laughed. He snapped after it, then the wolf dropped his unnerving gaze to mine and approached. He could’ve rested his chin on my head, he stood so tall.
Despite his demeanor and promise, my body tensed in primal apprehension. My finger hovered against the gun’s safety. Shooting hand lowered but ready, I offered the back of my free hand.
His chest puffed. I tensed, fingertips inches from the flat of his snout.
The wolf squared his shoulders and shook. Water splattered everywhere.
“Thanks for that,” I muttered, wiping my cheek and neck. Would’ve complained about the dress, but my impromptu pizza feast had already ruined it.
Caelan broke into a sloppy grin, then his dark nose bobbed to the prevailing wind.
Humanity had fled the sheriff’s bones; this was no corrupted blend of man and wolf, no cross contamination of genes to stretch his limbs to unnatural proportion or length. He was pure animal, except, perhaps, in mannerism. The creature in his state of prime alertness was both natural and taboo, as if Mother Nature had unearthed a cache of tarry wonders and breathed fresh life into blackened bones.
His coat was short and dense, his ears smaller and more rounded than the typical grey wolf’s. He seemed muscular—maybe the wrong word, but I didn’t have many for wolves— built thick with sturdy legs and massive, flexible paws, all the better to support a broad head and blunt muzzle faintly reminiscent of a jaguar’s powerful jawline.
