I parked behind Eli’s battered pickup and got out, waiting for Molly to crawl across the seat and follow me out the driver’s side door so I wouldn’t lose her. I suspect that she could get out of most cars on the passenger side without leaving my radius, but neither of us was willing to risk it, especially outdoors on a sunny day. As we walked up, all three werewolves’ faces shifted, the way Old World faces always shift around me: Eli and Caroline instantly looked more relaxed, and the young man looked...sort of disappointed. He was average height and very skinny, with a long, bulbous nose. I immediately thought of Ichabod Crane. He was wearing only tattered Hulk-style sweatpants and a mournful expression.
I pulled on surgical gloves as I walked—no more mistakes this time—lugging my work duffel.
“Hey, Scarlett,” Caroline said sunnily. “Sorry to drag you up here.”
“No worries. Tell me what’s happening,” I said. Molly stayed close behind me.
Eli said, “Scarlett Bernard, meet Travis Hochrest. Travis has had a little accident.”
“What, you peed on the rug?” Molly said, smirking.
I shot her a look.
“Sorry!” she whispered.
“Guys, this is Molly,” I said, stepping aside so they could see her. “She’s...also helping me out today. Travis, why don’t you show me what you need to show me?”
“Right. Um, it’s this way, if you want to just follow me.” He led us off into the scrub, and I spotted a faint trail. Fifty feet in, we saw five little corpses all in a row, covered in feathers and flies. Chickens.
Everyone turned to stare at Travis. I raised my eyebrows.
“Okay,” he began nervously. “So, I’m a pretty small wolf, and I actually look a lot like a dog. People mistake me for a husky mix all the time, so I come to the dog park sometimes to play with the other dogs. It’s fun; they all defer to me right away, and then I get to be like their king...” Caroline gave him a gentle smile that clearly said get to the point.
“Caroline came with me to pretend to be my owner, you know. She was at the picnic tables, and I was running around. And I smelled these guys.” He nodded toward the chickens. “There are some homes around here; I guess maybe they escaped? Anyway, I couldn’t resist.” His eyes were pleading for forgiveness. “I jumped the fence, and well...”
“Why not just leave the bodies? Wouldn’t everyone figure that it was just one of the dogs from the park?” Molly asked.
Caroline answered for Travis. “Will has drilled all of the wolves to call, even when you think something could be explained away.”
“Probably, you’re exactly right, Molly, but there’s still a one in a thousand chance that the owner of the chickens gets mad and has the bodies examined,” I said. “You never know who has money and power in this town. A werewolf in wolf form will still show up as a wolf on a DNA test, and then everyone in the neighborhood will start looking for wolves, talking about wolves...It’s not worth the risk, even if it’s only a teeny-tiny one.”
Molly nodded in understanding.
“You did exactly the right thing,” I said to Travis, who beamed in relief and happiness. You could practically see his tail wagging. “You guys can go now.”
Without another word, he took off back toward the parking lot on the other side of the park.
Caroline rolled her eyes at me good-naturedly and gave me a quick hug before she followed. “Have fun,” she whispered mischievously.
Goddammit. Could they, like, smell it on Eli and me?
“So what do we do now?” said Eli, looking my way.
Oh, right, I was supposed to be training. I pulled out more of my industrial-sized ziplock baggies and told him to gather what was left of the birds. Then I took the bags back to the freezer compartment in the van, pulling out a sack of dirt, Molly sticking to my heels like a shadow. “I want to try something. Let’s see if we can use your nose to help,” I said to Eli. He was starting to look kind of interested. I handed him another baggie, and then Molly and I backed off, far enough to keep the whole area out of my radius. “Okay,” I called to Eli, “now smell for the blood, and wherever you find some on any of the plants or tree bark, pull it and put it in the bag. He followed my instructions, and I watched him very carefully. This wasn’t just about him helping; I also wanted to make sure he could do the work without me around. Werewolves are much more into meat than blood, but even the blood would smell good to him. Eli did fine, though, not even twitching his nose.
“How come it smells so bad?” Molly whispered as we watched Eli.
“That’s what blood and bodies smell like to us,” I told her. “It probably used to smell like that to you, too. You’ve just forgotten.”
“Oh.”
When Eli had all the foliage collected, I ripped open the bag of dirt and started sprinkling it on the part of the ground that had been covered in blood. Then I handed the bag to Eli and backed off again. He sniffed a little, sprinkling in a few spots that I had missed. Then he walked over to Molly and me, and the three of us looked at the scene. You might have thought someone had walked through there, breaking some branches, but nothing else was even a little bit visible.
“Sunset’s at seven fourteen,” Molly said to me. I glanced up, realizing that the light had been fading around me. “What time is it now?”
I checked my watch. “Five after seven.”