The warm sun bathed her skin. It was a feeling Amy had not experienced in as long as she could remember. There was a pleasure to basking in the golden rays, until the rocky ground beneath her became apparent, then the totality of her nakedness hit her and she was wide awake and sitting up.

Last night when the change had taken hold, all of her fears and worries disappeared. Amy had given into abandon and run wild and free. Now she would pay the price for that. What lost corner of the world was she waking up in? She expected to see the empty expanse of the desert, like she had on that morning four years before.

A white Chevrolet zipped down the road less than ten feet from the drainage ditch where she lay. The road she was near was fairly busy and cars began to pass at regular intervals. Across the street, lush green meadows of a golf course stretched out. A foursome stopped their electric cart. They were too far away to notice Amy unless they were looking, but she covered her chest with her arm anyway. There was a familiarity about at all that she couldn't place.

Houses lined the top of the hill behind her. And further down the road, commercial building formed a suburban shopping area that fell short of being a real town.

While in her wolf form she had returned to civilization.

No. Not just civilization. Home. She had come home.

Blue Bell Crescent was just over that ridge and down that road to the left was the middle-school she had attended. She remembered the mall with the book shop and the grocery store. She was home.

She was also naked, penniless, and a good fifty miles from where she was supposed to meet R.J.

I'm screwed, she thought.

How long was it until the police picked her up? Once they had her, they'd match her to the Amber Alert and contact the Agency in no time.

Panic fluttered around her head like a trapped moth. She spoke out loud to calm it. "Pull yourself together. Do you want to prove Ylva right? Don't be a stupid little girl. You're one of the most cunning, fearsome creatures on Earth. Time to start acting like it."

The first thing she needed was to cover up. She needed clothes not just for modesty but to blend in. She had two options: the houses or the stores. A house might be easier to break into but at this early hour it was more likely she'd come across people on the residential streets. So she headed toward the strip malls, where she had some ideas of how to find some clothes, if she was lucky.

It was slow going as she picked her way through the trench beside the road, keeping low and out of site. Occasionally, a car tire would spit out a piece of gravel at her like a bullet. Amy tried not to think of her sore feet and how at this pace, the town might be in full swing by the time she reached it. Instead, she tried to remember last night.

It was a blur of shifting images. She had killed. She knew it with perfect certainty, even if what and how often wasn't coming back to her. Had she massacred people again? Taken out some peaceful neighborhood? She didn't think so. There had been fur. And if her hunger was any judge, she couldn't have found much prey.

When the ditch ended, Amy moved away from the road and traveled down the laneway that few besides delivery vehicles used. There was enough scrub growing by the road to shield her, if she was careful.

At the post office, she found what she was hoping for. Off on the side of the parking lot there was the charity bin. The blue steel container like an oversized mailbox waited in the shade of a tree for people to make donations to the less fortunate, just as it had when her mother would drop off their outgrown school clothes. It was padlocked but overflowing. A black garbage bag had been stuffed into the mouth of the deposit slot and abandoned after it failed to go all the way in.

Amy wrestled it out and felt like a squirrel with a giant nut as she dashed to some bushes to check out her prize.

The pickings weren't very exciting or attractive, but people didn't get rid of their good stuff. It was mostly men's clothes that were far too big for her. There was one dress. It was made with a stiff white fabric and had a pale blue flower pattern with lace on the cuffs and collar. It looked like it belonged to someone's grandmother but it was better than nothing. For footwear, she had to choose between a pair of massive sneakers and slightly smaller pair of cowboy boots. She ripped the sleeves off a work shirt and stuffed them into the toes, so she was able to wear the boots without her feet swimming in them. But with each step, the leather at the tops chafed against her knees.

Still, she was proud of herself. She had managed to find clothes.

Item one of her list was done. Now she needed some way to contact R.J. and let him know where she was.

She needed to borrow someone's phone or get some change for a payphone. Perhaps a store would let her use theirs if she told them it was an emergency and had to call home. But it soon occurred to her there was a major flaw in her logic. How could she call him?

He had that cell phone on him but had never given her the number. She could call the motel they were staying at but was he still there? He had said he was going to check-out before picking her up.

I'm screwed.

With no place to go, Amy kept walking. She kept to the shadows wherever possible and stayed clear of people. The last thing she wanted was to be recognized. At first that wasn't any problem, but the further she went the more people were about and eventually she entered the area that was as close to a main street as the collection of housing developments and gated communities warranted. Maybe once upon a time it had been the place where ranchers came to get feed, tractor parts, or a haircut, but if so, it was long before the Westgate's moved to the area.

Now it was just a row of storefronts where the boulevard narrowed and the malls and big box stores ended. Foot traffic was heavier here and Amy had to brush past a lot more people but they seemed only too happy to let the strange girl pass them by with their eyes cast down or focused on their phones.

If anything indicated to Amy that the world had moved on while she was in that underground prison, it was those phones. They weren't new—they had been around before the government had captured her—but she didn't know anyone who owned one back then. They were more than she even dreamed about. She remembered asking for a cell phone with a full keyboard for texting. It was the coolest. Her parents had said it cost too much and besides, she was too young for her own phone. Perhaps when she was old enough to have a job and could pay for it herself.

Since she got out, it seemed like everyone had these fancy smartphones and if Amy was half girl and half wolf, then these people were half human and half phone. It was as though aliens had dropped them on the planet to infect the population and control them.

But thoughts of phones were periphery, Amy's main concern was the gnawing in her belly. In the hours that had passed since she'd woken up in the ditch, her hunger had grown to biblical proportions.

How did people eat when they didn't have money? She had never had to worry about a meal in her life. Someone had always been there to feed her.

A despondence was growing in her, but then she saw a sign. It was made up to look like something from the Old West with letters burned into the polished wood. It was mounted on the wall next to a restaurant door and it answered her need for free food.

The sun was high in the sky. It must be lunch time, which meant they'd be open. Amy was so overjoyed she didn't worry about the consequences. She went right in and asked for a table for one.

When the waitress came, she didn't need the menu, she said loud and clear, "I'll have the epic MacLeod steak challenge, please."

Amy couldn't understand why this created the fuss it did. The sign outside said to try it. But the waitress told her to stop kidding and what did she really want? When Amy insisted, the waitress got the manager, who wanted to see her money.

"But it's free," Amy said.

"It's only free if you eat it all. That plate weighs about as much as you do, little miss. Ain't no way you're getting through it. If you don't have the money, you can get out."

"I'd like to see the girl give it a shot." A new man had joined the conversation. He was balding with a white mustache reaching all the way down his face. He winked at her and his eye disappeared into a black star of wrinkles.

"You stay out of this Jim. It don't concern you."

"Maybe it does and maybe it doesn't."

The manager ignored Jim. "I'm going to ask you one more time to leave. Or I'm going to call the cops."

Before the full brunt of her disappointment could register, Jim came to her rescue. "I'll stake the girl."

"You're willing to drop eighty bucks on food she ain't going to eat?"

"I think of it as a bet. She looks hungry. You hungry there, girl?"

Amy nodded.

"Well then. Get this girl her steak." Jim gave the manager's shoulder a friendly clap. There was some strength left in the old man and he nearly sent the manager tumbling into Amy's table. He steadied himself and gave Jim the stink eye before stomping off to the back.

Her savior sat down across from her and stretched out a hand, "Jim Watson at your service."

Amy shook his hand and realized she couldn't tell him who she was. Everyone in the country knew the name Amy Westgate. She needed a new name fast. "Ylva," she told him. Amy was about to add Blass, but thought it best to stay clear of anything that might remind anyone of those alerts. "Ylva Gracie," she said after a moment's hesitation.

Jim chewed over her name a few times, then remarked he'd never heard anyone called that before.

"Why are you helping me, Mr. Watson?"

"Just call me Jim. I come in here all the time. Garret," he said bending his head toward the manager. "He's a chiseling little bastard—pardon my language. I thought it would be fun to watch him sweat a bit. Besides. The moment I looked at you...well, there was just something. Perhaps you reminded me of my granddaughter."

"Oh, what's your granddaughter like?"

"Well, actually, I don't have one. Pretty funny, huh?" They both laughed about it for a while even though Amy thought it was more weird than humorous.

Jim asked Amy where she was from and she mumbled something about visiting and then to deflect the conversation away from her, she said, "Tell me about you.  What's your story?"

Once Jim got started it didn't seem like he was ever going to stop. It was possible he was only helping her because he was lonely and wanted a sympathetic ear. He told her about his childhood on a ranch and the beatings he took. How his once wonderful marriage had left him with a son who hated him, a wife buried in the Sunset Memorial Gardens, and a mountain of hospital bills. He even told her how the doctors had just diagnosed him with prostate cancer. It was treatable, he said. But he didn't know if he should bother.

While he was spouting his story, Jim kept interrupting himself saying, "I don't know why I'm telling you this." By the third time, a hint of panic creeped in around the edges of his words.

Jim stopped talking when the waitress put the plates down on the table with exaggerated care, as though she were serving the queen. "One thirty-six ounce porterhouse, fully loaded baked potato, chili cheese fries, and a chocolate ice-cream shake. Eat up, darling. You got thirty—no, twenty-nine minutes."

There was an awkward moment as Amy sat with the cutlery hovering over the plate. Then her stomach growled and it felt like she had the vacuum of space inside of her. She let the knife and fork fall to the table with a clang and dug in with her hands.

Life became a very small space around her. Never had she been given as much as she could eat. There was always an end. Today there was none. No matter how much she shoved in her face there was always more.

It was wonderful.

When she finally slurped down the last of the shake, she felt fuller than she had in years. Amy was dazed and had to pull her consciousness away from the meal as though dragging herself out of a trance. A crowd had formed on all sides, surrounding her. They were cheering and applauding.

Jim said over the roar, "How the heck did you pack all that away?"

"High metabolism." It wasn't a lie. That's what they told her in The Music Box. It wasn't that she burned through calories quickly; it was that she burned through as much as she put in. Amy always suspected that the diet and the limited portions were an attempt to control her and rein in her energy.

"I have to admit, I didn't think you had it in you. You really were hungry." Jim stood up and called across the restaurant, "Garret, get your butt over her and take this girl's picture."

"Picture?" Amy asked.

"For the wall of fame. You're a champion." Over by the door, she saw the photos of others who had completed the challenge. It seemed that at Jim's mention of a picture, a number of the people in the crowd got the idea to take one of their own with their phones. Amy realized she was in trap. There wasn't a snare around her leg but there might as well have been. The photos they took wouldn't just sit on that wall. They would go on the restaurant's website and would be posted on Facebook. Maybe no one here recognized her, but their friends or their friends' friends would.

This was not how to keep a low profile. She had to disappear and fast.

"I got to go to the bathroom," she said and pushed through the crowd ignoring Jim's protest.

"Honey, wait a moment," he called after her. "Half the fun is capturing all the mess."

Fortunately, the mess worked as more than just an attraction. Her cheerleading section gave way before her avoiding contact like she had leprosy. She was filthy. Grease and chili sauce ran halfway up her arms, which she held up in front of her as though preparing to do surgery. She could feel sauces and animal fat drying on her face.

In the women's room, she plunged herself under the tap scrubbing it off. She had to find some way to get out of there without any more attention and definitely without any photos.

There was a loud popping sound. Then someone in the restaurant screamed. The noise quickly picked up until the place was even louder than when she had gotten her applause, only there was no joy in these noises, only alarm. Without checking herself in the mirror or drying off, Amy rushed back out.

Everyone—absolutely everyone—was pressed to the front of the dining room, looking out the window. Something must have been happening outside, but Amy didn't care. This was her chance. Instead of heading back to the table, she went through the kitchen. The cooks didn't even notice. They were too busy trying to find out what was going on. Amy found the service door and escaped.

She felt bad she hadn't thanked Jim for sticking up for her, but it couldn't be helped. At least, he wasn't out of pocket anything, so she didn't feel like a thief. For the time being, she was still just a fugitive.

***

Being human was an illusion. When he paid the attendant at the gas station or ordered a BLT for lunch, people saw him as just a normal person. But they were fooled. Dr. Horus Benning had died years ago. The sunshine and the bright azure sky were reminders of how much he had been altered.

He was unable to look at these wonders of God's glory without squinting.

He had been forged in darkness as darkness.

Ghost or spirit, five letters, as a crossword clue might read.

The answer: shade.

That's what he had become a shadow. An absence of light that slid along the wall and the pavement and nobody paid much mind to. He was a lack of presence. When he left that gas station or that diner, no one remembered he had been there.

And mile after mile, Horus had traveled his non-being in pursuit of the Kyles. Follow the dots. That was his only thought. Follow the dots.

The yellow dots marking the Kyles buzzed about the computer screen, guiding him to his destiny. Drawing him to his fate as an agent of God.

They were moving slowly. They were in no hurry to get anywhere, it seemed. He caught up with the closest cluster in a nameless suburb of Odessa, Texas.

At first, he thought he must be mistaken. The two men sitting in the Chevy Blazer wore cowboy hats and had none of the familiar trappings of the Kyles. But it was the noses that gave them away.

The identical roman noses, which scooped down as though the faces were fixed in permanent sneers.

They were parked at the side of the main street, in front of a liquor store. Horus waited on the opposite side watching them through the car's side mirror. Lunchtime traffic made the area busy. Cars passed and parked and drove away again. People came in and out of the restaurants, sometimes patting their bellies with fullness, sometimes carrying take out bags. But the Kyles just sat in their truck.

It looked like they would stay there the rest of their lives, a rapidly shortening timeframe Horus hoped, until something changed. It were as though a bell Horus couldn't hear had gone off, setting the men in motion.

The two devils leapt from their truck. The way they patted at their jackets, checking to make sure the contents were in place, suggested they were armed. The Cowboy Kyles crossed the road weaving through the cars as though they were invincible—immortal.

Horus got out of his SUV and wandered up the sidewalk, willing himself not to be seen by the people who passed him.

"I am nothingness," he whispered to himself and the more he repeated it out loud, the more eyes turned away from him.

The Kyles were on the sidewalk in front of a steak house.

Horus spoke, raising his voice to make sure he was heard. "Excuse me do you have the time."

Cowboy Kyle Number One turned toward him and Horus jammed the sword up through his stomach and into his chest cavity.

Cowboy Kyle Number Two went to draw the gun from his shoulder holster, but Horus already had his Beretta raised. Like a boxer giving the old one-two, that had been his only plan as he left the car. Sword-gun. One-two.

The bullet caught Cowboy Kyle Number Two in the chest and the sound of the street turned to a ringing alarm. The mouths of people were screaming. Horus threw himself back in his SUV and tore off. A passerby had his own handgun and put a shot into the fender. Horus swerved onto the sidewalk and clipped him, sending the body sprawling. Horus was sorry to have to hurt someone who didn't wear that demon's face, but no one could stand in the way of God's will.

He swerved through the corner, and then another, and soon he disappeared like he had never been there.

Horus charted a course to the next dot.