Caelan Harlowe's gene pool was a tar pit thick with brawling dire wolves. On nights when the moon fled the heavens and the still countryside fell underneath the expanse of his roaming paws, he hunted with the advantage of ten thousand years of ancestral victories through blood and pitch, of claw and fang vying for dominance. . .

The morning sun shone dewy on rusted tractors and a couple antique hacksaws nailed onto the barn's exterior.  Before the flaked paint and weathered rooftop of Connecticut's oldest still-in-use-today! hovel of cider mill stood a cheery chalkboard sign promising free hard cider tastings and fresh peaches. Next to it, Deputy Jali Mishra-Anderson was hesitantly patting the back of a man vomiting into a galvanized watering can.  Exasperation tugged her lips into a frown, one that thinned as her boss's truck pulled into the grass beside her cruiser.

"Harlowe!" she snapped, jogging over before he'd even shut the door. She dragged a bile-covered boot against his tire. "I'm done. Absolutely done. Pinch your nose and deal with that shit."

The sheriff looked the woman over, from her splattered boots to the faint glimmer of sweat underneath her chin. 

 "Little 's' or big 'S'?" he asked. 

"What do you think?"

Jali had the unfortunate timing of moving to the graveyard shift earlier in the week, and today was the fifth morning of a rare September heat wave. The report had been called in as she'd been to headed to her cozy, air-conditioned apartment not ten minutes from the farm. She'd made the initial determination that the crime was indeed supernatural in nature.

The sheriff cast a long glance to a treeline masked by stout peach trees and green apples. Then, setting his hat on straight, he nudged the deputy's foot off his tire and smiled at the petite raincloud. "Sun's shining a little too bright for you, ain't it?"

"Oh, fuck off, cowboy."

He raised his eyebrows. "We're in the presence of civilians, Jali. Mind your manners."

"Fuck off cowboy, sir."

Satisfied, the man brushed past her. "You'll be finishing what you started, but do feel free to whine as we walk."

"I'm not—" Jali pursued her lips and fell into step.

He waited a few moments longer, then asked, "What do we know?"

"This idiot—"

"Victim," he corrected dutifully.

Jali had a good nose for separating wheat from chaff. She excelled at sniffing out carefully concealed bones in any one's closet, but tended to draw catastrophically incorrect conclusions as to how that bit of Mrs. Weathersby ended up in her nephew's shoebox. Or even that the bone in question belonged to Mrs. Weathersby and wasn't actually a completely unrelated wishbone her nephew had taken from a chicken carcass he'd found on the side of a dumpster.

On several occasions she'd rapidly arrested people on grounds as sturdy as, "I don't like his face" and "But he looks like a pedo, sir." and his personal favorite, "Oh, c'mon. Only psychos move themselves into their neighbor's attic because the heater's broken in their own."

"Victim," Jali snorted, tucking brown hair behind her ear. "Dude let his wife investigate strange movement in the parking lot around 1AM. Alone, Harlowe. Bedroom window ajar. No AC. They both hear kittens screaming and he lets her toddle off into the night solo." 

The paired turned to regard the white picket farm house. 

"That's the window, there." Jali pointed, her dark palm glossy with sweat. "No lights in the lot.  Barn cat was shrieking murder. Mr. Hayes grabbed a flashlight off the nightstand. He and Mrs. Hayes stood at the window, scanning the area. Something slunk behind the tractor. Mrs. Hayes, Adaliz, determined it was a large bobcat, possibly a cougar. She wasn't one to believe Fish and Game about the lack of lions in the state after that one got hit by a car on Route 15 a few years back. Anyway, their barn cat was nursing kittens and they were gonna be gifts to her nieces. Per Mr. Hayes, aka Toby, aka the asshole, his wife headed out to 'send that hellcat back where it belongs.'"

"And his opinion on the sighting?"

"Didn't think a couple kittens were worth calling animal control over.  Already dead, according to him, as the cries had stopped by the time his wife made it out of the house. They've had wild cat trouble in the past. Caught one on security cams recent as two weeks ago.  Asked for the files, but apparently there's a clear bobbed tail. No question of species."

"Then?"

"Then Mr. Hayes returned to bed. His wife's registered carry and conceal. Figured she could take care of herself. He fell asleep without realizing she hadn't returned. Claims he was feeling a bit under the weather and that's why he slept so quick as to not hear any struggle, but I'm sure that's guilt talking. Apparently Adaliz was an early riser, so it wasn't unusual for her to be out early checking pick-your-own conditions. Mr. Hayes woke at 6:30 to oversee a corn delivery from some farm in Simsbury. When he didn't see today's PYO forecast that's when realization sank in. Found her in the barn."

"Realization?"

"His word."

The sheriff nodded. "Cause?"

"Momentarily, undetermined. Trent and Milo are pulling the body now."

"And this case belongs to our department?"

"I know a fucking—"

"Civilians, Jali. Wouldn't want to start a mass panic."

"I know flittermice when I smell 'em," she finished, wrinkling her nose, one hand on her hip, jaw thrust as if to ask if that little piece of inanity was a neutered enough expression. "This one took a loose shit backside the weathervane."

Caelan didn't bother making a fool of himself trying to smell a vampire's residue; neither was he hoping for a breeze's excremental change of direction. Jali was a werewolf of a line so diluted she'd been left with fast growing keratin and an unusually good sniffer—a rarity in human form, something pureblooded wolves lacked in their sheepskin.

"Any fight?"

"Husband heard nothing if she did. Not a single bullet used, either. Hard to tell from the body. You know how it is with ...flittermice. If I didn't know what'd been pulled out of the vat, I'd say it's a marvelous looking batch of apple wine."

Movement to their right caught the sheriff's attention. At once his hand was on his deputy's shoulder, steering her toward Mr. Hayes.

"Keep him out of the barn.  Get any cameras on the property and have them sent to Jorge."

For a moment Jali's face screwed up indecisively, as if she were about to call him half a dozen names ending in foul words, then she must've thought it'd better serve her to whisper them behind his back, because she nodded and managed an overly agreeable, "Got it."

The barn door creaked as he pulled it open. Jali's hand landed on his wrist. When he turned, amber gold eyes tinted with exasperation, she said, "Hey, cowboy?"

"Yeah?"

"Hate speaking ill of the dead—"

"No, you don't."

"Hate speaking ill of your dead—"

"You especially love doing that."

Jali rolled her eyes. "Look, I'm glad you're back, sir. August was a pain my ass, if you get my drift."

"I'm sorry."

"Literally, sir."

"I know."

"You think he'll come back?"

"I do."

"Then put two in him for me."

*

The woman lay on a soaked bed sheet spread across the mill floor.  Evidently Mr. Hayes had a bit of  panic attack at seeing his wife's bloodless corpse dragged over the edge of the vat, arms limp, dark hair pearled with sticky gold liquid. They'd also had a bit of trouble with him screaming about her not being allowed directly onto the floor, and in the interim, the sheet had been agreed upon. 

There was no heat in the cider mill and the woman had only a nightgown, poor protection against a potential bobcat, so the woman had bundled up with gloves and a hat and thick winter coat. Her body had landed or been placed into the vat -- currently TBD-- while her purple scarf had been discovered fluttering in the rafters.

Adaliz reminded him of Marcy in a half a dozen small ways: a slight little creature of delicate bone structure and wide brown eyes possessing, based on Jali's statements, a broken 'flight or fight' switch. 

Several local officers huddled around the barn interior as Caelan's team set to work. Until werewolves had been exposed to the general public, his team would sweep through and 'steal' cases of questionable origin. Now, there'd been an instant and, in his opinion, idiotic push in the judicial department to have man and beast work together without things like training and education and several lectures and field trials for discussions such as, 'sexual assault or  werewolf?' and 'the effectiveness and economy of silver dust vs pure silver bullet.'

"We would've stopped the process sooner," an Officer Trubisky grunted. He was a stout man with a thick neck flushed from the accumulated heat.  "Didn't see the throat until retrieval. There was so little blood we'd thought she might've broken her neck or suffered some internal injury. Called as soon as we'd realized what department she belongs to." 

With gloved hands, Caelan gently pulled the woman's hair to one side. Underneath the bright white lights they'd brought in for a more through visual of the crime scene, Adaliz Hayes was almost sparkling, her lips plump and touched with an unnatural blue, her pale skin speckled with mashed apple.  And then he tipped her chin gently to the side. From the back of her scalp to her stomach she'd been shredded through by razor-edged claws and fangs. Dried blood, partially washed clean, as if the creature might've balanced on the edge to bathe the woman, scrubbing away all evidence of its tongue's hungry strokes. 

"And on her side, punctures," Trubisky continued.

"Claws," Caelan said dismissively, tilting his head toward the rafters. Within the confines of his sheep skin and the musty wood and sweet decay of fermentation, he doubted even Jali could get a fair whiff of the vamp. The thing had crawled away some time before sunrise, he reasoned, and likely wasn't far.

"I'll have to shift," he said, making sure that the sound was more command than statement of something as flimsy as a request for permission. "See the blood here? The stippling around the mouth?  She's been fed."

There was a murmuring behind the two men. Trubisky crouched beside the sheriff. "So she...?"

"Doesn't belong in your morgue." 

Officer Trubkisy considered his options, and, finding none, prompted a tentative, "What's protocol for a fresh  vampire?" 

"Standing policy gives control over to our office," he said, and pulled his gun from its holster. He set it against the woman's cool skin with such a calm, easy motion not a single hand raised to stop him. "Traditional processing runs through the head," he explained. "Vamps transition best when the victim is still alive. Studies have shown there's about a ten minute window for a vamp to Turn its victim before the body doesn't take. Studies have also shown that when the vic is deceased, as Mrs. Hayes here was, she isn't likely to be Mrs. Hayes on waking."

"Then it appears she's all yours, Sheriff."

Vague disappoint flashed through Caelan's eyes, watching how quick they were to turn over an undead citizen. Times were changing. He was not a traditional sheriff, unless he had to be, and he no longer had to be. 

But this talk of cold-blooded murder for a woman who had a, granted; negligible chance to come out the other side as something other than a wailing murderess... and Trubisky had passed her off like a dead bobcat to a researcher. 

So many people, even the ones who needed to know, were so much happier to stay in their own kind of dark.

*

Caelan sat at his desk that evening, jingling some dumbshit dangly cat toy in the face of an extremely unimpressed black Maine Coon. While she'd grown slightly tolerant of him, his allergies had not gotten any more tolerant of her. One paw lifted, the cat watched the sparkly mouse?bird? feathered frog? skip around a box of files, then knocked his phone off the desk corner.

"Brat," he hissed, getting out of his chair. 

Igor hissed right back, yawned, and fixed her crooked yellow eyes on his name plate.

The door creaked. Both feline and werewolf looked over their shoulders. 

Jorge was wearing an oven mitt on one hand. In the other, he grasped an SD card and a photocopied tabloid article. "Bossman," he said, stepping cautiously into the room. A ridge of dark fur shot along the cat's spine. He flinched. "How's it going?"

"Depends on if what you've got is pushing me past thirty hours without sleep." 

"Got an update on the Wijit we've been working on." Leading with the oven mitt, he set the paper onto the desk. Igor stuck her nose out to sniff the mitt, and Jorge went about as still and breathless as a man could be sans turning into a pillar of salt. 

The sheriff's interest rose and fell at the sight of the paper's name.

"Shit, Jorge. If this is another creek you've dumped me in without a paddle, I swear to God I'll—"

"Clean and open water this time," Jorge continued plugging a USB into the sheriff's computer. He didn't once look at Caelan, and missed the USB attachment twice, so fixed on the cat. "Hope you haven't eaten yet." At Caelan's nod, he pulled a chair around to sit beside the sheriff and man the keyboard. 

He held his gloved hand up at Igor's side. 

"If she knows you're afraid she'll pick on you," Caelan said, knowing full well even if you weren't she'd pick on you. 

"I am afraid, boss," he replied, pulling a file from a folder labeled 'Wijit.' "Takes place 'bout three-quarters of a mile past border of the Davy Crockett National Forest. Boy claims he was paid by a man in a suit to retrieve a trail cam left at one of the park's picnic shelters." Jorge dropped his hand on Caelan's knee, gave it a cheery pat and added, "Normally I'd leave you to it, but it's Marcy alright, and my God, boss, she's hard to watch."

"She's easier to watch than experience," Caelan said automatically, glancing at the run time. Four minutes and 19 seconds. An odd time for a trail recording. He suspected Jorge had complied the footage into one continuous set.

As if she knew who they were watching, Igor leaped off the desk --Jorge yelped despite not being her target-- and into the sheriff's lap.

The hunter, barely distinguishable from the trees until he stepped toward the trail cam and lowered himself into focus, appeared to be setting up the camera on a wide game trail. It was night; approximately 1:45 AM if the time stamp was accurate; not atypical, considering he was likely seeking illegal prey. 

As he moved away, picking up a bag from offscreen, he paused. A shadow in the distant corner shook the brush. In the grainy infrared vision of the camera a rack of antlers bobbed and froze; the brush was too thick to make any determination of its features beyond one luminescent white eye and a mane of silver hair.  But it wasn't the eye of any buck or mutant doe; darkness pricked the center, made the camera flinch and shiver in those pixels.

The hunter lifted his gun.

The animal sat back on its haunches with all the feminine grace of an emaciated vixen, pale skin stretched across its naked chest so thinly if it weren't for the resolution they might've seen the outline of its heartbeat, and wagged one clawed finger.

The gun popped in a bright, granulated explosion. 

"What the fuck is she?" Jorge was saying over the crackle of splitered bone. His fingers dug into Caelan's knee. "What the fuck is she?"

But Caelan had long stopped listening. His eyes were locked on the monitor. The creature continued to feed, but in the background, low to the ground, a second set of eyeshine had appeared. The squat, ugly river cat -- an eyra, Marcy had once called it-- looked beyond his cursed charge and hissed in an oily voice that didn't come from the speakers.

The day is coming, sheriff, when she'll turn you into worm dirt, too.

He leaned forward in his chair, chin on his fist, amber gold eyes fixed on the bloody scene, and deep within his core an ancient, gnashing fury dragged itself through the black slurry of tar.

WELCOME WELCOME WELCOME

Song is "Wolves" by Sam Tinnesz