#wsep1

Being a wolf is a beautiful and deadly thing, all that speed and power – oh, the jaws alone are worth the loss of humanity. To be a wolf is a thing of spring-loaded joy, a black-gummed panting death, of pack and ground, torn tendon, blood and broken bones, and feasting abandon beneath a split and howling sky, but... to be a wolf with the mind of a mortal man or woman - no.

No, we can’t be trusted with that kind of power without being broken by it. Not even the wise women of the Clutch.

So when the women of the Clutch had begun their blood song on the men of Baker’s Gap, it would only be a matter of time before that song was turned back upon every practicing holler witch in these parts.

She understood the women down in the Clutch, though. I mean, hell - you go without having any kind of power at all, having to hide what you have for so long that when you do get to let a little bit out to set something right, well it can be right painful to go back into hiding.

They had been loud and cloutish fools in white shirts and stupid-looking hats. They had prayed loudly in the road about casting out witches and ‘suffering them not to live,’ and they’d even attempted to reach out to the local grand dragon to get some white-hooded help. But even those bloated old bags of coleslaw knew better than to come down to the Clutch.

Either way, the two men were found tied to a tree on their nephew’s property, throats torn out, hands chewed off, stinking of animal piss and rot.

The bag contained Junior’s big army knife – oh, and his army ring, too… which was still on the finger of his severed right hand that was also in the bag, along with Junior’s teeth and tongue that rested in the pale desert of that bloodless palm.

It was clear from the tilt of their heads, the scent in the air, the way their bodies seemed to tune to the morning breeze, and the fluid indolence in their slightly swaying forms. Juble knew a pack when he saw one.

One by one, they turned their eyes on him. Their change was quick. Juble’s death was not.

“You are too late,” she said, and began to laugh. “Too late!” And her laughter grew.

“Too late, silly man!” Called a younger voice from somewhere else. Higher-pitched laughter joined the older woman’s croaking cackles. A third voice called something in a language Junior didn’t recognize and its voice began to laugh, too.

Junior stumbled back. The voices seemed to be all around him now, at least a half dozen of them, and he felt – strange, disoriented. His feet seemed heavy and his breathing was slow, and he stared down at his feet willing them to move and then when he looked up there was a snarl—

—and jaws closed on his throat.