Mutt led me back through the waterfall in silence. And maybe it was because I'd just handled that damned harmonica so much, or perhaps it was knowing that I was leaving the most peaceful place I'd ever encountered, but as soon as the water streamed across my face, a sense of longing came.

Living out in the West, mostly amongst various shades of brown and ugly, thorny plants—the Garden has a certain appeal. A soothing effect. Hell, if my people found out about this lush little oasis, there'd be a race for it that'd make the Gold Rush look like the Gold Crawl.

Timperina waited to greet me right where I'd left her. Only, that soothed nature didn't seem to extend to her. She faced me head-on, bobbing her head and anxiously tapping her front hoof.

"What is it, girl?" I asked.

She snorted, then whinnied and threw her head to the side. Dammit, did I wish I spoke horse.

"I wasn't gone that long.”

The full moon, already hovering in the sky, told me I was lying. Back in dog form, Mutt's ears stood, flicking back and forth. I had hearing better than most men, but it was nothing compared to animals. I listened hard as well and thought I heard what grabbed his attention and got Timp all riled up.

Howling. And this wasn't a train.

Mutt took off first, and I mounted Timp to follow. Naturally, she didn't want to.

"Oh, c'mon, you big baby," I said, though I didn't blame her.

We raced down through the fog, following Mutt's path for the easiest route. I checked my ammo on the way. Didn't have many silver shots left for my pistols and my rifle remained missing-in-action. My plan was to craft some rounds more once I made it to Revelation Springs, but you know what they say about plans… Men make 'em. God laughs.

Howls turned to growls, then came the shriek of a man. Mutt took a leap off a ledge, which Timp couldn't manage, so I guided her around the long way. A clearing in the fog revealed three werewolves circling their prey—a man pinned down beneath his own dead horse.

"Help!" he cried out.

"Looks like someone wandered a bit too far away from home," one of the werewolves said, or more like snarled the words out.

"Fresh meat," said another, snapping her jaws with an audible clack. The females are smaller but not generally weaker.

Their prey started sobbing. "Please… someone, help!

I could've left them to their meal. It was natural, so to speak. Nobody would stop a wolf from feeding on a deer. But then, I saw the face of their little snack.

"Son of a bitch, Dale!" I cursed.

Considering I didn't sense the agonizing itch of Shar's presence as I pondered saving him, I reckoned he had some role to play in what was to come. Or, maybe, he was right in my way, and Shar decided to throw me a bone, let me play hero.

"Not so fresh if you ask me!" I called down.

All three werewolves stopped and looked up at me as I drove Timp down the ridge, pistols trained on them. The one in the middle had a scar across his eye and a tuft of black fur along the center of his hunched spine. Ugly things, they are, but that's what you get when you slam two beings into one in a way that isn't meant to be.

Werewolves may not be direct demon-spawn, but they are wicked in a sense, even if they don't mean to be. The affliction brings about a bloodlust they can barely control when the moon turns full, especially in the younger ones. And I'd had my share of run-ins with them. Considering we ran in the same preternatural circles, it couldn't be helped.

"You…" the scarred one said.

My brow knitted. "Have we met?"

"You killed my cousin, Wolf Hunter! Gave me this." He ran one of his long, jagged claws across his scarred eye.

"Did I now?" It was impossible to know. I don't go around hunting the weres like he implied, but we got into a fair share of skirmishes. I skidded Timp to a stop, setting her perpendicular to the fight so I had a clean shot to my left.

"All you inbred runts look the same to me,” I said. “Now, you all back away slow, and we can all go our own ways. Don't be stupid. I've got the high ground."

"He's mine, Roscoe!"

The smallest of the three bounded toward me. Don't know what she was thinking, dashing toward an armed man one of them just called Wolf Hunter, but I put a bullet through the center of her head all the same. The price of being stupid, if you ask me. Steam and silvery sparks showered out as she tumbled down rock and landed in a messy heap of tangled limbs.

That was easy. Only spent one of my three remaining shots.

The other two split up, skittering along the rocks to get at me in a serpentine manner. I lined up a shot on one of them and took it. But what these shapeshifters lacked in brains, they made up for with dexterity and testicular fortitude. A last-second turn caused me only to catch it in the arm.

I decided to save my final bullet when Mutt jumped out of cover and crashed into the closest one's head, nails raking across the side of its face. So many sounds rose in the night, I wasn't sure which was Mutt and which was the werewolf, but I watched with bated breath as they fought.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

How something so small as Mutt brought that mammoth down, I do not know, but it happened all the same. Saw it with my own eyes. The thing bellowed and thrashed. I set a boot against Timp's saddle and shoved off. She gave me a purposeful buck to help propel me. Sometimes, Timp and I are just purely in sync.

As I fell, I lassoed the abomination around one of its big paws. Heaven’s raw judgment rendered it still and kept it from doing Mutt any damage as I yanked, throwing the thing off-balance and sending it careening down the incline. It yelped, bouncing against rock, and then again until it was too far down to hear. Dropping to the clearing, I rolled, caught my balance, and rose with one pistol cocked and ready to blow a hole through the scarred pack leader named Roscoe.

"Enough!" he thundered.

I held my fire. The werewolf had Mutt by the throat, all four legs kicking as he squealed to break free. Dale cried behind him, yanking futilely to free his leg from beneath his dead steed.

"Drop the dog," I warned.

"Toss the gun," Roscoe countered.

"Don't be a fool. Those shots were loud. You don't think his people will be here soon? Chop you up. Eat you. Use your bones to decorate their doorways? They don't waste a part."

"All I wanted was a tasty meal." Roscoe snarled back at Dale, who hid his face in terror.

"Don't I know the feeling," I lamented.

"You murdered my pack!"

"You don't know that other one's dead."

Roscoe growled.

"Look," I said. "You drop him, you walk away. I got no personal quarrel with your kind except you constantly getting in my damn way."

"And my meal?" Roscoe asked, turning back toward Dale.

"He stays too."

"I think I'd rather kill the Skinwalker. For my pack." A guttural sound rumbled deep from in the werewolf's gullet. His claw slid around the soft part of Mutt's throat, and the dog squealed. That was when I noticed that I could hear every last one of those noises. It was eerily quiet up here. Gave me an idea.

"Wait," I said. "I'll make you a deal. A trade. In exchange for his life." I nodded to the body of the werewolf to my right, head still steaming silver. "And to pay for hers."

"That was my sister," Roscoe spat.

"She attacked me first."

All I got in return was a soft growl. I stowed one pistol, then I slowly reached into the satchel I wore on my belt. Maintaining eye contact the whole way so he wouldn't get jumpy, I pulled out the cursed harmonica.

Roscoe scoffed. "That's all?"

"That's all?" I said, feigning insult. "It's made from the talon of a bear owl. Worth a small fortune. And the sound? Pure as a cut diamond."

It was a lie, but it made Roscoe perk up. I noticed his grip on Mutt loosen a hair.

"What's it gonna be?" I said. "Before his folk get here, and we all wind up dead."

"I'm thinking!" Roscoe snapped.

I may not have been able to trade the harmonica, but if it had enough power to scare Mukwooru, then I might as well put it to the test.

"Here, just listen." I brought the instrument to my mouth. I can't vomit—at least, I don't think I can—but I had the sudden urge to. My mind was flooded with images of Mutt's throat getting gashed, Mukwooru getting pissed, and me getting buried amongst the roots of the Life Tree for all eternity, where even Shar couldn’t break me out.

I exhaled slowly out of habit. A calming measure, though it did nothing substantial for me. I had to focus through the gloom.

I knew a bit about harmonica-playing from the old days. Hard to run with a crew large as the Scuttlers and not watch someone diddle around with a tune when we got stuck waiting around a campfire.

So, I played what I thought was a "G." Now, the truth is, I couldn't blow a melody from my ass after a pot of beans, but wouldn't you know it, the note hummed out perfectly into the crisp air, and the fog itself seemed to fold around the sound. I kept eye contact with Roscoe the entire time.

His face gave off a woozy look, and as the note hung, I lowered the harmonica and whispered, "Drop him."

Mutt fell that very instant.

Roscoe's eyes opened wide the very next moment, stunned at what he'd just done. I couldn't say I blamed him. I stunned myself a little too. I was no lesser Nephilim, but some of the goat-beast’s powers clearly remained in its instrument. Only, that ill feeling augmented me.

Controlling something else, that was a game for beings more powerful than I. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong and I hated doing it. But it had worked.

Resisting the overwhelming bleakness, I raised my Peacemaker, using my forearm to balance the barrel and fired. At the same time, Mutt recovered fast enough to bite the werewolf's ankle. Roscoe lurched in pain, so instead of a kill shot, I blew a hole right through his roaring mouth. Blood and smoke spewed from his torn cheek.

He flew back, scrambling to a stop just before joining his brother in a tumble down the ridge.

"I'll kill you, hunter," he growled. The words were muddled and confused sounding. "I promise you that. I'll eat your damn bloody heart!" By the end of his threats, he was shouting because he'd fled out of sight and vanished into the veil of fog.

"Good luck finding it!" I called back, knowing he wouldn't hear me. I'd be damned if he was getting the last word.

I turned to Mutt. "You all right, friend?"

He whined but nodded his scruffy head. Seeing him okay made me feel a bit better about crossing a line I didn’t particularly care to cross.

"Is he… was that… I…" Dale tripped over his words, and I'll be honest, I'd almost entirely forgotten he was there. His jaw hung slack as his mouth struggled to make sense of things. I crammed the cursed harmonica away, a cool sense of relief washing over me once it was out of sight, and strode toward him.

"Mr. Crowley, w-what were those things? I-I followed you here. Thought maybe you knew something to get the bounty, I…"

"Hey, Dale, you see that?" I asked, pointing to the right.

He quickly looked that way, and the moment he did, I bashed him in the back of the skull, knocking him out cold. He'd be fine… ish. Seeing unnatural events like he'd just witnessed does things to a man's brain. Best cure I've found is to jumble them up, tell them they banged their head and they were just seeing things.

"Sweet dreams," I said, patting him on the shoulder. Then I grabbed his fallen steed and hefted the heavy animal off his leg. Mutt joined in and gave me a little extra pull to get it done. When I stopped, I realized he was in his human form.

"Thanks," I said, falling back onto my rump for just a second's respite before Shar started bugging me to hustle. I gestured toward the dead werewolf nearby. "Guess that one makes us even, huh, kid?"

"Even," Mutt said softly.

"Even Steven."

His head tilted. "Who is Steven?"

"Nobody." I chuckled. "You'll tell Mukwooru it was me now, won't you? Get me in her good graces for the next time I come calling?"

He nodded.

"I knew I liked you. I'll take the fool with me. Keep him in the dark…" I paused. "I might not mention Dale to your people if I were you, considering what he saw."

"I won't lie," he said flatly.

"Leaving out certain details ain't lying, per se."

He didn't respond.

"Suit yourself." I pressed an elbow against the horse's corpse and used it to stand, careful not to let a hand touch. I didn't need to accidentally Divine such a gruesome end.

I extended my hand to Mutt. He eyed it for a few seconds, then gripped just the tips of my fingers. Shaking hands wasn't a custom his tribe was awfully familiar with, it seemed. Living in safety and seclusion here, half their time spent as dogs with paws, it made sense. But I wasn't about to lick him or sniff his ass.

"Good luck in your people's war, kid," I said.

"Good luck in yours, Black Badge."

One side of his lips lifted into the most awkward smile I'd ever seen. Another relic of spending so much time outside his human body.

What strange acquaintances I've got these days…