Elizabeth was fiddling with his hair again. Levi had been in the pack house for three days, and Elizabeth had come at him with a comb twice a day, proclaiming her intent to tame the mess of reddish-brown hair atop his head. Today’s product of choice was a kind of pomade that claimed to be “the stickiest known to man!”

Levi wished the stuff luck. It’d need it.

“You’re staring at your phone again,” Rosa commented, coming in front the kitchen. She was carrying two plates, one for each of them, while Levi sat on the couch. He was, indeed, staring at his phone again. “They’re your friends. I’m sure they’d love to hear from you, whether you have answers for them or not.”

"It’s complicated,” Levi insisted. It really wasn’t. Levi was just being a little bitch about it.

“You told them you’d call.”

“I know,” he groaned, drawing out the word. “Don’t remind me.”

“That is literally my intent. That’s the entire point of this conversation.”

“That’s not fair though! I have enough demons guilt-tripping me.” Levi pressed his phone screen to his forehead for a few seconds, then looked around it to peer at Rosa’s face. She had an eyebrow raised.

“Oh, so I’m a demon?”

“Wha-”

“A demon and a guilt-tripper?”

“N-no, no, that’s not what I meant!”

Rosa didn’t look convinced. “Well, why don’t I just leave you alone to stew with your other demons then?” She turned as if to go.

Levi grabbed her wrist desperately. “Please don’t be mad at me,” he begged.

Rosa glanced over her shoulder. She was smirking.

“... You’re making fun of me.”

“Obviously.”

“That’s not very nice.”

“I have never claimed to be nice, Levi.”

“Whipped,” Arthur mouthed at him from the other side of the room.

The man grumbled even as she slid over to land in his lap with enough force to make them bounce on the couch.

“Call them,” she insisted.

“... Okay.”

“Your hair,” Elizabeth grunted above him, “is unnatural.”

He called them.

Hammer and Hydra Craft Brews was a little combination bar and restaurant built in an odd corner of the city. It faced the waterfront, where a small marina filled with houseboats of different colors and sizes bobbed up and down with the waves. Had Levi asked the owner of the marina who the vessels belonged to, the man would have replied that it was none of his business. But, if he had asked just the right questions in just the right way, he would have found out that they all were registered to some obscure branch of the federal government, and that, as far as he knew, that same branch was paying all of their mooring fees through proxies and misattributed bank accounts.

But Levi did not ask those questions. Instead, he watched the flashing neon sign above the Hammer and Hydra, its glowing lines depicting a smiling fisherman reeling in some kind of monster with seven heads.

Hydra, presumably. Levi never was much for mythology.

He climbed out of the passenger seat of Elizabeth’s Ford Fusion, stretching. Baxter, who had managed to cram himself into the back seat, practically fell out of the door as he freed himself from the car’s interior. It really wasn’t that small of a car, but Baxter was too big for normal-people cars and would be uncomfortable in anything short of a Chevy Equinox.

“Welcome to the grey town,” Elizabeth said with a twinkling smile as she climbed free. Her capris and her shirt, which was cream colored and blousy at the front, were both crisply pressed and perfectly clean, just the way she liked them.

“I appreciate you two showing me the ropes,” Levi said, tucking his hands into the pockets of his jeans. It was dark, partly cloudy, and the streetlights buzzed with the dull fluorescence of mercury vapor lights that had not yet been replaced with the more modern LEDs that filled the rest of the city. “I never got shown much of this world. Not the good parts, anyways.”

“Derrick said as much,” Baxter nodded.

“His job is so stressful,” Elizabeth sighed. “I don’t understand why he hasn’t found a new line of work. He really is meant for bigger, better things. Instead he gets wielded like some kind of club, used to beat down anything out of place.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Baxter said as they stepped up to the door. Already, Levi could hear the pulsing heartbeat of the music emanating from inside. The smell of food and the sound of people was leaking out of the building and filling the deserted roadside. “I think he likes his job in a way. I think he feels like he’s making a difference.”

“Your optimism is always a comfort, Baxter,” Elizabeth said, nudging him lightly. They were a good pair.

“How long have you two been together?” Levi asked.

Baxter and Elizabeth exchanged a look, then grinned at him. “Together?” Elizabeth asked. “We’re just packmates Levi, nothing more.”

Levi blinked.

“O-oh!” He gawped. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just figured...” He trailed off. They just seemed so close, like they knew each other too well to be anything shy of... involved. He felt heat in his cheeks, which was impressive, because he was usually shameless.

“We’re packmates, Levi,” Baxter chuckled. “That’s... enough.”

“That’s everything,” Elizabeth chimed lightly.

“That’s everything,” Baxter grinned next to her.

Levi felt his own isolation with such an obscene jab that it seemed to physically cut into his flesh. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Technically, he was supposed to be a member of the Santa Cruz pack. Packs were determined, primarily although not exclusively, by the bloodline of curse that you had gotten infected with. Arthur was from the Santa Cruz pack, and so their cursed blood had flowed in his veins, and now flowed in Levi’s. But Levi had never been with his pack.

Elizabeth gently cupped his cheek. Levi shivered at the crackle under his skin, the curse inside of him sizzling at its proximity to another of his kind.

“You’re a packmate too, I think,” she said. Levi’s heart ached. His eyes slid to one side, then down. Elizabeth kissed him on the forehead, then drew her hand away. “Now then! Let us have some fun and show Levi here how the world really works.”

Apparently, the ultimate truth to the governmental conspiracy constructed around hiding the existence of paranormal entities centered on bacon double cheeseburgers, because that’s what he ordered off the menu. It was dripping with grease and melted cheese and it was absolutely horrible for him, but when had that ever stopped him from shoving something into his gob.

“Scho good,” he slurred around a mouthful of cheeseburger, much to Elizabeth’s obvious dismay. The music was a bassy, jazzy thrum, and the lights overhead were dimmed almost too low, keeping details hazy and amber-tinted.

Levi glanced around the room, eyes flicking between... well, everyone. His nose twitched and, under the smell of the food he was stuffing into his maw, his world was abuzz with a world of strange smells and sights. Ozone and dirt and cinnamon.

Masks. There were a great many masks. Different shapes and sizes and colors, some with glitter spattered across their lacquered surfaces, some with glowsticks braided into them. It felt like it should be creepy, like something out of a bad movie. But there was something in how everyone was moving, how they jostled and laughed and chatted, that made it difficult to be too afraid.

“Izzy, Bax!” came a deep, rumbling voice from near the bar. The big man pushed through the mishmash of people in his way, muttering his apologies. He was a bulky man, heavyset, with a large gut and a mask over the top of his face. There was a single eye slit that ran across the blue and red surface, and Levi couldn’t see into the shadows of it. The man smelled odd. Old. Like dust and time and the pleasant decay of a place that had been important once and was still being lovingly cared for.

Baxter stood once the man had gotten close and wrapped his arms around the pudgy figure. “Fisher, how the hell are ya?”

“Good!” he laughed. “Fat! Getting fatter. That girlie you found for the kitchen is too good at her job!”

“Holly?” Elizabeth asked. “I’m glad she’s proved to be a good fit! She really did seem to love to cook, but, well, you never know how people will take to a new life.”

“You two have a knack for matching up strays with their forever homes,” the man said jovially. He released Baxter, though Baxter, notably, kept his hand on the big man’s shoulder. Werewolves were so weird, always touching... “Is this the newest one?” he grinned down at Levi.

“Something like that,” Baxter laughed. “Dexter brought this one home like a cat with a mouse.”

“I heard that!” shouted a petite young woman as she bustled by. She was carrying a tray of food out towards a table and, though she wore no mask, something odd was swaying behind her. A tail! She had a tail!

… Well, Levi wasn’t in a position to judge.

“No offense Holly,” Baxter hummed easily.

The woman with a tail, Holly, elbowed him in the ribs as she scampered past and back into the kitchen. Elizabeth sniggered, covering her mouth with a single, delicate hand.

“So, I’m not your first charity case?” Levi questioned.

Fisher gave a guffaw. “The San Francisco pack is such a hodge-podge it’s a miracle these two hold it together at all. But they’re little miracle workers, yessir! Not just wolves too, I know Will is around here somewhere...”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Oh, I thought he was off tonight,” Elizabeth said, peering around the space. The warm, dim lighting made it hard to make out specific people, their shapes blending together into a pulsing, twisting mass, one big body.

Levi had to imagine it was intentional. It made sense. Anonymity was a shield. He wondered how many different species were in this room.

“He is,” Fisher nodded. “But he hangs around the Hydra more often than not. Not a lot of friends, that one.”

Baxter sighed, sharing a look with Elizabeth. “He was always... a bit of a loner,” Baxter said. “He’s had a hard life.”

Levi didn’t know who this Will person was, but he was beginning to understand what Elizabeth and Baxter had meant by the “grey town”. This was a focal point, a place of congregation, where things society didn’t want to see could gather and be themselves, could have a social life, and a regular job, a regular life.

For the most part. Levi wondered what living on a houseboat was like. Did they just... poop right into the bay?

There was a sharp crack across the room as his world filled with the smell of ozone. Laughter ensued and a man waddled past him towards the bathrooms, hairs standing on end, looking vaguely singed.

“Word to the wise,” Baxter snorted to Levi. “Don’t flirt with a sprite. You will strike out, and they will zap your furry ass.”

“Noted,” Levi chuckled anxiously. Some part of his brain (which felt frustratingly like a part of Arthur’s brain) wondered if they ever got freaky with their mana. Levi proceeded to shove the remaining half of his cheeseburger into his mouth in one, massive bite.

“Oh gross,” Elizabeth groaned, averting her eyes.

Baxter and Fisher both laughed, and Levi felt good about it. “Do the sea-food bit!” Baxter encouraged. Elizabeth visibly gagged, standing from the table.

“Animals!” she decried.

“Watch it mama,” Holly hummed as she strode past with a jug of beer, “you might OD on all that irony.”

“The sass!” Elizabeth complained. She complained, but she was smiling.

“Elizabeth, I have a question about being a wolf,” Levi said suddenly as he swallowed the last of his burger.

“Oh,” Arthur chimed from far away, “so you’ll ask her questions but not me? Rude.”

Levi’s lip quirked up a tiny bit, but he kept going. “Are they your pack too? Holly and Will and Derrick and...” he trailed off as Elizabeth grinned at him.

“Something like that Levi. I rather think you’ll be a good wolf. You seem to be getting the hang of things rather quickly. Now wipe your mouth. You look like a savage.”

Levi did as he was told.

“So, Levi, you’re a new pup, huh?” Fisher asked.

Levi nodded, looking up at the slit in the mask. He assumed that was where the man’s eyes were. Eye? Eh. He felt like the man could see more than just what was right in front of him, even though he wasn’t quite sure what that meant.

“What pack are you from? By blood, I mean.”

“Uh, Santa Cruz.”

Fisher grinned. His teeth were yellow with age, even though he didn’t look much over forty. “’s a good pack. Kind, easygoing folk. Heard some stirrings from down there recently but the Bureau is keeping things pretty hush-hush. I wonder if that has anything to do with you.”

“Could be,” Levi said, scowling, “but I doubt it. Redding is more who I’m having trouble with.”

“Mm, Redding’s always been trouble,” Fisher said with a nod. “But, that said, you’re here now, and you’re safe with the San Francisco pack. Maybe it’s not quite your blood home, but Bax and Izzy will take good care of ya!”

“We were actually hoping to show him the basement,” Elizabeth said.

Fisher’s face scrunched up. “Why?” he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

“Levi here,” Baxter said, reaching over to tussle Levi’s messy hair, “hasn’t been with his own kind. Period. He doesn’t know how the world works.”

“I wish you two would leave my hair alone,” Levi complained lamely. That was a flat-out lie, and all three of them knew it. He absolutely craved their touch, and the tender pats, hugs, and jostles of the other members of the San Francisco pack he’d met. But Levi had appearances to keep up dammit!

He hoped he never got the urge to sniff someone’s butt. He might just have to throw himself into the sea if that happened.

“I wish he would too,” Elizabeth cut into his thoughts. “I work very hard to tame his hair!”

“To little success,” Baxter pointed out.

“And you don’t help,” Elizabeth sniffed, tilting up her chin. She turned her gaze back to Fisher. “So, what do you say?”

Fisher shrugged. “No skin off my back. C’mon then, you can settle up later.”

They climbed to their feet and Levi followed them, ignorant but curious, through the dining room. From there they went down a narrow hallway that ran alongside the kitchen (Fisher barely fit in the hall due to his bulk) and down a set of stairs, then another, and came to a big metal door. Fisher pulled out a set of keys. They jingled musically, and Levi found them a little hard to look at, almost as if they were glowing.

Fisher inserted the keys into the metal door, and it popped open with a happy click.

Ahead of them was a long hall filled to the brim with people of all shapes and sizes. How the sound of all those people wasn’t audible from outside the door was mystifying, not to mention how the hell they were keeping the space ventilated. It was a long, brick corridor with arches spanning the ceiling and the sides of the structure. It was lined with doors on either side, under each arch, and split in the center like a cross. LED lanterns were hung above the doorways and the main body of the corridor was lit with full-spectrum lights, which supported a row of planters under their rays. The planters were filled with impossibly well-maintained flowering plants, many of which seemed wildly out of season.

The corridor was about twenty five feet wide, and Levi figured it must have been at least a mile long.

“The city below the city!” Fisher proclaimed as a creature with four arms and four eyes waddled past. “Welcome to the Black! San Francisco’s undercity. You would not believe what a nightmare keeping this place dry and reinforced is. Between the water and the earthquakes, let’s just say that we get wet socks every now and then.”

“H-how,” Levi stammered, “do you have this here? How many people-?”

“Just shy of two thousand. Bigger than it was when this place got built.”

A feral looking child scrambled by on all fours, being chased by what looked to be literal garden gnome. The giant conical hat felt like overkill. No one was paying them any mind.

But not all of the people milling about between doors or relaxing at the plaza where the two axes of the tunnel met looked different. Most of them, in fact, looked perfectly ordinary. A great many of them wore masks of the same sort he had seen in the Hydra and Hammer above, but other than that they just seemed like... people.

“C’mon then,” Fisher said, stepping into the corridor. “Let's go find the other stray.”

Fisher took them through the bustle of people, politely ignoring the way Levi sniffed and snuffled at the air. It was a vibrant cacophony of scents, blues and reds and greens smeared across his senses with the iridescence of an oil slick. They turned into a small doorway just before the central plaza of the space and walked down a fairly narrow corridor that seemed to lead to a space underneath the underneath. Pipes and wires dominated the space, a utility area where the plumbing and power was run for the whole little city.

“Oh, I smell him,” Elizabeth commented, squeezing past Fisher to take the lead. They walked through a maze-like section of narrow pathways until the space opened up a tiny bit. Some kind of pump was running here, filling the room with a dull, distant buzz. Sitting on the floor, looking up at them balefully, was a black dog with golden eyes. Its fur was shaggy and unkempt, and its eyes seemed to swirl like molten gold, shifting and twisting in hypnotic fashion.

Levi blinked.

He found himself looking at, not a dog, a teenager. Black skinny jeans, a black hoody, and black hair hung low over his shimmering eyes. The kid had a mean little scowl, and a silver snakebite piercing through his bottom lip.

“What?” Levi whispered.

“So much for reality being perception,” Arthur mused softly from behind him.

“Oh. It’s you guys,” the kid said. Then, eyes widening: “Hey, hold on! Let me keep my dignity!” But it was too late. Elizabeth and Baxter had the kid wrapped up in their arms, lifted into the air, squeezing and squeezing. “I’m gonna pop!” the teen wheezed, eyes bulging. He did, indeed, look like he was about to pop.

Baxter and Elizabeth finally released him. “Sorry, sorry,” Baxter said with a grin. “We just missed you.”

“Jeez,” the teen said, brushing himself off. “Not everyone is indestructible like you two are. Have mercy on the rest of the world.”

“How often do we get to visit?” Elizabeth countered. “You could use some bruises to remember us by.”

“Sounds weird,” the teen grumbled, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He was, notably, avoiding eye contact with Levi. “Who’s this guy?”

“Oh, uh, hi,” Levi said, feeling awkward. This felt like sleeping over at a friend’s house and seeing his parents kiss, or something like that. “I’m Levi.”

“... Will,” the teen muttered. For a moment, Levi thought the kid was being rude. Then he realized the boy was just shy. “I’m not good with new people. Sorry.”

“Hey, no worries,” Levi reassured. “I know how that goes. Hey, how did you do that trick? With the whole... looking like a dog thing. That was really impressive!” Levi figured calling it cool would help the kid get more comfortable with him. Everyone likes compliments.

Will looked at the floor.

“It’s not voluntary. Depends on what someone needs to see, I think.”

Then the kid stopped talking. The silence lengthened.

“It’s not really looking like a dog,” he eventually continued. “I am the dog. But I’m the person too. I’m both, at the same time.”

“That sounds like quantum physics,” Levi noted, thinking back to his father’s extensive lectures on the subject. So much chaos, relationships changed by the mere act of observation.

“Something like that,” Will muttered.

“Hey,” Baxter said, nudging the teen. “We’re showing Levi around. He’s new to this side of the world and needs a few pointers. Come with us.”

“... Sure,” the kid said.

The boy looked up and met Levi’s eyes.

His eyes flashed a pale blue, the color of a summer sky.

Levi’s head spun, vertigo setting in immediately. Levi blinked, and the kid’s eyes were gold again. Another blink, and his eyes were blue, hair was blond, a hulking figure with drawn back fangs.

Reinhart.

His hair stood on end as he took a step back.

Somewhere, someone was asking him a question. Somewhere, Arthur was trying to calm him down, assuring him that it was all an echo.

But there was Reinhart.

Levi felt the growl rising in his throat before he knew what was happening. His heart thrashed in his chest like the beast in the cage. His gums felt sore and bloody.

“I’m here for you,” Reinhart said.

Levi rushed the man, a snarl tearing from his mouth. Something caught him, held him back, and he thrashed and tore, eyes burning like coals in the shadows of the room.

“You want to take from me!?” He roared at Reinhart. “You want to take my life? My friends? Fuck you! I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll gut you, you bastard!” He struggled forward, and Reinhart watched on, grinning with blinding white teeth. Cocky. Arrogant.

“You took my son from me, Levi,” Reinhart said. “I have the right to take from you. It’s only fair.”

“I’ll tear out your fucking throat!” Levi snarled in return.

Suddenly he was against the wall.

Suddenly he was on the tracks, feet on the rail ties.

Suddenly he was under water, gasping in as his grandmother held him under.

He was listening to his mother, who was not his mother, discuss what a disappointment he was on the phone. As if he couldn’t hear her. As if he couldn’t fucking hear her!

He was listening to his father, who slammed a palm down on the table. “We went over this Levi,” the man rumbled, tapping the equation with the end of a pen. “You shouldn’t need my help. You’ll do it until it’s correct.”

Levi’s tears left little splotches on the page.

He was watching his father, who was not his father in any sense, a man with blond hair and pale blue eyes, show him how to tie the hook to the line. “We need it to be sturdy,” the man explained, holding it up so Arthur could see. “Otherwise, the fish will eat the hook and tear it free.”

He was watching his grandmother sink into the ground in a little brown box. His father held his hand, squeezed it so hard he thought his bones would break.

“Rot in hell, Abuela,” he whispered, and it felt good.

He was outside, hands and knees on the pavement as he puked up his bacon double cheeseburger into the gutter. The air was cold on a face drenched in sweat. Baxter rubbed his back.

Levi had clawmarks in his arms and sides where Baxter and Elizabeth had forcefully restrained him. They had dragged him outside, under the flickering buzz of the streetlights.

“I’m sorry!” he wheezed, mouth filled with the taste of bile.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Elizabeth soothed. “It’s not your fault.”

Wasn’t it though? Wasn’t it his fault for letting it get this bad? For putting it off until he couldn’t tell what was real and what was in his head.

Arthur sighed. “I should have done better with you, Levi.”

“I’m waiting,” purred his mother in his ear.

He heaved again into the gutter.