“Well, go ahead,” the magistrate ordered his man. “Open it up, man. We’ve got to see what’s going on.”

Nathan thought he already knew. He had seen it before. Not often. But he had seen what happened when a werewolf pack went on a rampage.

He still wasn’t ready for the destruction that revealed itself to them when the guard pulled open the gate.

Even knowing the terrible strength of the beasts, he hadn’t expected this. Not from a single she-wolf.

One building was on fire, and nobody even tried to quench the flames. The fire and darkness threw everything else into a terrible relief. The dirt mixed with the blood of the dead. Bodies littered the main street, human and animal alike. The surviving life stock wandered around aimlessly. No doubt there was more death just out of sight: The doors had been ripped out of several houses, and where the doors had held, the mad beast had gone through the thatched roofs, even the walls.

A woman sat on the steps in front of her smashed door, arms wrapped around a bundle. Nathan couldn’t tell if there was a child inside or just a dead body.

A couple of cows were wandering down the street, both of them smeared in blood.

“Five frozen hells.”

The swearing journalist made Nathan jump.

“Lord Feleke,” the magistrate asked, voice shaking, “are you sure this was a single werewolf? It looks like an army went through here!”

“This wasn’t a werewolf,” Nathan said quietly. “This was a monster.”

“But—but how? In all my years as an investigator… I have never seen anything like this! Even gang wars don’t get this bad!”

Nathan bit his lips. If he told them, would that make it better or worse? If he described how a werewolf could chew through logs, bite even into steel, spitting out the wood chips and blood and broken teeth—only to transform and keep going—would it even change anything in the face of a whole village, murdered in a single night—no, a few hours?

“The curse,” was all he said.

He looked around the village again. They should be helping, shouldn’t they? Look for survivors, check on that woman right there?

At least stop the dogs from eating the dead?

“I’ve never seen anything like this, either,” he admitted, swinging himself forwards a step, stopping again. “This isn’t—normal. Not like other mad werewolves.”

“Because hunters used to prevent this.”

One of the journalists said that, and it wasn’t a question.

“No,” Nathan said. “Other werewolves do.”

“I’m sorry?”

It made sense, didn’t it?

Nathan took a deep breath. “There was an old woman living just outside this village,” he said. “Everyone knew she was a werewolf. She was strong enough to keep monsters like this at bay—monster like this, and the Rot, too. Even as she grew old, the most this beast dared to do was bite a girl and run away.”

“So what happened then?”

“The villagers killed their own protector.” Nathan shook his head. “She even told me about it. That she hid amongst the people, whispering to them. Whispering lies to them. Until they listened and then a group of them went and murdered the old woman and her husband. A week later: This.”

He nodded towards Apicella. “Those murders were why the magistrate was called in, by the way.” He sighed. “Not that it matters now. We need to help them. Look for survivors. Don’t worry about whether they got bitten or not, they’re not dangerous until their first full moon.”

With that, he swung forwards, to the woman on the stairs. Her face was blanc, but there was a sound coming from the bundle in her arms. Not a body, then.

“Are you hurt, miss?” Nathan asked.

She just stared past him, rocking slightly.

“Miss?” Nathan repeated. What did you say in a situation like this? What could you tell a woman who had lost everything?

“The monster is dead. I killed it. I’m sorry I was too late.”

She blinked, slowly, but that was all the reaction he got from her. So Nathan swung himself around her, looking her up and down. If she was bleeding, it wasn’t enough to stain her clothes.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“She laughed,” the woman said, just as he was about to turn away. “She laughed and then she turned. She bit my baby and left me and laughed.”

Her arms tightened around the softly whimpering bundle in her arms.

Classic spreader tactic. Nathan didn’t say those words, though. “Your child will be fine,” he said instead, and prayed to whatever justice there was in the world that it was the truth.

“She’ll—she won’t turn?”

Nathan closed his eyes. “She’ll turn. But she’ll be fine. You can come to Deva with me, when I go back. We’ll—we’ll work something out.”

She didn’t answer, so he left her sitting there, moving to the next house. There were three bodies inside. Small bodies. He tried not to look too closely. Adult bodies crouched behind the broken back door in the next one, then more dead children. In the stables dead animals, cows, sheep, chicken—herding dogs who’d died defending their flocks, horses. Only the goats with the missing ears had been left alive.

What a sick bastard.

He did find survivors, hidden in closets, or crying with the pain of their bites. At least the monster had had enough restraint that those bitten weren’t at risk of bleeding out.

It almost made him regret shooting her so quickly.

Time rushed together, and suddenly it was midnight. The rain let up, and the journalists had made soup in the biggest kettles available to them, feeding the terrified survivors. The dead werewolf had been put up on an open cart. The survivors—just under two dozen—kept wandering by, as if they couldn’t quite believe she was dead.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

One of the guards carried a bowl of soup for Nathan up to the cart. He pulled himself up to sit next to the body and eat his food.

Should he ask the reporters not to write about this? But it didn’t seem likely that they’d heed him, and in any case, how was he supposed to explain a dozen people all bitten in the same night? How was he supposed to silence them?

He could just about see how much harder this situation would make David’s job. And Greg’s life. How he could help, he had no idea.

All he was good at was killing werewolves, and it hadn’t been enough, here. He simply hadn’t expected this level of escalation. He’d thought the mad one would go after the magistrate, not the village. Not after leaving the people here alive for so long.

Was there anything he could have done to prevent this?

“Lord Feleke. What will your brother do to prevent carnage like this in the future?”

Nathan glared at the female reporter who stood in front of him. “David doesn’t even yet know it happened once,” he pointed out.

“But surely, there will be a response? Clearly, the model of letting werewolves run wild has failed here?”

“As I said already,” Nathan replied, “this wouldn’t have happened if there had been other werewolves in the area. It couldn’t have. Our mistake wasn’t to let the werewolves run wild, our mistake was to collect too many of them in Deva and Eoforwic.”

“You did say that already. But I have a hard time believing that. What reason would a werewolf have to stop another werewolf from killing humans?”

“Are you stupid, miss?” Nathan asked bluntly. “Nobody has a bigger interest in stopping wild monsters from killing humans than another werewolf. One beast goes on a killing spree, and suddenly all werewolves in the country are in mortal danger. It’s pure self-preservation.”

He sighed. “A few days ago, I accompanied a pack of ten exceptionally powerful werewolves to the train station. I didn’t realise the danger that would put the people here into, or I would have left a couple of them here.”

“So you are going to put the protection of humans into the fangs of werewolves?”

“Did you not hear about what happened on the solstice at Deva Palace, miss? Or Oldstone Castle?”

She glared at him. “You know what I mean, Lord Feleke. At least I hope you do.”

“I know what you mean, I just think it’s a stupid question,” he shrugged. “Our lives are in the werewolves’ hands, have been since pretty much forever. Especially in this area. If it wasn’t for the werewolves, the Hafren’s Rot queen would have been rampaging through these lands ever since the Valoise invaded. The question should be what we’re going to do now that the majority of werewolves have been gathered at a few big cities.”

“And what are you going to do?” she asked with false patience.

“I don’t know. I’m not a politician. I kill werewolves until they’re dead. I’m sorry I was too late here. I thought I could draw her out by spreading word about the magistrate. Didn’t expect her to go off like a firecracker and just kill everyone.”

He pushed a piece of carrot across his bowl. “I suppose we need more hunters. Most left for the south, to fight with the loyalists. Two of our better ones got killed here. My brother is bound to Deva, my father is out of the game, Lady deLande I’m not entirely sure about. About to get married, I suppose. Maybe she’ll help out.”

“And where would you go looking for new hunters?”

Nathan shrugged again. He had no idea, but that probably wasn’t a good thing to say to the press, was it? People wanted answers, and he couldn’t even blame them for that.

“Where do you look for soldiers?” he asked back. “You draft some likely lads and train them up. Show them how to handle a gun and how to fight in formation. Frankly, I’ll take lasses, too. As apprentices,” he added, when the journalist looked at him blankly.

That was the best thing he could do, right? He couldn’t continue to hunt alone, and he couldn’t steal Ronon or Lafayette away from their duties, either. And Andrew had wanted out before this whole mess even started.

So find someone who wanted to learn. Teach them like he had been taught. Ideally, find someone who already knew how to shoot straight, but teach them the rest. Take them to the cells, make them sit with Morgulon or Pierre for a few hours, have them debate Greg on philosophy, or something. Teach them to respect but not to fear. Teach them to hunt only the bad ones and leave the others alive.

“So you do agree we need more hunters.”

“For now,” Nathan shrugged. “More hunters. But really, we just need everyone to know more. Educate the village elders, the general population. Get rid of that ridiculous notion that humans could ever survive in Loegrion without werewolves, teach people how to properly deal with them. How to spot the signs of a mad one and what’s just the regular full moon rage. So I’ll take apprentices. Two, maybe three. Teach them until they’re ready, and then they can take on a couple of apprentices, and so on.”

He finished his soup and slowly leaned back.

“Lord Feleke!” the journalist protested. “You aren’t going to sleep right there, are you?”

“Unless you know where I can find a bed,” Nathan yawned. “I’m tired. The guardsmen seem to have the situation well in hand. Tomorrow, I’ll escort the survivors to Deva. If you’ve got more questions, you can ask me then.”