Bear Valley was a blue-collar town of eight thousand that had got its start in the heyday of industrialization and boomed during the forties and fifties. But three recessions and downsizing had taken their toll. There was a tractor factory to the east and paper plant to the north and most people worked in one of these two behemoths. Bear Valley was a place that prided itself on hometown values, where people worked hard, played hard, and filled the baseball stadium regardless of whether the local team was first or last in the league. In Bear Valley, the bars closed at midnight on weekdays, the annual PTA jumble sale was a major social event, and gun control meant not letting your kids shoot with anything bigger than a twenty-gauge. At night, young women walked the streets of Bear Valley fearing little more than catcalls whistled from passing pickups by guys they'd known since childhood. They did not get murdered by strangers and they certainly did not get dragged off, slaughtered, and eaten by mad dogs.

We split up for the drive. Antonio and Peter headed for the west side of town, where there were a couple of three-story walk-ups and two highway-side motels. This meant that they had the better sector, since the mutt was more likely to be found in less permanent housing, but the downside was that Jeremy had decided they'd have to search in human form, since they couldn't exactly roam an apartment complex as wolves.

Clay, Nick, and I were to canvass the east end, where we hoped to find the mutt renting or boarding. We took my car, an old Camaro that I always found some excuse for leaving at Stonehaven. Clay was driving. It was my fault, really-he'd challenged me in a race to the garage. My ego accepted and my feet lost. We arrived in the city just past nine-thirty. Clay dropped me off behind a medical clinic that had closed at five. I Changed between two Dumpsters that reeked of disinfectant.

Changing forms is much like any other bodily function in that it comes most easily when the body needs to do it. An uncontrolled werewolf undergoes the transformation under two circumstances: when he is threatened and when his internal cycle dictates the need. The need is roughly lunar based, though it has little to do with the full moon. Our natural cycles are usually weekly. As the time approached, we could feel the symptoms: the restlessness, the itchy skin, the internal cramps and pangs, the overwhelming sensation that something needed to be done and the body and mind wouldn't rest until that need had been satisfied. The signals became as recognizable as the signs of hunger, and like hunger, we could put off dealing with it, but before long the body would take over and force a Change. Also like hunger, we could anticipate the symptoms and satisfy the need beforehand. Or we could forgo the natural cycle completely and learn how to transform ourselves as often as we liked. That is what the Pack taught us to do, to Change more often to improve our control and ensure we didn't wait too long, since waiting could lead to nasty side effects like our hands turning to paws in the middle of grocery shopping, or once a wolf, being overcome by frustrated rage and bloodlust. In Toronto I'd ignored Jeremy's teachings and given in to my need only when necessary, partly to distance myself from my "curse" and partly because in the city it was a major production requiring so much planning and caution that I was left too exhausted to repeat the experience more than once a week. So once again, I was out of practice. I'd Changed only yesterday and I knew doing it again less than twenty-four hours later would be hell. Like having sex without foreplay, it was either going to be extremely painful or I wasn't going to be able to perform at all. I should have told Jeremy this when he said we had to become wolves for the hunt, but I couldn't. I was, well, I was embarrassed. In Toronto, I'd done it as little as possible because I was ashamed. Two days later I was at Stonehaven refusing to admit that I couldn't do it as often as the others because I was ashamed. One more thing to send my brain spinning into permanent confusion.

It took over a half hour to complete the process, triple the normal amount of time. Did it hurt? Well, I don't have a lot of experience with non-shapechanging pain, but I feel safe in saying that being drawn and quartered might have hurt a bit less. When it was over, I rested for another twenty minutes, thankful I'd been able to do it at all. Given the choice between the agony of the Change and admitting to Clay and the others that I could no longer do it on demand, I'd pick drawing and quartering any day. Physical pain fades faster than wounded pride.

I started in a subdivision of old row houses that hadn't been converted to condos and probably never would be. It was past ten o'clock, but the streets were already deserted. Children had been yanked from the playground hours ago by anxious parents. Even adults had taken cover when the sun went down. Despite the warm May night, no one sat on their porches or shot hoops in their driveway. The wavering blue light of television flashed against drawn curtains. Sitcom laugh tracks screeched through the still night, offering escapism for the nervous. Bear Valley was afraid.

I stole along the front of the townhouses, hidden between the brickwork and foundation shrubbery. At each doorway, I stuck my muzzle out and sniffed, then scampered across to the safety of the next string of bushes. Every flash of car lights made me freeze. My heart thudded, tripping with nervous excitement. There was little fun in this, but the danger added an element I hadn't experienced in years. If I was seen, even for a second, I was in trouble. I was a wolf skulking around a town in the throes of a collective nightmare about wild dogs. A flash of my shape silhouetted against a drawn blind would bring out the shotguns.

Over an hour later, I was midway through my fourth lane of row houses when a click-clicking stopped me cold. I pressed myself against the cool brick of the house and listened. Someone was coming down the sidewalk, clicking with each step. Clay? He'd better not. Even if hunting together might be more fun, Jeremy had instructed us to work separately to cover more ground. I stopped between the boughs of a cedar, peered out, and saw a woman hurrying up the sidewalk, heels clacking against the concrete. She wore a uniform of some kind, polyester skirt barely covering ample hips. Clutching an imitation leather handbag, she was moving as fast as her two-inch heels would allow. With every few steps she glanced over her shoulder. I sniffed the air and caught a faint whiff of Obsession cologne overladen with the stink of grease and cigarette smoke. A diner waitress coming home after her shift, not expecting darkness to have fallen so completely. As she drew closer, I smelled something else. Fear. Untainted, unmistakable fear. I prayed she wouldn't run. She didn't. With one final, fearful glance back at the street she scurried into her house and locked the door. I went back to work.

A few minutes later, a howl rang out. Clay. He didn't use the distinctive wolf howl, which would have certainly roused attention, but instead mimicked the cry of a lonely dog. He'd found something. I waited. When a second howl came, I used it to pinpoint his location, then started to run. I kept to the gutters, but didn't worry so much about staying out of sight. At this pace, anyone spotting me would see only a flash of pale fur.

I ran into an obstacle when I hit the main road and realized I had to cross it. While not many locals were still out, the main road was also a state highway meaning truckers sped through every few minutes. I waited for a big enough gap between semis and darted across. On the other side was Clay's assigned district, a subdivision of aging wartime houses and duplexes. As I tried to find his scent, I caught another, one that made me skid to a halt, my rear legs sliding forward and tumbling me backward. I shook myself, cursing my clumsiness, then retraced my steps. There, at the junction of two streets, I smelled a werewolf, someone I didn't recognize. The trail was old, but clear. He'd passed this way more than once. I gazed down the street. It was still in the general direction of where I'd heard Clay, so I changed course and followed the mutt's trail.