The werewolves didn't notice me; they were entirely intent on Yoder, who continued to stand stock-still. Two of the werewolves had spears trained on him, ready to run him through if he moved. He didn't. All four of them clicked and hissed, the hisses falling in and out of my sonic range; this was why Jane heard them before the rest of us did.

One of the werewolves came forward to Yoder, hissing and clicking at him, stocky and muscular where Yoder was tall and trim. It had a simple stone knife in one hand. It reached out a claw and poked Yoder hard in the chest; Yoder took it and stood there, silently. The thing grabbed his right arm and began to sniff it and examine it; Yoder offered no resistance. Yoder was a Mennonite, a pacifist.

The werewolf suddenly struck Yoder hard on the arm, perhaps testing him. Yoder staggered a bit from the blow but stood his ground. The werewolf let out a rapid series of chirps and then the others did, too; I suspected they were laughing.

The werewolf raked his claws across Yoder's face, shredding the man's right cheek with an audible scraping sound. Blood poured down Yoder's face; he involuntarily clutched it with his hand. The werewolf cooed and stared at Yoder, its four eyes unblinking, waiting to see what he would do.

Yoder dropped his hand from his ruined face and looked directly at the werewolf. He slowly turned his head to offer his other cheek.

The werewolf stepped away from Yoder and back toward its own, chirping. The two who had spears trained on Yoder let them drop slightly. I breathed a sigh of relief and looked down for a second, registering my own cold sweat. Yoder had kept himself alive by not offering resistance; the creatures, whatever else they were, were smart enough to see that he was not a threat.

I raised my head again to see one of the werewolves staring directly at me.

It let out a trilling cry. The werewolf closest to Yoder glanced over at me, snarled and drove his stone knife into Yoder. Yoder stiffened. I raised my rifle and shot the werewolf in the head. It fell; the other werewolves bolted back into the woods.

I ran over to Yoder, who had collapsed on the ground, and was pawing gingerly at the stone knife. "Don't touch it," I said. If the knife had nicked any major blood vessels, pulling it out could cause him to bleed out.

"It hurts," Yoder said. He looked up at me and smiled, gritting his teeth. "Well, it almost worked."

"It did work," I said. "I'm sorry, Hiram. This wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for me."

"Not your fault," Hiram said. "I saw you drop and hide. Saw you give me a chance. You did the right thing." He reached out toward the corpse of the werewolf, touching the sprawled leg. "Wish you didn't have to shoot it," he said.

"I'm sorry," I said again. Hiram didn't have anything more to say.

"Hiram Yoder. Paulo Gutierrez. Juan Escobedo. Marco Flores. Deiter Gruber. Galen DeLeon," Manfred Trujillo said. "Six dead."

"Yes," I said. I sat at my kitchen table. Zoe was at Trujillo's, spending the night with Gretchen. Hickory and Dickory were with her. Jane was in the medical bay; on :op of the gash in her side she had scraped herself up pretty badly chasing DeLeon. Babar was resting his head in my lap. I was patting it absentmindedly

"One body," Trujillo said. I looked up at that. "A hundred of us went into those woods, where you told us to go. We found blood, but not a single one of their bodies. Those things took them with them."

"What about Galen?" I said. Jane had told me that she'd found parts of him, leaving a trail as she went along. She stopped following after he stopped screaming, and when her own injuries kept her from going farther.

"We found a few things," Trujillo said. "Not enough to consider a body."

"Great," I said. "Just great."

"How do you feel?" Trujillo asked.

"Jesus, Man," I said. "How do you think I feel? We lost six people today. We lost godda—we lost Hiram Yoder. We would all be dead if it wasn't for him. He saved this colony, him and the Mennonites. Now he's dead, and it's my fault."

"It was Paulo who put that posse together," Trujillo said. "He went against your orders and he got five others killed. And put you and Jane in danger. If someone's going to shoulder the blame, it should be him."

"I'm not looking to blame Paulo," I said.

"I know you're not," Trujillo said. "That's why I'm saying it. Paulo was a friend of mine, as good a friend as I have here. But he did something foolish, and he got those men killed. He should have listened to you."

"Yes. Well," I said. "I thought making these creatures a state secret would keep something like this from happening. That's why I did it."

"Secrets have a way of getting out," Trujillo said. "You know that. Or should."

"I should have let everyone know about these things," I said.

"Maybe," Trujillo said. "You had to make a call here and you made it. It wasn't the one I would have thought you would make, I have to say. It wasn't like you. If you don't mind me saying so, you're not that good with secrets. People here aren't used to you having them, either."

I grunted assent and patted my dog. Trujillo shifted uncomfortably in his chair for a few minutes. "What are you going to do now?" he asked.

"Fuck if I know," I said. "Right now what I'd really like to do is put a fist through my wall."

"I'd advise against that," Trujillo said. "I know you don't like taking my advice on general principle. Nevertheless, there it is."

I smiled at that one. I nodded toward the door. "How are people?"

"They're scared as hell," Trujillo said. "One man died yesterday, six more died today, five of them disappeared, and people are worried they'll be next. I suspect most people will be sleeping inside the village for the next couple of nights. I'm afraid the cat is out of the bag about these creatures being intelligent, by the way. Gutierrez told a whole lot of people while he was trying to recruit for his posse."

"I'm surprised another group hasn't gone out looking for the werewolves," I said.

"You're calling them werewolves?" Trujillo said.

"You saw the one that killed Hiram," I said. "Tell me that's not what it looks like."

"Do me a favor and don't share that name," Trujillo said. "People are scared enough."

"Fine," I said.

"And yes, there was another group who wanted to go out and try to get revenge. A bunch of idiot kids. Your daughter's boyfriend Enzo was one of them."

"Ex-boyfriend," I said. "Did you talk them out of doing something stupid?"

"I pointed out that five grown men went out hunting for them and not a single one of them came home," Trujillo said. "That seemed to calm them down a bit."

"Good," I said.

"You need to make an appearance tonight, down at the community hall," Trujillo said. "People will be there. They need to see you."

"I'm not in any shape to see people," I said.

"You don't have a choice," Trujillo said. "You're the colony leader. People are in mourning, John. You and your wife are the only ones that came out of this alive, and she's in the medical bay. If you spend the entire night hiding in here, it says to everyone out there that no one gets away from these things alive. And you kept a secret from them. You need to start making up for that."

"I didn't know you were a psychologist, Man," I said.

"I'm not," he said. "I'm a politician. And so are you, whether you want to admit to it or not. This is the job of a colony leader."

"I tell you truly, Man," I said. "If you asked for the job of colony leader, I would give it to you. Right now, I would. I know you think you should have been colony leader. So. The job is yours. Want it?"

Trujillo paused to consider his words. "You're right," he said. "I thought I should have been the colony leader. Occasionally I still do. And someday, I think I probably will be. But right now, it's not my job. It's yours. My job is to be your loyal opposition. And what your loyal opposition thinks is this: Your people are scared, John. You're their leader. Do some goddamn leading. Sir."