With her charge out of commission until dawn, Antonia found herself putzing about in her room with absolutely nothing to do. She cursed herself for not stocking up on magazines before she came to the house.

There was another knock, interrupting her thoughts. “Come,” she called.

The door swung open, and a twenty-something dark-haired man of average height (wasn’t Minnesota supposed to be the land of blondes? What was with all the brunettes?), wearing pea-green hospital scrubs and scuffed tennis shoes, stood framed in the doorway. Interestingly, his stethoscope was still around his neck.

“You smell like puke,” she informed him.

“You must be Antonia,” he replied, grinning. He held out his hand, and she reluctantly shook it. “I’m Marc Spangler. Dr. Spangler, which is why I reek. I swear, I thought the nurse was going to grab the emesis basin in time, but, as so often in my life, I was sadly wrong.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “That’s too bad. So you spend your days getting puked on?”

“And peed on, and shat on, and bled on,” he said cheerfully. “But hey, the pay sucks and the hours are horrible, so it all works out. Luckily, my rent is low.”

She laughed again. “What can I do for you, doctor?”

“Oooooh, almost polite and everything! That’s funny, I was warned about you.”

“Pussies,” she scoffed.

“Mmm. Well, today I gotta earn my keep—Sinclair asked me to take a look at you. So if you don’t mind.” He didn’t trail off, as people usually did when they said such a thing. And she realized that, in his laid-back way, he wasn’t really asking.

“I’m not crazy,” she said. “And you’re not a shrink, I bet.”

“No, just a garden-variety E.R. rez. But what the hell, it’ll make the big guy feel better, right?”

She rolled her eyes. “Right. Get on with it.”

He took her pulse and blood pressure and listened to her heart and lungs. He chatted with her about this and that, and she wasn’t supposed to notice that he was checking for depression, schizophrenia, paranoia, or delusional thinking.

“Look, I’m flunking your little mental health checklist,” she told him, rolling her sleeve back down, “because I do believe things most people don’t, I do think people are out to get me, and I’m really bummed about my life, which is why I’m here.”

“Yeah, but on the bright side, your vitals are all textbook perfect. You’ve got the heart and lungs of a track star.”

“Well,” she said, shrugging modestly. “Superior life form and all that.”

“Descended from wolves, is that right?”

She rolled her eyes and didn’t answer.

“Uh-huh. But of all the werewolves—and there aren’t very many—but of all of them, only you don’t turn into a wolf during the full moon. Instead, you can see the future.”