“Don’t go anywhere, Patricia,” I said, smiling at her. She flinched, ready to run, but a dozen hands grabbed her and held her firmly. I looked up at Ham and put my fingers on his cheeks. If I’d had some finger paint, he’d have looked like a movie Indian on the warpath. “So jealous,” I said. “Ham, you told Alcide there were people camping on the stream and that was why the pack needed to run in my woods. You invited those men, didn’t you?”

“They—no.”

“Oh, I see,” I said, touching the tip of his nose. “I see.” I could hear his thoughts as clearly as if I were inside his head now. “So they were from the government. They were trying to gather information on the Were packs in Louisiana and anything bad the packs might have done. They asked you to bribe an enforcer, a second. To describe all the bad stuff he’d done. So they could push through that bill, the one that’ll require you-all to register like aliens. Hamilton Bond—shame on you! You told them to force Basim to tell them stuff, the stuff that had gotten him kicked out of the Houston pack.”

“None of this is true, Alcide,” Ham said. He was trying to sound all Big Serious Man, but to me he sounded like a squeaky little mouse. “Alcide, I’ve known you my whole life.”

“And you thought that Alcide would make you his second,” I said. “Instead, he picked Basim, who already had a track record as an enforcer.”

“He got thrown out of Houston,” Ham said. “That’s how bad he was.” The anger broke through, pulsing in gold and black.

“I’d ask him, and I’d know the truth, but I can’t now, right? Because you killed him and put him in the cold, cold ground.” Actually, it hadn’t been all that cold, but I felt I was due a little artistic license. My mind soared and swooped, way above everything. I could see so much! I felt like God. This was fun.

“I didn’t kill Basim! Well, maybe I did, but it was because he was screwing our packleader’s girlfriend! I couldn’t stomach such disloyalty!”

“Beep! Try again!” I fanned my fingers over his cheeks. We needed to know something else, didn’t we? Some other question had to be answered.

“He met with a creature in your woods on our moon night,” Ham blurted. “He, I don’t know what he talked about.”

“What kind of creature?”