I slowed until the cars ahead stopped moving altogether. Then I put the SUV into four-wheel drive and pulled onto the shoulder of the road, driving on the sidewalk when I had to in order to get around the parking lot the highway had become.

At the old metals-recycling center, I pulled into their abandoned parking lot and stopped. From here it would be faster to go on foot. As soon as I opened the door, I could hear the sirens.

Joel hopped out of the backseat into the driver’s seat. He flowed out of the car and it rocked, because he was denser in tibicena form than a real animal could be. He waited until all four feet were on the ground before igniting the fire inside him. His skin cracked and broke, revealing something that glowed fiercely even in the daylight.

Adam, all wolf now, exited after Joel. He shook himself once, then set off for the bridge. Joel and I followed him.

Even on two feet, I was fast, though the coyote would have been quicker. But I needed to have clothes on when talking to the police—for some reason, I suspected the police wouldn’t take me as seriously if I were naked. So I stayed human and ran with the silver-and-black wolf who was Adam on one side of me and Joel, who no longer could be mistaken for a dog, on the other.

We garnered attention. Pack magic operates passively to make it difficult for mundane people to notice werewolves. Adam could run down the interstate at high noon and only one or two people would see anything but a stray dog. We’d discovered that wasn’t true of Joel, even though he was a member of the pack. It was as if something in his magic fought to be seen.

Joel’s eyes were hot coals that glowed like those of a hellish demon out of a comic book. He was bigger than Adam, and he left oily black marks on the ground wherever his feet touched. People noticed. Once they noticed him, they noticed Adam.

Adam was a public figure, and though he didn’t often appear in his wolf form on the national news, locally, even in his werewolf shape, he was a celebrity. A smallish-town hero, if only because he was sort of famous.

“Hey, Mercy,” came a shout from the double line of cars. “What’s up? When you gonna reopen the shop? Sheba has an electrical problem I can’t find.”

“Shop phone still gets me, Nick,” I called, waving vaguely without looking around. I didn’t need to see him to recognize him. Nick’s Sheba was a VW bug that broke down with a regularity that was almost supernatural. “Gotta go help the police with a car-eating monster on the bridge right now.”