“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” said Willis before I could express an opinion. “If this isn’t a werewolf, then we don’t want to bring any in to confuse the issue. Having Ms. Hauptman here is pushing it as it is.”

Willis dusted off his hands and looked at me thoughtfully. “This was not a werewolf?”

“No,” I said.

He pursed his mouth. “Damned if I don’t believe you. Whatever did this isn’t human.”

“Something supernatural,” Tony said.

I nodded. “I don’t know how to prove it, without anyone being able to smell this magic.”

“Fae, then,” said one of the other cops. “I’ve read all the fairy tales. The black dog is the most common of the shapes they take. Meet a black dog at the crossing of two roads or hear the call of the Gabriel Hounds, and you are sure to die.”

I shook my head. “Doesn’t smell like fae—and they have all retreated to the reservation, anyway.”

“There are other things out there besides werewolves and fae?” asked Willis.

I got to my feet and dusted the dirt off my jeans before I answered him. “What do you think?” I asked.

He frowned unhappily.

I nodded. “That’s what I think, too. I’ve never come across whatever did this. But judging from the tracks and the amount of meat he ate in a very short time—whatever this is, it is bigger than any werewolf I’ve been around. That means more than three hundred pounds.”

“On the way over, you just explained to me that you didn’t think it was a good thing to tell people that there were other things out there besides werewolves and fae,” Tony commented.

I waved my hand toward the crowd of police officers by the copse of trees. “If something is out there doing this, then I think that it’s too late to worry about what is safe for the public to believe in. This … I don’t know what this is. Finding out and stopping it is more important to public safety than trying to not make them paranoid.”

Willis shook his head and looked at Tony. “The brass is going to want this to be werewolves.” He turned to me. “Fair warning. They are going to want to talk to your husband. Probably not for a few days, until the initial lab reports get back to us, but soon.”

“Is this really a conversation for dinner?”

Christy interrupted me in the middle of explaining what I’d been doing this afternoon. There was an odd pause because by interrupting me, she’d made it clear that she felt comfortable correcting me. If we’d both been werewolves, I’d have been forced to make her back down—and then her supporters would have stepped in to defend her.