I trotted past closed tourist shops filled with an unlikely mix of chandeliers and alcohol and T-shirts situated next to antique shops—Good heavens, was that an absinthe shop?—and jewelry stores that specialized in amber and garnets. The absinthe shop had a neon-green T-shirt in the window that read ABSINTHE MAKETH THE HEART GROW FONDER, which was a little too close to my situation to be comfortable. There was a lot of English around, from the T-shirt to the signs in the windows.

There was a lot of graffiti, too, which surprised me for some stupid reason. In the Tri-Cities, we fight the good fight against graffiti. Most of it is gang-related, but some is just teenagers striving to make their mark in an indifferent world. I guess graffiti seemed like it was exclusively a New World problem—which was a stupid assumption. I knew that there was graffiti that dated back to the Romans and said largely the same kinds of things that our modern graffiti does: your sister sleeps with gladiators, I was here, Flavius is hot—that kind of thing.

Maybe the narrowness of the street had to do with defense. You wouldn’t have to do much to block such a narrow lane and keep armies trapped in small spaces, where hot grease or tar and arrows or rocks could be flung on their heads with very little work.

And right in the middle of envisioning medieval battles, I caught the scent of werewolf in the air, musk and mint and . . . yeast, which wasn’t a usual werewolf scent. I turned and trotted as silently as I could back down the street, but I wasn’t silent enough.

Someone trotted after me, a fit, young-looking man in baggy pants and a skintight muscle shirt. I was suddenly glad the pack magic that kept people from noticing me was as thin as it was, because though most werewolves can’t actually feel the magic that makes their lives so much easier, if I’d been covered with it as I might have been in the Tri-Cities, he probably would have noticed.

As it was, he saw me plenty clearly. I hadn’t seen a single stray dog since I’d started my adventure tonight, though I could smell that there were a lot of dogs around. I think that’s what he thought I was. He was being a good citizen and helping the poor stray dog, nice werewolf that he was.

He sped up, and I didn’t dare do so. Never run from werewolves; it only makes them hungry. He said something soothing. It might have been in Czech or Slovak, but “Here, puppy” is a phrase that needs no translation.

A four-board-wide fence spanned a rare space between two buildings. I’d paid little attention to it when I’d passed it the first time except to note the dark green splatter of graffiti that was no more legible for being in Czech than the graffiti was at home. Now I was happy to note that the fence was level, top and bottom, but the ground had a little swell on one side. So there was a space just big enough for a coyote to slide underneath with enough panache that it looked like I’d done it before.