The engines were turned off, and there was silence. The only sound in the neighborhood was the wind through the branches of the live oak in the front yard and the organ music wafting from the church windows.

I tried to develop a plan, and finally I decided the only way I could stop someone from entering the church was by tackling him. The three people astride cycles swung off and removed their helmets. They were all women. Ha! That was unexpected. And I realized after just a moment that they were all shifters, something Togo and Trish had picked up on in a fraction of a second.

“What are you doing here, sisters?” Togo said, his wonderful accent and deep voice fascinating.

The people in the Suburban began to climb out. Two of them were male; two were women. They were also two-natured.

“Hey, buddy,” called the man who’d been driving. “We heard about the problem here, from the Web. We’ve come to be of service.”

There was a long moment of thoughtful silence. Then Trish stepped forward. She was holding back her wind-tossed gray curls with both hands. She introduced herself. “I’m a friend of the groom’s family. We’re here to keep strangers out of the church. You know there’ve already been a couple of incidents today. All the dogs in the pound were killed to protest this wedding.”

I was a little unnerved to hear the newcomers growl. Most two-natured didn’t let themselves express their animal sides when they were in public. Then I realized that Deidra’s brother and I were the only humans around. We were in the minority.

The newly arrived Weres, both the Suburban wolves and the Biker Babes—I didn’t make that up; that’s what their jackets said—reinforced our picket around the church. A couple of trucks drove by, but if the men in them had pictured themselves stopping, they changed their minds when they saw the assortment of people waiting.

I introduced myself to a Biker Babe named Brenda Sue, who told me she was a trauma nurse at a hospital about fifty miles away. This was her afternoon off. I told her about the four o’clock wedding, and she looked as if she was working something out in her head. “We’ll be here,” she said.

At the moment, I thought that Trish, when she’d posted that call to arms on the twoey website, had done us a good deed. And maybe Jim Collins had actually given us a present by killing those poor animals. He might as well have shot a flaming arrow into the sky.