That was when I took in the space, and at the same time, took in a breath, for the apartment above a restaurant did not look like an apartment above a restaurant but an Asian décor showplace (and a posh one at that).

It was beautiful. Rich woods. Richer materials. Lacquer. Inlays. Intricate carvings. Strikingly formed hinges and handles. Amazing curios—jade, cloisonné, and polished wood statues of foo dogs, dragons, and elephants. Wall hangings, pictures, and a four-paneled freestanding screen in one corner, all of these last depicting delicate birds and flowers.

It was not cluttered, stuffy, and overdone. It was elegant and refined.

I loved it.

“Wowza, your mom could be an interior designer,” I told Chen.

“Yeah, makes every place we go awesome,” Chen answered, clicking on the TV. “But you haven’t tasted her food yet.” He looked over the couch that appeared to be covered in red silk Damask, with dark, woven material at the sides and back. It had carved wood for feet and ornamentation. It was a couch I would not park my ass on to kick back and watch TV. It was a couch I’d probably be afraid to eat on for fear of ruining it. “When you do, you’ll know where her talents really lie.”

That meant I was suddenly seriously looking forward to lunch.

“I’m gone,” Xun stated, coming back into the room from the hall.

“North?” Chen asked mysteriously.

“Yeah. I’ll send Wei south.”

“Won’t be south, brother,” Chen told him. “A man comes out of the bay buck naked, a biker will give him a pair of jeans and a bottle of Jack and ask no questions. He does that shit down south, they’d call the police.”

This was something I knew about Serpentine Bay. As much of a biker mecca as it was, it was also an old northwest coastal town, a beautiful one at that, so it had its ritzy side. But the ritzy side and the uppity folk who lived in it kept well to their areas of fancy restaurants, boutique shops, and cliffside mansions down south, while the bikers and their hangers-on did their thing in the bars, pool halls, and poker rooms up north.

“You’re still going after him?” I asked, knowing from their words that they were going to keep searching for the werewolf.

“Could be he’s gone by now,” Chen said. “But we gotta try.”

“That’s cool,” I murmured.

“That’s brotherhood,” Xun said, and I turned back to him.

“Thanks,” I replied.

“You come with Abel. Anything for him, now anything for you,” Xun told me. Then he walked out the door before I could express my further gratitude for the warmth that filled my heart at his words.