A grizzly could kill a werewolf or two, but generally left them alone. Charles wasn’t worried about bears, and neither was Tag. These mountains had an uncanny feel—and however guardedly friendly Ford had been, Charles did not want to confront a Sasquatch out here unless he absolutely could not avoid it.

They ate sandwiches and made camp. Anna and Tag played double solitaire, which seemed to engender a lot of yelling, mock grumbling, and laughter. Charles read for a while, then put his book aside, stretched out a bit, and closed his eyes.

Waiting to head out until morning had been a practical decision. But sitting on a camp chair with his feet up on a stump, pretending to be asleep, Charles felt a contentment that had nothing to do with the possible dangers they were going to be facing tomorrow, though it was true Brother Wolf gloried in the adventure.

Cheerful voices echoed in the quiet woods as Anna and Tag bickered about how best to cook their dinner, whose ace got played first, and whether to cook their dinner (because werewolves weren’t picky about raw meat, even if human teeth had trouble ripping through a steak). If anyone else had been arguing with Tag that way, they would end up thrown through a door or into a tree when he decided to take offense instead of laugh. Tag’s temper was a quick switch.

But Anna was an Omega and Tag her devoted follower. She could even tell him the French lost at Waterloo without him going ballistic—or at least, Tag’s ballistic would be more measured. So they squabbled happily until Anna persuaded Tag into a duet.

Tag’s voice was a soldier’s voice, learned on long marches between battlefields, which made it very well suited to the outdoors. Anna’s sweet alto was better trained and she knew how to make her singing partners sound good. Their singing would have benefited from the addition of a baritone or bass, but Charles was content to listen, Brother Wolf lulled into contentment as a prelude to battle by Anna’s presence and the forest setting.

There was no campfire. The fire danger was too high—and he thought they were illegal in California even in the spring. They’d brought a propane stove for cooking.

He fell asleep surrounded by the sounds of the evening: the wind in the trees, his wife’s sweet voice—and the crackle of a campfire that wasn’t there. It did not surprise him to find himself engaged in a game of chess with his uncle, who had been dead for two centuries, more or less.

BUFFALO SINGER’S FOREFINGER, which he tapped lightly on the edge of the table, was twisted from a fall when he’d been a boy, and he had a faint scar on the corner of his mouth. Charles had remembered the finger, but he’d forgotten about the scar. His uncle, only fifteen years older than Charles, had not been an old man when he died.