“Whether they were wolves or not is not the point,” Noble said. “Mr. Ilson believes they were wolves and he’ll be shooting first and asking questions later.” Noble let out a sigh. “It’s not exactly a good time to be a wolf right now.”

“It hasn’t been for a while,” Tora muttered, under her breath.

She had a point. The last few weeks had been rough on the pack, with Maria Abruzzo claiming that wolves had taken her younger sister into the forest. The pack had rescued the lost girl, and people in town had pretty much put that episode behind them. Even Maria herself had since accepted the pack for who and what they were. Still, people’s fear of wolves ran deep and this latest episode threatened to destroy all the goodwill the pack had fought so hard to win.

“I’m just saying that if people are out gunning for wolves—any wolves—it might be an idea to wait here and see what happens.”

“Have you lost your nerve?” Argus asked.

Noble looked at his brother, thinking about what he’d said. Have I lost my nerve? he wondered. Did getting poisoned with silver take some of my edge away? It was possible. After all, he’d nearly died from it, and death was the sort of thing that made people appreciate life a whole lot more. No, he wasn’t afraid of what was out there in the forest, just wary of it.

“I’m simply being cautious,” Noble said, at last. “Aside from angry people with guns, we don’t know what else might be out there.”

That seemed to bring the others around to Noble’s way of thinking. While they all had a feeling there might be a new werewolf in the forest, none of them had any idea of what it might look like. How big might it be? How strong? How wild?

Argus, however, still needed convincing. “Look,” he said. “The ranger and Sergeant Martin will deal with Ernie Ilson. He won’t be shooting at any more wolves for a while, at least not tonight. That leaves the thing in the forest. Who knows what it’s doing, or what its plans are? For all we know, it could be killing someone else’s pet as we speak.”

A moment of dead silence.

Then Harlan said, “I could track it.” He had been suffering from a cold and a stuffed-up nose, but he’d gotten over it weeks ago. His sense of smell was as good as ever.

“And we don’t have to confront it,” Tora suggested. “All we have to do is find out what it is. That would be a big help to the ranger, wouldn’t it?”

Noble looked at his siblings in turn, trying to come up with a reason to disagree with them.

But he couldn’t.