One knock on the van’s window meant a bust, and it had been a night of single knocks. With each failure, Ty watched from the backseat as Sylvia penciled another shaky X into the Carolina Road Atlas. How she could decipher street names beneath the never-totally-erased notes from previous hunts, he’d never know. Thirteen years in, he still kept forgetting to ask.

It was easy to lose track of such frivolous questions. Grey hairs and spare moments were scarce in their line of work. You had to be damn good or damn lucky, and being good only kept you breathing for so long.

But maybe the police had gotten it right for once. Maybe this really had been a string of animal attacks. Maybe the mutilated deer that Dom pointed out a half hour back had been the victim of some escaped zoo predator. Maybe there was no reason behind the silent tension or the knowing prickle on the back of Ty’s neck.

Imani knocked on the window three times.

“Game time, boys,” she said.

It didn’t matter how many hunts had been successful – slaying the beasts never eased Ty’s dread. Whenever Sylvia detoured the van to a dive bar to see her buddies from the glory days, fewer of them remained. Stories once met with laughter became headstones for those who had been lost.

Someday, Ty would die on a hunt the same as they had. He’d die alone. Even shoulder to shoulder, all soldiers perished in solitude. He’d known that since he was a child, and no matter how many times he stuffed the feeling into some cobwebbed corner of his mind, the loneliness came back.

He forced it away again. It didn’t serve him. Not when innocent lives were at stake.

“You’re sure this is the place?” Ty said as he hopped out of the van and directly into a puddle.

Rain in North Carolina struck hard and fast – a black-clouded summer storm could blow through in an hour – but it had a habit of lingering both on the ground and in the air. By the time Ty rounded the van, his black tee had sweated to his body. He’d also swatted away half a dozen gnats.

They had parked in front of an unassuming farmhouse. Barely more than a pile of bricks plopped onto a concrete slab. Inside, a satellite channel rattled off offers for scratch-resistant cookware.

Imani pointed past the house. “If those woods smelled any more like werewolf piss, we’d be swimming right now.”

“There could be a few nearby if they’re marking their territory.”

“I only saw one set of tracks. Probably just a paranoid bastard.”

Ty threw open the van’s rear doors, each adorned with the smiling bulb logo of a fake electrical company. Inside was an armory of reasons to never, under any circumstances, get pulled over. Pistols, rifles, scopes, swords, daggers, explosives, poisons, vials of acid – everything to ensure that no hunter said, ‘If we’d only had a flamethrower, Bobby would’ve made it out.’

Not that the flamethrower saw much use. Most of the flashier equipment was beyond a hunter’s usual arsenal. Ty preferred a classic approach: a pistol for midrange engagement, a sword to finish what bullets couldn’t, and a hunting knife for ‘oh shit’ scenarios. The weight of those weapons on Ty’s belt soothed him.

Imani opted for her rifle. She’d carved her initials – IDK – into the stock, and every inch of the gun was covered in anime stickers. She slung it onto her back, careful not to crush the intricate braids which ran to her waist. Sylvia was always on her about cutting them. Long hair was a risk: an extra grappling hold which could snag on tooth or claw.

It was a good thing Imani never let her enemies get that close.

“Ready when you are,” she said.

Ty rolled his eyes. “You mean ‘ready when Dom is?’”

“Cool it with the attitude. Dom’s mostly ready,” Domingo said, as he stumbled around from the passenger side. He had the energy of a dog enthusiastically falling down a staircase. “If you round up, Dom is totally, one hundred percent ready.”

“I don’t think Dom’s ready,” Ty loudly whispered.

“Dude, I was deep into this compilation of car accidents that nearly happen but then miraculously don’t. There was this truck barreling towards an intersection full of schoolkids. I need to know how it ends.”

Imani said, “I think it nearly hits them but miraculously doesn’t.”

“But it’s about how it happens. I swear to God, if I die before I find out, I’m taking you both to Hell with me.” Domingo clipped a spare dagger onto his belt. “There. Ready.”

Ty went to close the armory when a twinge in his chest stopped him. He squinted through the mesh which separated the weapons from the passenger section. Sylvia was fiddling with her map in the driver’s seat. Her fingers quivered as she brushed them over the roads. The arthritis had only gotten bad recently. When she took Ty in, she’d already been saying time would catch up with her, but it always felt like it just… wouldn’t.

“Are you gonna be okay by yourself?” he called through the mesh.

“Worrying over me doesn’t get the job done faster,” she said.

“That wasn’t an answer.”

“Have you ever seen a werewolf get flattened by three tons of van?”

“I’ll take that as a yes.” He started to close the door but hesitated. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, little warrior.”

Ty, Imani, and Dom moved efficiently, creeping past a mud-flecked Chevy and into the unmowed grass surrounding the farmhouse. Ty tugged his collar over his nose as they passed a pair of overturned garbage bins. They’d been stuffed to the point of bursting, abandoned so long that the cloud of flies was visible even in darkness.

Ty kept his back to the house. Eyes stayed on all flanks, but that didn’t mean they were safe. Redeyes were fast. If one wanted you dead, you had half the time it took to say ‘there’ to hit your mark.

But Ty would hit his mark. There wasn’t room for doubt outside of the van. Nerves meant hesitation, hesitation meant mistakes, and mistakes had no place on a hunt.

“The screen door’s cracked open,” Dom whispered.

“People always forget to shut those,” Imani said.

Sometimes details were just details, but sometimes they were clues. Ty signaled for the others to remain on watch as he edged the screen out of the way and tested the rear door.

“It’s unlocked,” Ty said.

“How considerate,” Imani said.

“Yeah, it’s got me feeling all warm and fuzzy. Imani, case the bedroom. Dom, get the kitchen. I’ll hold the living room down.”

The infomercial presenters were still prattling on about how ‘It’ll stay untarnished, good as new, no matter how hard you try! Watch Bill go to town on one of our pots with a jackhammer…’ Ty’s pistol was comfortingly warm in his hands. He shouldered the door open…

Then sprung into the room, weapon at the ready. His blood chilled.

According to the homeowner, there was only one appropriate wall decoration: crosses. They dominated every inch of space. Most had been glued on, though a few were taped, and a line of them had been lazily propped against the baseboard moulding. This, evidently, had been a lacking show of faith, and so additional crosses had been clawed into every painted surface. Draped over it all and smeared with blackened crust was a massive American flag.

Oh, well, apparently there were two types of wall decoration, but the flag didn’t do much for the overall feng shui of the space.

As Imani and Dom broke off into the rest of the house, Ty forced himself to examine the den. Moldy scraps of junk food littered the floor, and he crept through the minefield towards a floral couch, training his pistol on the cushions. It wouldn’t be the first time their mark had hollowed out a hiding spot. His heart pounded as he reached out.

He flung the cushions aside: a pullout bed. Unremarkable.

The television was still babbling. He wished he could turn it off, but doing so would signal their presence. Instead, he settled for perusing the small bookshelf the blaring device was balanced upon. It housed few books – mostly fringe religious analysis or conspiracy texts promising to expose ancient secrets – though there were a plethora of framed photographs. Dust clung to the wood around them, but the pictures had been freshly cleaned. One man persisted throughout them from childhood into seniority. Around his high school years, a beaming woman became a fixture beside him. There were multiple shots of her pregnant, though none of any children. While the man’s hair grayed, and wrinkles invaded his face, a weariness took her much faster. Abruptly, her hair was gone, and then she was, too.

Ty couldn’t help but think of his parents. Body bags wheeled toward an ambulance. He brushed the memory aside.

These photos were a good sign. Werewolves mated for life. If one lost their spouse before being turned, it was almost unheard of that they would bond with a second partner.

“Did you find anything?”

Ty jumped at the sound of Imani’s voice. The television had masked her approach.

She said, “The rest of the place is trashed, but that’s about it. No clear leads.”

“You’re sure this guy’s our omega?” Ty said. “He’s off more than one deep end. I wouldn’t put it past him to have found werewolf urine on some black-market website to mark his own territory.”

“Guys,” Domingo called shakily from the kitchen. “You better come see this.”

Ty knew that tone. For better or worse, they were in the right place.