The smell of cooking of soy sauce, garlic, ginger, and sesame oil in a wok filled Diamond Silvervine’s nose as she stood still as a statue waiting for her order. With all the smells from the Chinese restaurant she could still smell the fear coming off the old man behind the counter and Diamond couldn’t blame the old man.

It wasn’t because she was half Native American, sometimes mistaken for Hispanic due to her skin tone, and she wasn’t any taller than five feet, it most likely from fact she was a Therianthrope. Therianthropes or werebeasts were easily spotted by the black sclera they had or maybe some part of his brain told him that she was dangerous, which he wasn’t wrong. Diamond couldn’t smell much fear coming off younger staff and which didn’t surprise Diamond either.

Werebeasts came out to the public around the end of the first world war because it was getting harder to hide themselves in the shadows. So the closer the human generation was from that point of werebeasts coming out, the more scared the generation were of a random werebeast in their presences.

Diamond watched as a young lady came to the older gentlemen and whispered something, which Diamond could hear but didn’t understand the words said as she didn’t speak Chinese. While Diamond couldn’t understand the words, she did understand tones and actions as the young lady was trading places with the scared old man and he got up to head to the kitchen, with a quick step to it, in the back. 

The middle aged man came out with a large plastic bag of take out food and put it on the counter before returning into the kitchen. The young lady looked at the ticket, “Mrs. Silvervine?” She asked Diamond and Diamond could feel the young lady’s eyes on her lips.

“Yes.” Diamond said as she walked to the counter and pulled out her wallet from her coat. Diamond’s clothing was simple blue jeans, a pair of running shoes, a tight black shirt, leather necklace with a small carved bone hanging from it, shoulder holster pockets, and brown coat with fur lined collar.

A cell phone went off as Diamond pulled out her debit card and Diamond realized it was her own phone. She slipped her wallet back into her coat and pulled out her phone from her front jean pocket. 

She noticed the young lady perked up from the sight of a gold moonflower cluster badge on her belt. “Who is this?” Diamond asked as put her phone beside her ear and shoulder as started to pay for her supper. 

“It’s Chris, where are you?” A male voice said over the phone. Diamond recognized the voice as Chris Quinn, the police officer assigned to Diamond. “I got a tip about Ivan Popov’s location.”

Diamond grabbed the plastic bag after the young lady put some fortune cookies in the bag with the receipt, “In front of Jade Moon on the corner of North Street and Basher Avenue.” Diamond said before hanging up and heading out the front door with her supper.

The cold autumn air hit Diamond’s face and normally it wouldn’t affect a werebeast as their body temperature ran higher than normal humans but the cold made Diamond’s uncover scars ache. She had three in total of three visible scars on her face, one ran down her left eye, one the side of lip, and lastly on right side on the jawline almost reaching her left eye.

She moved to the curb to wait for Chris to pick her up. She took in a deep breath of the cold air and closed her icy cyan eyes before letting it all out as a pillar of fog. She could feel the light breeze move her dark chocolate hair that she kept in a low ponytail when in public and rarely wore it loose.

Diamond shifted her head to listen to the sound of the quiet city night and gave her shoulders a shake as she felt the air pressure change. “Snowfall is coming soon.” She whispered and paused as she heard footsteps heading her way.

She could determine it was two human males by sound alone and her nose could pick up both had been drinking, one far more than the other. Diamond felt no threat from the two men as they walked past her and gave them no attention until she heard their footsteps stopped a few feet from her. 

“Dude, think I can get her number?” One male voice slurred and Diamond thought he was trying to whisper it but failed. Even if he did whisper Diamond would have heard him and kept a stoic face while the drunker spoke.

“I don’t know, she looks like she’s waiting for someone…” The less drunk whispered and Diamond heard him take a step away from her. “Also something feels wrong about her too.” 

‘Looks like someone has a sharp flight response.’ Diamond thought and paused her thoughts as she heard the smarter of two groaning. The fool had walked to Diamond’s side and he started to talk but Diamond completely ignored the words he spoke.

Diamond opened up her eyes as she heard Chris’ truck driving up and saw the fool was now standing in front of her. When he saw her eyes he flinched and started to stumble backwards. As he started to fall into the street, Diamond grabbed his shirt with her free hand and easily redirected him to fall behind her, face first.

“Listen to your friend next time.” Diamond said with an icy and impersonal manner as Chris’ black four door truck with a bed cover parked in front of her. Diamond glanced back to the fool’s friend and he froze in place from Diamond’s eyes.

The truck unlocked, allowing Diamond to enter the truck and she put on her seatbelt once seated. “Is the source of the tip that good?” Diamond asked and glanced over to Chris while putting the take out bag on her lap.

Diamond found Chris was just above average looking for a human but not her type, “It’s from guys in drug units, one of their undercover guys.” Chris said as his brown eyes shifted to glance at Diamond. “Got anything for me?”

Chris smirked as Diamond let out a low growl and Chris shifted the truck into drive to get back on the road. “They said he will show up at the unfinished Yunvk Tower tonight.” Chris scratched his five o’clock shadow as they stopped at a red light. 

“Yunvk Tower is in the east side, lot of drug drops in that area.” Diamond muttered and remembered that Ivan was a known drug addict. “What are the orders, bring in alive or dead.” Diamond already knew the answer was dead as Ivan was a werebeast that had taken the life of a human woman, Jasmine Teller.

“Neutralize, though with his record he should have been put down earlier.” Chris hissed and Diamond agreed with Chris’ words. “Anyways we will stake out the tower and hope the tip was right.”

The rest of the drive was quiet and Diamond could see Chris’ knuckles were white from how hard he gripped the wheel. He parked them in an alleyway across the unfinished tower and turned off the truck.

Diamond could see fine in the dark and she opened the plastic bag to pull out a white take out box. She took out some chopsticks next and she could feel Chris looking at her. Diamond grabbed one of the cookies and tossed it into his lap. 

“Thanks, I was more just checking your mood.” Chris said and chuckled before opening the cookie. Diamond knew what he meant as other cleaners get nervous with a hunt, Diamond was rarely nervous and when she was, she easily covered it.

Diamond felt the truck get a bit cooler as the seconds ticked by and she wasn’t worried about Chris. He was wearing a police officer coat, red thick hoodie, grey sweater, black jeans, and a pair of black leather shoes. She did notice him adjusting his badge that was around his neck and gun holster on the left side.

Chris cleared his throat and started talking but Diamond tuned him out as it was nothing she was interested in, which he knew. This was just one of the ways he became less nervous on a stake out and she kept eating while looking at the tower.

Diamond stopped in the middle of her noodles as she saw Ivan stalking into the tower and she heard Chris stop talking when he ran his fingers through his spiky light brown hair. “What is it?” Chris whispered and Diamond stabbed her chop sticks in the last of noodles.

“Ivan’s here and just went in.” Diamond whispered and closed up her take out. Chris grabbed the shotgun from the gun rack on the suspect transport enclosure wall and she put her plastic bag of food on the passenger floor.

Both got out of the truck, “You lead and I follow this time.” Chris whispered and Diamond sped up her walk so she was in front of Chris. “Doesn’t look like he went up.”

Diamond grunted in agreement as she couldn’t see any movement on the upper floor and that meant Ivan was still on the main floor or went down. When they entered the building Diamond easily caught Ivan’s scent and the dried blood of Jasmine Teller mixed into his scent.

“He hadn’t washed since the kill.” Diamond whispered and used her chin pointed towards the large pit where the building foundation would’ve been poured. She put a finger to her lips and Chris nodded as he followed her down the pit in crotch walk.

The path down the pit was rough but the two managed to quietly get down into the pit and Diamond used her chin to point to a pile of steel piles close to the exit path of the pit. Chris nodded to Diamond and silently walked over to the pile of pipes to hide behind them. 

Diamond stood up straight from her crotch walk and started to walk to make noise. She spotted Ivan squatting close to the centre of the pit and her nose wrinkled from his unwashed scent. Ivan showed no sign he had tried to clean himself since he killed Jasmine as her dried blood on him and he was wearing some raggy dirty shirt and torn pants that match his scent. 

He was muttering something in Russian and digging up the gravel under him. Diamond remembered seeing a picture of Ivan and the man in front of her was nothing like him on closer look. He had bloodshot eyes that were sunken into his skull, he looked skin and bones, missing multiple teeth, and patches of hair from his beard.

Diamond let out a low rumbling growl, “Ivan Popov.” Diamond hissed and Ivan looked up to stare her down. He let out a growl and Diamond could see he was long gone.

Ivan yelled out something in Russian before he started to spasm and Diamond removed her coat, throwing it to the side. The pit started to fill with the sound of bone cracking and human speech shifting into wild animal growling.

The sight of this transformation would cause a normal person to feel nausea, to Diamond it was normal to see a man transform into a monstrous wolf. Though Ivan's full transformation form looked more like a starving dog with mange and not the hulking beast that a healthy werewolf would look like.

While Ivan transformed, Diamond did her own special trained selective transformation and rolled her shoulders lightly as it happened. She was shifting her muscles and bones to make them stronger and making her almost as strong as a fully transformed werebeast. It didn’t make her any bigger than her five foot self and she only could hold this state for twenty minutes but a normal werebeast battle never lasted over five minutes.

“Let’s get this over with.” Diamond growled loudly as she shifted her stance and fist clenched at her side. Ivan let out a roar before lunging forward to land on Diamond, Diamond was quicker and side stepped the lunge making Ivan land in front of her on all fours. 

Diamond quickly raised both of her fists over her head, she slammed her fists down on the back of Ivan's neck. There was a loud bone breaking crack when Diamond’s fists made contact and force transfer to Ivan’s body made it slam into the ground causing it to kick up a lot of sand.

Ivan’s body twitched and Diamond could see the light fade from his eyes. She knew he was dead but she didn’t live this long without making sure and grabbed Ivan’s head. She made a quick and powerful twist on his head to cause internal decapitation, which was Diamond’s favorite way to finish off an enemy, a bloodless kill.

“It’s done,” Diamond called out and the sand cloud was clearing as Chris walked out of his position to stand beside Diamond. Chris looked at the body and Diamond let out a small grunt as her muscles and bones shifted back.

“That was quicker than I thought.” Chris said as bent down but quickly stood up from Ivan’s unwashed smell. “Good god, no wonder it was done fast, more beast than man.”

Diamond nodded and glanced around the pit before walking over to the wall where there was a switch. “Lights.” She said and Chris quickly covered his eyes as Diamond flicked the switch. The flood lights in the pit turned on and she blinked quickly to not be stunned by the lights.

Chris opened his eyes and looked around to see the spot Ivan was digging at, “I need to get my shovel while I call this in.” Chris said and his eyes went back to Ivan’s body. “Mind staying with the body?”

“Bring my supper down as well,” Diamond said and pulled a disinfectant wipe out of her holster pocket to clean off her hands. Chris nodded to Diamond’s request before he walked back to his unmarked truck, while Diamond went to grab her coat from the ground.