Author's Note: Some artistic liberties / liberal interpretations are applied in this story: lycantropy is genetic rather than a contagious disease, and there is at least one branch of V-clean werewolf that is not particularly bothered by silver. I do not know if they are actually true in True Blood, but they seem reasonable assumptions at the time of this writing.

Poimin poimin marjoja
Ei tääl' ole susia
Varokaamme kuitenkin
PÖÖ!

Picking picking berries
There be no wolves here
But let us be careful
BOO!

(Finnish nursery rhyme.)

I had been going for a run in the woods in the dark of the night quite often. To me, there was nothing ominous about frolicking through the foliage in an endorphin rush. It had other benefits as well: I was free to be myself without causing shock and civil disarray.

Although no clothes are involved, I am not technically talking about streaking. I have this hereditary condition called lycantropy. That is, I can turn into this big black mutt with coarse fur, and it runs in the family. The general colouring does, at least. My kind are also known as werewolves, although I have to admit that after the invention of indoor heating, grocery stores and the welfare state, we remain about as feral as your average schnauzer.

My blood is rather diluted towards mundanity, so it was not at all clear I would manifest these canine capabilities when I was small. Despite the statistical odds, things eventually turned hairy for me. At that point, my form-challenged family decided to send me abroad to live with relatives who had a bit more first-hand experience on how to deal with a teenagers who pay their own dog tax and rebel against going out in a leash within urban areas.

That was how I landed in Minnesota a few years ago, to live among a Finnish-American werewolf community. They taught me not to lick my crotch in public and to hide a key somewhere before changing so I could get back into the house afterwards. A few months back, I was finally old enough to go out and find my own place in the world. After a few twists and turns, I ended up here, in Louisiana, where the swamps are somewhat more lively than back home, and the heat is enough to melt my poor brain in the summer.

Suffice it to say that I feel somewhat of a foreigner in a foreign land. But when I go on a little nocturnal run, it all flows away, and I am one with my surroundings once again.

On one of my tours of the countryside, I discovered that sometimes problems could not be outrun, but rather run into.

A man was lying under a tree. He was not moving. Was he dead? There are few things that beat discovering a corpse in the woods on the nastiness scale. I got closer and found out that his breathing was shallow, but still there. He was covered in blood and mud, and looked like more fluid of either sort was freshly oozing from his midsection.

It was not my night. Finding a half-dead man in the woods, when you are in the middle of having your not-being-human moment, is one of those few things that are even worse than finding a corpse. I had taken a first-aid course, but mostly the instructors assumed that you did not get into these situations while running around without any equipment whatsoever.

It was hard to see what had hit him exactly. I knew that unless alligators had started swinging through trees, I was probably the most dangerous wild animal in the forest. This could be an elaborate mugging... but I also knew a particularly nasty predator that was known to prowl in the area and specialized in graphic, nonsensical violence: a vampire.

I shifted back to human form and started to grope the mercifully unconscious man's pockets frantically in the hopes of finding anything more useful than his mud-soaked and torn garments.

Hallelujah! A working phone in his inner jacket pocket! Man's true best friend!

Now, before someone makes any snide remarks about the abnormality of a Finn leaving the house without a mobile phone, please recall that the only places I could have even theoretically carried anything on me while on the run would have been both uncomfortable and too moist for regular electronics. And I do not really change for these occasions just so I could slide into a form-fitted (pun intended) utility harness complete with a reflector-striped bow tie and a jingly bell. There is a difference between non-feral and lame, after all.

Defensive narrative digressions aside, I of course wasted no time in dialling for help. The staff at the emergency response centre sent a paramedic unit in our general direction, and I started to look for ways to alleviate the dismal state of the gory disaster area before me.

After the initial rush of adrenaline had worn off, I realized that I was applying first aid on a strange man while in the buff and rather deep in the forest. I knew that paramedics generally dealt with more than their fair share of strange situations, but this might be tough to reasonably explain even to them.

So, I quietly begged for the injured man's forgiveness, and started to add some embellishment to my reports on the state of affairs passed to the emergency response centre. From truthful emphasis like "this guy looks like he's been attacked for no apparent reason" via exaggerated fears like "What if whoever did this is still around here somewhere?" to little white lies like "I think I heard something!"

By the time the paramedics were reported to be closing in on us, I finally squealed an "Oh my god, I'm sure I heard someone! I have to go!" and fled the scene barely before help arrived. I left the phone with the man; it was his, after all, and I was freezing badly enough that I wanted to get back into a fur coat of my own.

On my way home, I ruminated on what I had just seen. There were some of what appeared to be knife cuts on the man, and no obvious bite marks that I could see in the dark. So, if my theory was correct, it was not just a vampire attack, it was a vampire attack that was supposed to remain undiscovered.

I sighed as I realized I would have to go make sure the local police could deal with supernatural culprits at least on a theoretical level. Which meant leaving them with my contact information and all that. Oh well.

-ooo-

I had barely gotten a few hours of sleep when I was suddenly jolted awake by some vigorous knocking on my door. Who could it be at this hour? I hooked the chain and opened the door to peek out.

A dark and brooding stranger stood on my doorstep. For a moment I wondered if he had some Irish blood in him, what with the dark hair and pale skin, but then I realized there was a different kind of blood altogether that gave you a chronic pallor and a tendency to come knocking on people's doors at night.

I quickly averted my gaze. It would not do to look a vampire in the eye; they can do all kinds of mind trickery to you if you are not careful. It also struck me that he was probably the murderer, here to get rid of the only eyewitness. And that he would not be able to crash through the door if that old rumour about vampires needing to be invited in held true. So I did what any sensible person would do when faced with a similar situation.

I promptly slammed the door to his face.

Gaining some additional courage from not standing face-to-face to the killer, I instructed him through the door to kindly vacate the premises or I would call the police on his scrawny undead tail. In slightly more colourful language, perhaps, but that was merely because I was somewhat distraught by the whole situation.

I then went to continue my disturbed sleep. Restoring the Sandman's favours was surprisingly easy, all things considered. I simply had the good fortune of being rather tired.

-ooo-

When I woke up, the sun was up already. It made me feel a lot better, even chipper. I was ready to head over to the hospital to check up on the poor guy and talk to the police. I stored a piece of silver cutlery into my pocket and wore a thin silver necklace just in case.

The interesting thing about silver is that it seems the amount is not so important: the thinnest silver chain burns about as effectively and as prolongedly as a brick of the thing installed into a vampire's gut. It would seem to act more like a catalyst than anything burning up in a chemical reaction with... whatever it is that vampires have on them that reacts with silver so flamboyantly. I idly wondered if my nano-silver antibacterial sports socks would burn the same way, or if the stuff lost its power to kill undead as it gained the funky new capability to kill very small living things. Maybe yet another form of silver would make the rest of us burn?

Cheerily morbid thoughts were coursing through my head as I headed over to the hospital.

Once there, I learned that the poor man had not survived the night. It was not particularly surprising, given the state he was in when I found him, but a bit of a downer nevertheless. I figured this just meant it was an even better idea for me to go have a chat with the police, so that I would take away half the benefit of the murderer getting to me later on.

Only apparently the whole town had only a handful of policemen, and they were all out for the day, so I could not give my statement after all. I left my contact information and was promised they would give me a call and even come by later when they found the time. My social duties morally satisfied, I headed back home.

I was digging for keys at my own doorstep when I realized I was not alone.

Unfortunately for me, this realization came from being lifted off my feet from behind, and my arms twisted back. I was groping for my silver weaponry when I realized that it was day; the guy should be in flames from just showing his face out of his private grave, let alone assaulting people.

As my face was introduced to the porch wall, I squirmed and tried to free an arm, only to have it twisted more painfully back. A smooth, if somewhat strained voice spoke in my ear: "You can come quietly, or I can break your arms first and /then/ haul you in for questioning, you blasted mutt."

My mind reeled. He knew about my lycantropy, and spoke about... questioning? The police could not have come here so fast; what was this guy all about? I grit out a prompt through my spatially constrained jaws. "Questioning? You're not here to off me as the eyewitness to your botched kill?"

He snorted at this, perhaps amusedly. "I wish! I'd be done and miles from here already. No, the sheriff wants you, so my job is to haul your elusive ass over to Fangtasia."

Fangtasia? The strange term gave me two reasons to be grateful: first, that I was wearing a turtle-necked sweater, and second, that I would probably stop inventing names for haunts by the time my imagination and sense of style died with the rest of me. What can I say? I complied, because as plots went, this was so insane that it had to be true.

As my captor drove us towards the fabled lair of the local vampire sheriff, I tried very hard not to imagine the man in charge of the blood-sucking populace in the district as a fanged Mickey Mouse in oversized robes and a pointy hat. For most of the trip, I failed miserably.

-ooo-

We parked outside Fangtasia after an uneventful car ride, during which I confirmed to myself that my forceful delivery guy was unlikely to be undead. He was quite brawny, but not unnaturally so. Were it not for the name of our target location, I could have even entertained the theoretical thought that this journey had nothing to do with vampires.

Mr. Anonymous Beef directed me in cordially, now that I was not prone to go running anywhere. It was early in the evening, so the place was quiet for the most part; I was still quite happy that I had a local of some sort as escort. I would not like to end up on some regular's menu over a misunderstanding.

In the back of the large room, there was an outrageous dais set up. On it lounged a blonde, blue-eyed hunk who had to be either running the show or totally out of his godforsaken mind. Judging by his appearance, he might have been Scandinavian in a previous life. Or the hair could be dyed; actually, it probably was. I never understood what it was that people saw in blonde hair, except a possibility to benefit from someone assumed to be on the level of a child on more characteristics than just their colouring.

Not that I would strictly be opposed to taking advantage of some more lively guy with this alpha hound's looks.

My musings were interrupted - mercifully - by a striking blonde in a tight leather outfit showing up to address my official handler. I figured she would be taking our order for carbonated blood mixed with pure alcohol, but instead, Beef told her to go inform the sheriff we had arrived.

The waitress smiled at me as if I were dinner, then strolled over to the dais to speak in a low voice to the undead Viking. That confirmed with reasonably high probability that he was the sheriff, too, but I was still not entirely confident about him not being off his rocker.

I perked my ears a bit at some familiar sounds, and realized through the relative quiet of the room that the two were speaking Swedish. Swedish? Of all things? Why, gods, why? Finns and Swedes get along about as well as cats and dogs. And these cats were of the cranky cougars with superpowers variety.

I let out a small noise of disbelief, which prompted a wicked grin from my designated hauler. "Nervous?"

I hid my growing unease behind a chuckle. "Why, I was just pondering how splendidly we'll get along."

He let out a highly disturbing, spontaneous cackle. "Good luck with that! Eric Northman is known to positively loathe werewolves."

Great. Just great.