Author's Notes (Updated 12/13/12): THE STORY IS FINISHED.

Warning: This is a thoroughly violent bloody story. There's nudity, disturbing sexual situations, serious adult themes. The language is also as harsh as the original Ginger Snaps, probably more so.

This novel started as an alternate sequel to Ginger Snaps: Unleashed, keeping the general concept and taking it in a totally different direction. Tyler, Alice and Ghost are not in this story. Just think of this as the sequel they would have made if they only had a blockbuster budget. I call it a hybrid fan fiction, because I put them into a much larger story. I took writing this seriously because I want to become a author. My skills do get better in the later chapters.

I apologize that some chapters don't have scene separators. This happened because on my copy, I separated the scenes with asterisks. As it turned out, this website's document manager wouldn't recognize them, and would simply omit them. Only the horizontal rule worked to separate scenes. It took a lot of chapters before I realized this. I'm trying to catch up, but I'm afraid they're still missing in many of the middle chapters.

Note: Beside Brigitte's journal entry, the prologue doesn't have any GS characters in it. It's written to stand on its own as a short story, and it shows what's happening with lycanthropy in the wider world. You could skip it if you want, but it is a good werewolf story on its own and becomes important by Chapter 5.

The story comes out to about 205,000 words, or 650 pages typed.

And now, the story:

Every day when the shot is making me so sick I want to die, I remember you never had a chance of holding on. By the time we found monkshood, you were already "embracing change." Not me. I hate this Curse because of the way it twisted you. I will never give in to the disease that took you from me.

-Brigitte Fitzgerald, Journal, pg. 44

Thomas-Caskeys Institute

Archives

Chapter 1:

PROLOGUE: IRREVERSIBLE

"You never had a dead child left on your doorstep," Lewis Butler said sarcastically, as he drove the truck on a road through the dark, wintery Canadian woods.

Michael, his only passenger, cleared his throat. "Before it became personal, I mean? I've always wondered why you never quit, especially when your marriage came apart?"

Lewis regretted his irritability. Michael was as meek as a man could be, a little too meek for this assignment. For Lewis, it had been another fruitless day. When he heard the question, Michael felt like some burdensome movie sidekick.

Lewis took a deep breath. "Sorry, after the first case, it was curiosity. Then, I don't know which case it was, they came so fast, but after that everything else in life seemed unimportant. Hiram offered to put me on salary, so I gave up my PI business and joined The Team full time. That was four years ago. I never regretted it. Until– "

"Now?" Michael gazed at Lewis, a man twenty years his junior. Lewis was in his mid-thirties, and his dark brown hair grayed much in the last year. Michael didn't have any gray yet, owing to a softer, academic life. "Has this been that bad, Lewis?"

Lewis gave his partner a sidelong glance with a red eye. "It's been nine months. By far the longest case ever. What do you think? Daphne's killed eleven children across Canada that we know about. I can't catch her, and I'm the only one who has a chance. I've had to ignore other cases. This is more than one man should handle. Hiram is too concerned with his scientific reputation to risk hiring another investigator. Will you please prevail on him? I can't do this alone anymore!" Lewis paused as he followed a turn to the right.

Michael shrugged. "I'll try. Hiram's a little old and inflexible."

"A little? Try talking to Thomas, then."

"He's just as old. Yes, they've been together for as long as I've been alive, but unless you know statistics, Thomas is even harder to talk to than Hiram."

Lewis shook his head. "I wonder what those two see in each other."

Outside, the winter night was clear. They could now see the full moon in the top passenger side of the windshield. It was a chinook winter in the boreal forest of mid-Saskatchewan Province. Under the full moon, trees upheld silver branches of pure, glittering snow like sculptures depicting a pagan rite. Lewis knew about the full moon's magic, but no longer saw beauty in it. To him it was a threat, another failure, another deadline missed. The road straightened

"They're standing in the way now," said Lewis. "The Team needs to get serious and formal about this. Hiram's been dragging his feet long enough and– "

Michael interrupted. "This cause is still a difficult sell right now. The scientific community isn't prepared to believe it."

"Hiram and Thomas had no problem lying to recruit me into it. The facts spoke for themselves, and I'm as skeptical as they come." He added, "Was."

"I think one thing stopping them is they're repentant about deceiving you." Michael wrung his hands. He didn't like the full moon either. He turned toward Lewis to keep it out of sight. "I'll talk to them. In the meantime, try to remember you're at the center of the most important discovery of the century." Michael sighed. "What's next, I wonder? Are we going to discover ghosts and vampires and find they're also connected to dark matter?"

"Let somebody else discover those. I have my hands full with werewolves now."

"Think about it. If werewolves were extinct for five hundred years, couldn't vampires also be coming back now?"

"I'd rather not think about that, can't you understand? This is your first tour of field work. Don't you feel like you'd rather not meet a werewolf? Don't you want to be somewhere safe, like back in Toronto, lecturing?"

"Of course, but being part of 'The Team' has its obligations. By the way, Hiram said we must be doing something right, because another child hasn't come up missing."

Lewis scoffed. "That either means we've thrown her off her game, or she's a thousand kilometers away from us, hunting in some other province, or state."

"Be optimistic. Maybe she'll leave something on our doorstep this time."

"Never bring that up," Lewis snapped. Michael flinched, and after a pause Lewis said, "Sorry."

"Understandable. That was tasteless of me. I apologize."

Lewis went quiet, concentrating on the narrow road, which had become more tricky with a turn going up a grade, then down followed by a rightward bend. When they came out of it, they saw a large, bloody carcass stretched out in the middle.

"Look out!" cried Michael.

Lewis braked. He spotted another body lying at least ten meters behind the first. The truck stopped with less than two yards to spare. The first dead body, a large dog, lay mangled and disemboweled before them. A lack of blood around it told Lewis the canine had been killed elsewhere and deposited here. At the same time, he realized the second one was a man, who lay unmoving on his side facing away from them. The body showed some blood but none of the massive trauma of the canine.

Lewis guffawed. "Speak of the she-devil!"

Michael turned to him wide-eyed as Lewis studied the surroundings. He took the truck out of gear. For the moment, the idling engine was the only thing to be heard. To the right, the woods sloped upward, to the left, downward. Though the snowy trees and ground refracted the moonlight, the forest floor offered plenty of shadowy cover.

"Shit!" said Michael, inhaling for the first time since they stopped, his mind frozen on the immediate scene.

Lewis burst from his usual analytical mood by slamming his fist on the steering wheel and laughing. "At last! She wants a fight; we'll give her one." He unbuckled his seat belt and put the truck back into drive.

"We– ?" The outburst, so unlike Lewis, made Michael cringe. "What are you– ?" cried Michael, as Lewis slowly drove the truck over the carcass, crushing it with sickening cracks and squashing. "Lewis– ?"

"It's dead anyway. The less distance we walk to examine this poor man, the safer we'll be."

The pity Lewis felt for the man was slight compared to the thrill in being challenged at last. For four months he had hoped for another opportunity to stop her. His only chance was to play on her vindictiveness, a consistent quality of werewolves. It finally paid off.

"What the hell do we do now?" Michael said, terrified, his appearing pale in the light. He cowered in his seat, so now he didn't even come up to Lewis' shoulder.

"An adult male," said Lewis, triumphantly. "Not at all her preference. Oh, we got under her skin all right." Michael had never heard him being vainglorious.

Lewis drew up ten feet from the body and stopped, taking the truck out of gear again. He didn't shut off the engine. Instead, he turned on some vintage hard rock music, Hocus Pocus, and turned it up loud.

Michael covered his ears, his face bewildered. He shouted, "Lewis, what– ?"

"Drowns our voices, otherwise she can understand everything we say."

He had a point, so Michael had to nod. "All right. Why the slaughtered dog?"

"A stop sign. She didn't want us to run over him," Lewis, gestured toward the man. He took his holster out from under the seat.

"Why would she care?" Michael shouted. He had to move his head toward Lewis to understand him. Lewis had kept his tone normal. He bent toward Michael.

"Because maybe he's not actually dead, and running over him would ruin her plan." Lewis relaxed his tone, affecting an aloofness he didn't feel. He threaded the holster belt around his waist.

"Is it a trap?" Michael yelled.

"Yes." Lewis sounded pleased.

"Are we just going to fall into it?" Michael almost panted the words.

"We don't have a choice. He might still be alive," said Lewis, gesturing toward the victim lying in the road, "and anyway we can't just run over him to get to our cabin. We must get out."

"Lewis, stop! Don't. She wouldn't be doing this without an advantage."

"Not really true. It's a full moon, her party night. Maybe she's drunk off moonbeams and wants a fight. Get a hold of yourself." Lewis leaned forward, "And don't shout. It defeats the purpose of the music."

"Please, let's report this to Hiram first."

Lewis opened the center compartment and pulled out his Walther P99. The sixteen round clip extended beneath the handle. He took the safety off, pulled the slide back. He tapped his coat pocket, where he carried his Ruger .357 Magnum. "There's no cellphone coverage here, remember? And Hiram didn't spring for sat phones." He put the Walther in his holster.

"All right," said Michael, regaining control. Lewis reached behind the seat and grabbed a double-barreled shotgun, handing it to him.

"She probably won't come near you when you're carrying this, but it is a full moon. Remember she'll try to run you out of ammunition before she attacks, so don't shoot blind. Once you fire, don't reload, just drop it and draw your Glock. Defend only yourself. Don't try to cover me. I can look out for myself."

Michael composed himself, sat up taller, took deep breaths, met Lewis' gaze and said, "All right, I'm ready."

Lewis drew his Walther again. He made a nod toward the shotgun. "Take the safety off." Embarrassed, Michael did. "Have it ready to fire at close range only. Remember, I didn't exaggerate my reports; she's fast. Okay, we get out together. Get ready . . . " Lewis shut the engine down, the stereo died with it ". . . Now!"

Their boots hit the ground simultaneously, Michael's on pavement, Lewis' on snow. No sooner had their doors closed, Lewis heard a snarling from the other side. By its low pitch, he could tell it wasn't Daphne.

No, he could see Daphne. The familiar blue eyes with gold pupils glared out from between two trees, crouched underneath the squat, snowy canopy. Her nictitating membranes could hide them, so she obviously wanted to be seen. Lewis felt the stare in his gut. He aimed and fired twice, but she already rolled away behind a tree trunk and bolted. Her size shocked him. After nine full moons, growing at every one, she was now the size of a lion.

Michael shouted from the other side, "Lew– Uh!" his cry interrupted by a thump and a snarl.

Confronted with Daphne, Lewis could only afford a glance in Michael's direction. The hateful blue eyes reappeared closer, and Lewis had to forget about Michael to fight for his own life.

Lewis fired twice again, but she already disappeared while something hard and heavy struck him in the heels. He jumped, landed on it, and almost lost his footing. The shotgun lay beneath his feet; Michael apparently had slung it across the underside of the truck for him.

As Lewis struggled to balance himself, Michael shouted, "Lewis, HELP . . . !" Then vicious growling cut him off. Lewis heard a swishing of Michael being dragged into the woods across the road behind Lewis.

He realized Michael was right. She had an unexpected advantage.

There are two of them!

Another abortive glance through the windows told Lewis nothing else. Daphne snarled, once again forcing his attention away. He did not see her either. Then, in corner of his eye, he saw her break cover down the road left. He fired once, too late. She dodged behind the truck. He dropped, looked underneath, but couldn't spot her. Checking to both sides, behind and above for an ambush, he stood and moved toward the rear and but saw nothing.

From the woods, Michael's screams escalated. The noise confirmed two werewolves snarled raucously over his partner. Lewis holstered his pistol and picked up the shotgun. He cracked the breech; both barrels were loaded with lead shot, not silver, the legends being erroneous. The precious metal had its use against lycanthropy, but not as a weapon. He walked in front of the truck and touched the man's throat. No pulse, cold, not mutilated and little blood. A clean kill, unlike what they were doing to Michael.

The perfect bait for the perfect trap, twice. What a clever hell-beast she is.

He cocked the hammers back and crossed the road. Once in the woods, he raised the shotgun to his shoulders. The refracted full moon lit the forest to a soft blur. Cover was sparse. The shin-deep snow squeaked under his boots. Ambushing them was impossible anyway.

When he could see them clearly, they stopped their torment. Daphne grasped Michael by his bloody coat and sat him up. They got behind him as a partial shield, she to his right, her partner to his left.

They glared at Lewis with pupils shining gold. Her fur was a beautiful silver-gray in brown. Otherwise, she was a stupefying chimera of human, wolf, and what-the-fuck. Her head lacked any human characteristics: lupine, but like some extinct species; a primal nightmare concocted from humankind's ancient, collective memories. The jaws were broader and more powerful than any natural wolf. Her bloody teeth glistened like the snow, her incisors two inches long. The eyes were large and unmistakably intelligent.

Beneath the head, her anatomy was baffling. The incredibly muscular arms looked human but ended in a pair of huge paws: each armed with five sharp nails: retractable, sickle-shaped, each the length of a finger. Lewis witnessed a single blow rip away a person's face wholesale, and that beast was much smaller than Daphne.

Most disturbing by far to Lewis, she still had a woman's breasts— conspicuous even through her fur— her nipples a sickening distraction as she sat on her haunches.

She embraced Michael around the shoulder like an old friend, except with her claws against his throat. Her cohort ducked lower behind Michael, having more deference for Lewis' gun. The wider face identified it as male, with gray and beige fur. Next to her, he looked tiny. The thickness of his coat proved this couldn't be his first full moon, but it also couldn't be more than his third.

Scratches and gouges marred Michael's features, and his chest and legs were blood-soaked. Lewis wondered how to rescue him, but no good plan came to mind, yet. Michael wouldn't heal either. The disease was outside its infectious phase, which was synced worldwide by a dark matter storm, and predictable.

He felt the weight of guilt, but no matter what happened to Michael or himself, Lewis resolved that he absolutely could not let Daphne get away again. She'd killed at least six children since she last escaped him four months ago. He had never encountered another as shrewd, hateful and audacious as her.

He had a great shot ordinarily, but these were no ordinary creatures. If he didn't drop outright, she would bolt and heal. Then she may run hundreds of kilometers away. By morning, she'd be terrorizing another unwary community. Nothing but point-blank range would do. His only tenuous hold on her was the special hatred she held toward him, intensified by the full moon. He planned to goad them into an attack, and take her out with the shotgun at close range.

He crept forward; they didn't move. Did they want to parley? As far as he knew, werewolves never tried to communicate with an uninfected human. He knew better than to expect good faith.

We're nothing but food and fun to them, except when we rise to the level of nuisance, as I have.

"Sooo," he yelled. "Does the mutt have her own bitch now? What shelter did you rescue your little leg-humper from?"

Michael looked at him uncomprehending. If shock wasn't clouding his mind, their scents were. "Lewis . . ." he moaned, "Don't shoot."

"Don't worry, Michael. I'll get you out of this." Lewis didn't believe that at all.

"Daphne, are you too much of a chicken shit to come after me?"

Both growled in response. She bared her fangs.

"Oh, I apologize, you're not a chicken shit." He yelled louder, "You're a little poodle!"

She bellowed. If there was one thing they hated more than humans, it was domestic dogs. Perhaps they saw them as collaborators. The male snapped Michael's arm, then lifted and waved it, still attached, shaped like a lightning bolt. Their hostage screamed pitifully. She roared and swiped her paw through the air backhanded at Lewis, turned to her partner and uttered a perplexing growl of consonants and guttural stops. The male let Michael's arm drop. Michael still screamed, so she put her paw over his mouth.

Lewis recalled his amazement when The Team discovered werewolves actually spoke an unrecognizable version of English.

She snarled the same sounds at Lewis, who now knew it meant "stop." He halted, but kept the shotgun up and trained at her head.

She opened her mouth as though doing it for a dentist, and rasped out a deliberate combination of a cat's hiss and a nasal snarl, almost managing human vowel sounds, ending with a broken buzz.

For once, Lewis understood her. "Yes, my name's Lewis," he called. "Do you mind if I call you Daphne? I always have."

She growled back. It could have meant anything.

Does this monster even think of herself as Daphne Coronette anymore? The gentle, young mother-schoolteacher from which it sprang was its uncanny antipode. Maybe Daphne was its first prey, only consumed from the inside out. Lewis preferred to believe that.

"And yes, I know you can speak: mutt."

She snarled rapid train-wreck totally lost on Lewis. "Good to see you're sitting comfortably again, princess. That slug in your rump didn't bother you too much, I hope. You know– you yipped like a little Chihuahua when I shot you there?"

Her tail whipped, not a friendly gesture for her kind, and Lewis thought she would charge him. Instead, she turned to Michael and stuck a claw-nail behind his jaw. He cried out.

Lewis gave. "All right, all right, I'll be civil. You made your point."

She removed it.

"So, what do you want?"

She growled repeatedly until Lewis interrupted, "Yes, I know you're speaking, princess, but I can't understand any of it."

She bellowed in frustration, scraping her right claw into the snow. The gesture amazed Lewis, whose perception of her shifted from wolf to ape and back.

Her outburst passed. She pointed at the gun with one extended claw nail, then held her paw up in a grasping gesture and dropped it to the ground. She then turned to Michael and scratched him underneath his chin, gently this time. The meaning was obvious: drop the shotgun and he would live.

Even if she kept her promise— an impossibility— Michael had no chance without him, and Lewis couldn't hold off two werewolves with a pistol, or pair of them. The shotgun at close range was guaranteed to kill, the only reason why they weren't circling him now.

"No," Lewis answered. She snarled back and scraped her claw across Michael's ear, drawing blood. He groaned, muffled under her paw. Lewis stood unfazed. "If you want me, I'm here. As is. If you want to play like a good Labrador, I have a ball in my pocket you can chase."

Enraged, she roared and chomped Michael's ear off. He shrieked, blood spurting down his neck and shoulder. Chewing, she turned back to Lewis. Her partner cuffed Michael's shoulder and bellowed into his remaining ear. It took everything Lewis had to keep from firing as they dragged their hostage away with supernatural speed.

Disgusted, outraged, Lewis walked up to the blood spot on the snow and stared. Werewolves reveled in the smell of fear and pain. If they weren't hungry they'd drag him through every pit of hell before he died. He heard Michael screaming weaker now. Lewis' gut muscles squeezed like a python. When he had control of his fury, he followed the clamor.

When he got too close, they dragged Michael deeper into the woods. They did it a second time, teasing Lewis. They were wearing him out. He grew tired and numb. The shotgun grew heavier. They had unlimited energy, were impervious to cold, and could sense his fatigue by smell. After they teased him a third time, his composure cracked. He shouted dog insults again. No strategy this time, only sheer frustration.

As he drew toward the fray for the fourth time, the growls died out. Michael lay in a clearing, on display, propped on his back against a rock. His blood lit up bright red in the silvery light. The werewolves were gone.

The perfect bait, again?

He heard nothing now except for his own trudging and Michael's gasps. The trees in this section of forest were mostly bare, vertical sticks, with no cover for something Daphne's size.

They ran out of patience. Lewis knew better than to think they had run off. They left Michael because he was dying, and would shortly be no good as a hostage. Now they required a distraction.

On the right side, Lewis spotted the footprints diverging in opposite directions, the larger set going up the gradual slope, forward to the right. His mind grasped at an opportunity he could hardly believe.

Daphne, you just made a tactical error.

Without breaking stride, he formulated a plan in seconds. His only possible cover was a single maple tree with barely enough girth to protect his flank about three meters from Michael, also to the right.

Lacking cover, they had to be watching him from a distance. He couldn't see them because their night vision was superior, which meant they'd be relying on their speed as well.

He walked up to Michael, but could ill-afford to give him comfort. As a ruse, he said, "Michael, oh-my-God! Look what they've done to you!" He checked the maple tree behind him while digging his heels into the snow for traction.

He crouched. As Michael rasped something unintelligible. Lewis ignored him and listened for distant noises. He lowered the shotgun onto his boots and thought he heard a distant scraping of claws on tree bark. A signal.

"Save your strength, friend," he said, adding louder, "I'm gonna get you back to the truck,"

Michael's hand was mangled, so Lewis touched his wrist but still held the gun's stock. To even look his partner in the eye, would have made Lewis waver.

A crunch of snow from uphill then another from somewhere else. Unable to think of another line, he said, "Maybe you were right . . . um."

Too early and they'll abort. Too late and . . .

Michael responded with a death rattle. Lewis grasped the shotgun in both hands.

"I'm so sorry," he said, not acting this time. He heard feet rushing through snow, closer.

Timing . . . timing . . .

"I was in over my head and– "

He scrambled backward until he hit the maple tree. His legs slipped. He fell like a goalie in the butterfly position. Pain wrenched through his thighs and hips.

He heard skidding and swishing as the werewolves tried to change directions. Their weight and speed turned against them. She roared, probably an abort order. He turned the shotgun toward her. The male got there first on the opposite flank. Lewis twisted back far left. He fired barrels into its face. The werewolf's head disintegrated. It smashed convulsing into side of the tree with a wet, bony crunch.

The gun kicked. Lewis guided it into a back swing. The barrel hit Daphne square in the chops. Broken teeth flew. She wiped out, spun a one-eighty in front of him. Her huge paws kicked up a blizzard. He reached for his Walther. She swiped blind and backhanded at his throat. Her claw ripped into his coat collar, missed his flesh. She twisted her wrist to her forehand and threw him. The claw cut free prematurely, saving him from a broken neck.

Lewis landed on his face meters away. He swept the snow from his eyes. She ended her slide short, but lost her footing. From her back, she whipped her body like a fish on a deck. A loud snap, brought her to her feet crouched. In a blink, she would have pounced.

But Lewis had already drawn and aimed. Multiple bullets penetrated her hide. A fifth of a second: one shot, two, three savaged her chest and neck. She recoiled, rearing up, presenting her belly. Another fifth of a second: shots four, five, six all scored.

Desperately, she jumped straight up fifteen feet. Her body twisted like a lion-sized gymnast, blood drops flying off. She landed in a defensive roll.

But Lewis got up on his knees. Five more slugs ripped into her.

She writhed, bleeding. He released the empty clip. To his astonishment, she rose and ran. He fumbled to reload.

No! You're not getting away this time!

She collapsed again, going still. He could see her dark form lying about fifty feet away among the trees, like an inkblot on the shadow-etched whiteness.

A glance told him the male was dead. He put his reloaded Walther away, drew his Magnum to finish. He approached, hearing labored breathing. Her trail of blood defiled the brilliant snow with solid red, which steamed like acid. The moon hung above her, impaled on the silhouettes of spiky trees.

Lewis anticipated her healing powers being super-phenomenal, even with eleven shots in her. He had never fought one this old before.

Two in the head, two in heart and one in the spine, and she'll never get up.

He felt empty. Nothing changed the fact that Daphne had him beat months ago. Closing a case usually meant some victory: a victim helped or even cured. This one had been nothing but defeats, where his every error turned into somebody else's tragedy. Michael took the consequences tonight. Lewis couldn't make himself do this anymore. It was time to resign.

He put the gun to her head, but forgot about her scent, a neurochemical cocktail. Its strength caught him by surprise, warming his spine, making his head tingle. Before he could cough and hold his breath, he was already under its sway and no longer wanted to kill her. Ears ringing, he recoiled, trying to regain his senses. Sudden images popped into his mind: his ex-wife Valery, then of every woman he had ever been attracted to. It ended with Daphne's image, with her large, sensitive, brown eyes.

The disorientation passed, but he felt light-headed and aroused. The Team found werewolves' scent to be an augmented version of human pheromones, but Lewis never encountered one this powerful. Until now, he had to be in a cloud of it to notice, and even then, it would confuse him momentarily. He thought he recovered but when he tried to take aim, something in him snapped.

There's still hope for her!

Could Daphne, the person, still be rescued? He routinely cured early-stage werewolves but never tried it post-transformation.

Why had he always presumed a person was irretrievable after the shape shift? Had The Team ever questioned this? Without logical connection, Lewis' intoxicated mind jumped from these thoughts to believing Hiram ordered him to test it on her.

He pulled out an opaque plastic tube. Press the business end against her, and a needle would pop out to inject the cure. The auto-syringe contained silver ions. Silver itself did nothing. The tarnish on the silver was what affected them. He considered her size and pulled out a second syringe. His fingers numb, he struggled to remove the safety covers. As he drew close, he smelled her again‒ her aroma a mixture of leather, musk, almond and honey‒ but he thought himself immune. Wounds might interfere with the process, so he would risk waiting for her to heal.

Daphne's body radiated heat, which turned the surrounding snow into bloody slush. He needed to stay warm and alert, so he straddled her, holding the injectors in his right hand, the gun in his left.

With fascination he watched her healing. Five minutes, and a bullet pushed out of her neck, falling into the slush. Then two out of her chest. She shed broken teeth, which were replaced by new, immaculate ones. He lost track of time. His hands regained sensation. The winter panorama around him turned tropical; the snow turned to sand. His attention didn't wane, but doubts nagged him.

It's her scent. Kill her before it's too late.

Finally, her paws and eyelids moved. He hit her in the throat with the needles, which made a sharp double-pop. Daphne's eyes burst open; she roared, furious.

His gun discharged into the ground as she knocked it from his hand. She bucked and backhanded him. Landing prone in the snow, Lewis turned himself over, Walther drawn. Daphne slapped it away. She pinned him with a paw the size of a dinner plate.

He couldn't breathe. His ribs felt ready to crack. She growled. Her claws extended slowly and began to pierce his skin. He gaped; his body attempted to scream with empty lungs.

Then, they withdrew. He could draw breath again. The werewolf hissed. He sensed her rage slackening. She gasped. Her blue eyes drained to gray. The gold reflected in her pupils faded; they shrank to pinpricks. She removed her paw, and he shinnied out. She swayed and staggered. One of the injectors dangled from her throat.

Lewis stood and witnessed what people in the past saw when they stabbed a werewolf with a tarnished blade, but this time at a much higher dose. Her jaws drew wide open and locked. The creature groaned, shuddered. Teeth fell out like beads from a broken necklace. He stood, while she toppled on her side in a seizure. The beast howled and yelped pitifully.

Lewis watched, nauseated as her fur fell off in patches. Daphne's flesh writhed as though worms slithered within. Irises dissolved in her eyes, which turned translucent amber; multicolored particles swam frantically inside. Her remaining teeth fell out; her tongue thickened. Bones and joints cracked and popped all over her, accompanied by noise of soft tissue compressing. The face shrank, and her mid-section began to bloat. The bone-snapping noises grew louder. Her spine contracted like an earthworm in mid-slither, while her neck hyper-extended back. It looked terminal.

Meanwhile, she snarled and screamed in voices both beast and human. The sounds almost made him fall to his knees in prayer.

At this stage, the creature resembled neither human nor werewolf. It developed into an amorphous sac. Innumerable cuts formed all over it, squirting blood. These joined together into gashes, which bled like geysers.

Lewis saw enough. He picked up his magnum, approached and took aim, but he couldn't steady his hand.

The vesicle exploded. Stinking, chunky ooze, bloody yellow and green, blasted out, splattering all over him. He dropped his gun, staggered back.

Lewis cleared his eyes. The hide, now deflated, was peeling away. Blood and slime covered whatever lay still underneath. The last layer fell off, dissolved.

He couldn't tell what lay there, until a profuse discharge cleaned her off. Someone took a loud breath and moaned: a human being, a woman, a miracle. She lifted her head to reveal large, bewildered brown eyes. Lewis recognized her as twenty-four year-old Daphne Coronette, her dark brunette hair was short and uneven, unlike the long straight hair she wore in the pictures. He was speechless.

She peered around, dazed. Her shoulder and back popped; she screamed. Lewis flinched, forewarned the changes might not be over.

The noises subsided, and she pushed herself up to kneel, oblivious to being naked in freezing cold and slush. She appeared completely human, but was terribly thin‒ at least twenty pounds lighter than in her pictures‒ and she was slight then.

A triumphant thrill went through Lewis. "Daphne! Daphne Coronette?" He tried to catch his breath. She didn't respond, didn't even look at him.

Instead, she vomited an orange-red fluid. Lewis almost gagged: he could see a human ear and a thumb in the vomit. Throughout her body, joints clicked and popped as she retched. She recovered. He repeated her name more firmly. Her eyes focused on him, when a series of loud cracks and snaps came from her left hand. To Lewis' horror, it began to change shape and grow claws. She screamed, her eyes awakened with pain and self-loathing. She bit her hand, lurched her head around like a dog in a fight, until a piece of bloody flesh ripped loose. It dropped from her mouth, and she tore in again.

"No! Stop! Daphne . . ." Still cautious, he didn't approach her. "Don't!" Lewis cried, "Please, it won't help!"

She didn't heed him, but continued to mangle her hand even after the change stopped. He tried a different tact. "It was all a nightmare, but it's over. Listen to me. I'll help you wake up!"

She stopped and glared at him, put her bleeding hand under her arm. With the other she rapidly wiped and scratched at herself. She spit words at him through her teeth. "Liar! No, it wasn't a dream! " She doubled over, weeping, "Allan . . . Allan . . . !"

Dread swept through Lewis. He knew who that was and didn't know how to console her now that she remembered.

A convulsive shiver went through her. She straightened. Her skin broke out in goose bumps. Her resistance to cold collapsed. Lewis took off his coat. "I'll get you somewhere warm," he coaxed, approaching her.

But then she spotted his magnum in the snow and grabbed it. He gasped and bolted toward her. "Daphne, n‒!"

Leaning forward, she fired, the gun under her chin. Blood and brains splattered in his eyes. He froze, couldn't breathe. His knees folded, and he vomited for a long time, then dry-heaved. He forced himself look. No rescue. Daphne, the woman, was dead.

Steam rose from the slurry where she lay. He shivered and choked until the retching turned to sobs. The anguish in her eyes wouldn't stop.

He should have known. Rescues all remembered what they did. Werewolves absconded in their final weeks as humans, wandering away alone to hide and hunt. Lewis would find them in abandoned buildings, in caves or in forests. Naked, feral, half-transformed, with cruel eyes, intermediates would await the full moon destined push them over, their ties to the human species already severed.

Not Daphne. She had one bond she tried to keep: to her four-year-old son Allan. She took him into seclusion with her. She couldn't know how radically her personality would change in only a few days. Forensic evidence confirmed the outcome but spared Lewis the most horrific details. He could only grieve over the paradox: how Daphne's maternal devotion spread her tragedy to so many others.

Because Daphne, the child-killer, was born sometime that week before the full moon; when‒ days after disappearing with him‒ sweet, gentle Daphne tore her own child to pieces.