Run with the Wolves Come Night

by sharksdontsleep

It's not a murder, just a body. Which doesn't explain why Carver pulls and keeps the casefile for a few days, though no one says much about it. There are corners to clear and stats to maintain and the brass to serve.

The patrolmen who call it in are Western District boys. "This is a death investigation," he says, bored over the phone. "And I am not a death investigator."

"I know, Sarge, I know but - well you might want to come down here."

There's a police-involved shooting that has homicide unable to get to the scene, and isn't that just like those suit-wearing downtown motherfuckers, to go close a dunker and leave the working man to do a canvas. There isn't much to canvas, though. The patrolmen had found the body in a shitty apartment complex bordering the park during a foot pursuit of some kid who'd had the nerve to up and rabbit away when they wanted to search him.

One of the guys, Ferlinghetti, meets him before he goes into the scene. "Best we can guess it's some kind of animal attack," he says, as a way of warning. "Maybe a pit that turned on its owner or something."

There's no blood on the walls. There's a small pool under the body, but the rest of the place - full of empty caps, a rotting sofa, a few broken vials - is standard Western shooting gallery. Nothing too interesting.

There's also not much of a body left. Looks to be your average Baltimore yo, anywhere between 16 and 20, though it's hard to tell with his face ripped up. He's got new Nikes on, the kind that just came out, so a dealer or a soldier, maybe, not just a standard-issue hopper.

Of course, the big gash down his belly isn't as usual.

Ferlinghetti, who's worked this beat for a few years now, looks unaffected, like he might suggest going for a steak sandwich after this. His partner, a new guy, is looking a little green at the edges.

"Left him to babysit the body?" Carver says.

Ferlinghetti shrugs. "Kid's gotta learn sometime."

It's hot in the apartment, a muggy Baltimore night where the breeze off the Harbor smells like a thousand fish took a piss and died.

There's not much light - most of the bulbs having been busted or collected by the scrappers - but the moon's bright and full, enough that Carver can see that if he leaves this kid one more minute with the body, the ME will be cleaning puke off it.

"Go canvas," he says. The kid nods, looking relieved.

There's no one to canvas, really. A few junkies drift by the doorway as Carver waits there. He should probably detain and question a few, but most look too blasted to notice if they were being ripped apart by a large animal, much less if someone else were.

He can hear Ferlinghetti stop one, but not much comes of it other than a few mumbled answers and the sound of a few vials hitting the concrete. They come back after 20 minutes or so. "No one saw nothing," Ferlinghetti says, rolling his eyes. The kid - Brown - looks considerably less like he's gonna hurl on his own shoes, though.

"Homicide should be here in awhile," Brown says. "Sorry to have bothered you, Sarge. Just thought - maybe you knew him or something."

Carver shrugs. "Some braindead trains a pit to attack, got his ass tore up instead," he says. "Stay here a minute, though. I'll go see if any of my talkative friends are around."

It's late enough that there's quiet in the place, no one blasting the radio, most folks either passed out or deep enough in a nod that they might as well be. Which is why the flash of something bright red moving around on the concrete patio separating the two buildings gets his attention.

It's a little kid, wheeling around on one of those plastic bikes, the kind with the pedals in the front. There's a girl with him - mom or older sister - sitting on a busted up table, smoking.

Carver heads down the stairs, trying to make enough noise that they can hear him coming, but not so much as to scare them off.

"Evening," he says.

The girl gives him an appraising look, then nods in response.

He identifies himself - no sense in a charade, now. This one probably won't even come back a murder, just an accidental or something.

"Cute kid you got there."

"Too fucking hot for him to sleep," she says, like it's Carver's fault the A/C units have been pried from the windows and sold off. "Won't let me alone. Need my sleep, but all he do is cry from the heat." She takes another draw from her cigarette.

"We found someone up in one of the apartments."

She shrugs.

"Body'd been all torn up. Like an animal attack. Just wondering if you'd heard anything."

"Been at work till 9," she says. "Mama was watching Montell" - she nods at the kid - "before then."

"You mind if I talk to him?" Carver says. "Maybe he heard something."

"You can try," she says. "He don't say much."

Montell chooses that moment to run his bike wheel over part of a broken bottle. The girl is wearing thin flip-flops.

"I got it," Carver says. He picks his way across the pavement, glass crunching under his feet.

Montell looks at him with big eyes, so he crouches down, shows his hands the way he would with a scared animal, gestures to the wheel. Montell gives him the same appraising look the girl did, then blinks.

Carver will take that as an OK. He lifts the bike wheel, mindful not to cut himself, and carefully sets the bike down on pavement that's relatively free of glass.

The kid doesn't thank him, but he does offer Carver a slow curious look. He's older than Carver first thought, five or six maybe, but small for his age, still fitting on a bike for kids much younger. He's got loose curls, but they've been trimmed neatly, clothes that don't rock any logos, even little shoes that must have come from Payless or some off-brand place like that. He's clean, though, and well-fed, a good layer of puppy fat.

"Montell," Carver says. "Did you hear anything tonight? Maybe something like a big dog or someone fighting."

Montell stares at him.

The girl calls from the table. "You ain't gonna get much from him. He don't talk yet." Which is, a problem, but not Carver's problem or one he could fix anyway.

But Montell seems to understand the question, so Carver crouches and waits. After a minute, the boy gestures for Carver, reaching out to pull his shirt. Carver leans in, hands placed carefully on the ground.

He gets close enough to Montell that Montell's face is practically flush with his ear.

"You saw something, didn't you," Carver says. "Or heard. What is it, son?"

Montell, to Carver's surprise, doesn't say anything. Instead, he lets go three short barks, one two three, like the yipping of a dog.

"Doggy," Carver says. "You heard a doggy. Good. Thank you."

But Montell doesn't let go of his shirt, so Carver leans in and picks the boy clean off his bike, carries him and the bike in the other hand, back to the table where the girl is sitting. Montell settles against Carver's chest, a warm, not unpleasant weight, tucks his head under Carver's chin, even.

"Think he's ready to sleep, now," Carver says.

The girl stubs her cigarette out, leaves the butt on the table. "C'mon, boy." She reaches for Montell's hand, grasps it and begins to half-walk, half-drag him back toward one of the apartments.

Montell lets himself be led like this for about 10 yards, then plants his feet like he won't go any farther. He turns, looks at Carver, then at the sky, and lets loose with a howl that echoes off the walls of the building. It's not a child's cry, but something almost feral and lonely sounding, like the distant cry of a wolf. Just as soon as he starts, he stops, and, turning, heads with the girl back to their apartment, hand-in-hand.

Homicide's there by the time he climbs back up the stairs, Landsman and Bertie already making cracks over what man's best friend did.

"Didn't you wanna radio animal control?" Landsman asks. "Cause this isn't gonna come back a murder unless you want me to go out and arrest Fido."

Crime scene is there too, and they're halfheartedly taking pictures, the kind that will likely never do anything more than sit in a case folder.

"He wasn't killed here," Carver says.

"Probably got torn up somewhere else and dragged ass up here," Landsman says. "Blood trail out the door and down into the yard."

Bertie flips her notebook shut. "Not a murder," she says. "ME'll agree. C'mon."

An ambo pulls up, and the attendants get the body loaded on a gurney and wheeled out. They don't even pulse the sirens on the way out, just flash the lights, seemingly as bored with the task of transporting the body back to the morgue as everyone else is on this scene.

Landsman claps Carver on the shoulder on the way out, and he and Bertie pile into their unmarked shitcan of a car. The patrolmen pack it up too, someone slapping some police tape up, in case crime scene clean up ever gets around to mopping up the blood.

Carver's shift ended half an hour ago, and he radios into the station, where the shift lieutenant tells him to take his ass home.

He should, too. It's late, and he's up for evening shift all this week, making a habit of sleeping until noon, then shoveling in some food or hitting the gym or calling the girl he's been seeing to see if she wants to come over at 3 in the afternoon, though Denise has been taking his calls less and less.

Instead, he follows the blood trail out the door, down the stairs, and into the yard. There's an entrance to the park down an incline, concrete becoming gravel becoming mud as city fades into forest. Trash litters the edges, pieces of plastic bags, decaying Styrofoam cups. The underbrush is thick with poison ivy and other vines he doesn't know the names of. Light from his flashlight reveals blood on the plants, more of it, low and smeared, like the victim had to crawl. It had rained the night before, and the ground is wet, squishing under his boots.

It's just a little inlet of the bigger park, but it feels like real forest. There are crickets going, maybe even cicadas, interrupted only by the sound of passing cars. It smells like forest too, clean dirt and vegetation, air feeling cooler and cleaner as he walks progressively farther from the entrance. Moonlight streams down into mist, and he feels like he's at the beginning of a horror movie.

It's a ridiculous thought, and he gives a nervous laugh. This is Baltimore. Any death dealt him will come from some hopper's gun or a dope fiend with an aluminum bat enthusiasm. Or more likely from too many greasy breakfasts and too many beers and a job rotting away behind a desk.

Carver makes his way deeper into the woods. They shouldn't take him this far away from the apartment complex. He should hit trail or road soon, but instead the woods just get denser. It doesn't make sense, but nothing about this seems to. He keeps going.

He almost steps into it before he can really see it, but something makes him stop, some investigators' instinct, maybe just the fact that he's ass-deep in the weeds in the middle of the night. Instead, he shines a flashlight on the ground and there it is, big as day, an imprint of bloody paw, big as the palm of his hand.

"Fuck," he says, soft, like he doesn't want to disturb whatever's in the park. "Motherfuck."

He gets his notepad out of his pocket, manages to sketch a quick picture, but is cut short when he hears a crack like a snapped twig behind him.

The sound is slow, almost deliberate, and it startles him enough that when he turns, all he sees is a flash of red eyes, the glint of moonlight off fur. There's a low growl.

"Motherfucking fuck," Carver says, and hauls ass the fuck out of the park.

He runs up back through the woods, trees a blur past him. Vines seem to crop out of nowhere, and he's stumbling, hands against the mud, recovering to keep running, not pausing to think if whatever he saw is coming after him. The ground squelches under his feet, sucking his boots under. He hits the incline hard, feet slipping. He can see street lights, hear the sounds of a car rumbling by, but all he can smell is the forest, the tang of blood and adrenaline in the back of his throat. He climbs.

He makes it to the pavement, winded. He's filthy - there's dirt on his hands, coating his boots and pant legs. He scrapes some of it off on the sidewalk, then walks back to where he'd parked his patrol car. He should call something in, but he's not sure there's a code for fucking wolves or that his eyes aren't just playing tricks or whatever. Time for a beer - fuck that. Time for a glass of fucking Crown Royal and about 10 hours of sleep.

Herc's leaning on his doorbell the next morning. "You look like shit," he says, by way of greeting. He didn't bring coffee or breakfast, just spouts a stream of nonsense at Carver while Carver throws on his badge and shoes.

"I can't deal with your dumb white ass until I've had some caffeine," Carver says.

It doesn't stop Herc from busting his chops, but they at least hit up the place with the good sandwiches on the way down to the station. They eat in the car outside the station, like a throwback to being on patrol, tossing their greasy wrappers in the growing pile in the backseat.

Herc lets out a belch loud enough - and rank enough - that Carver has to lower the window. He bitches at Herc, fanning the air. He doesn't mention the body from last night, or what he may or may not have seen in Gwynns Falls Park.

Of course, that doesn't matter when he gets into the station and his nameplate on his desk has been replaced by a card that says, 'Ellis Carver, Dog-Catcher-on-Call."

"Came back an animal mauling," D says. There's a note in the dailies to be on the lookout for any kind of large dog, sandwiched between the usual notices about missing vehicles and whatever off-brand bama from DC just jumped bail.

Pits and other fighting dogs are supposedly banned in Section 8 housing, but so is slinging ready rock, so it's not like the guys out on beat can do anything about the dog, other than call animal control. Who may or may not get around to it, depending if there are raccoons on the mayor's porch again.

So, that's it then. There's no ID on the body, hands too mangled for prints and no dental records. They cross check with missing persons, but the family will probably call something in in a few days, and that'll be it. It's not a murder, just a body. Which doesn't explain why Carver pulls and keeps the casefile for a few days, though no one says much about it. There are corners to clear and stats to maintain and the brass to serve.

He rides a desk, mostly, going out to support the new guys on call, overseeing a few of the thornier cases, a corner store robbery where someone doesn't just clear the cash register but also beats the clerk. The beat-ee is Korean and won't - maybe can't - make an ID. There's no way they can put the guy in front of a black Baltimore jury after he identifies two different guys from a photo array and insists that they're the same guy, and the robber. His son, a junior at UMBC serving as translator, just shrugs. "He's saying they look the same."

That could true: Interracial ID is generally not very reliable, even when the witness is clear on one suspect, so any decent defense attorney will play that up. Or it could be the guy won't be able to keep his store in the neighborhood if he testifies against his assailant. Carver can't tell, and it ain't his fucking problem, since the case gets stuck as inactive with no other witnesses. It counts as a clearance when the store owner drops the complaint, anyway.

So, life goes on. A month or so after the first body, another call comes in.

This time it's at least someone with a solid ID. Delonte Smith wasn't exactly a model student, but he did show his face at school enough that the principal is able to identify him when the school custodian finds his body torn up in one of the sub-basements. There are students crying in the hallway, teachers milling around. This one'll make the news, for sure.

It looks to be the same scenario, but there's no blood trail leading to or from the body. The CCTV system at the school only sort of works - half the cameras are busted or have been spray-painted or taped over - but none of the recordings show anyone bringing in or leaving with a dog. Homicide's on the scene, too, and they'll do this one downtown, even though the likelihood of finding human culprit is low.

The school's security guards are all rent-a-cops who pull the 'haven't seen nothing,' act when he asks about students bringing in contraband. The school resource officer isn't much better, though she does concede that there is a pack of local dogs that hang around the school grounds in the evening.

Once the ME's office calls it a mauling, there will be call for animal control to clear the area, maybe even another push to get fighting dogs out of public housing. Until then, Carver's on his own. He doesn't get Herc or anyone from the station to come with him. Giving one guy up to 'dog-watching,' as D calls it, is enough. But D approves Carver's request.

Carver pulls the car into a space near the fence that divides the asphalt 'playground' from the asphalt parking lot. There's high grass around the edges of the playground, and it's beginning to crack the pavement. The fence has been torn away or bent to allow entry in and out of it in a few places.

Surprisingly, there's no glint of glass on the playground. A few of the school custodians patrol with push-brooms. One pauses to dig trash out of the underbrush lining the fence. Another collects a deflated basketball from where it sits on the half-court that serves as the only recreation area on the playground. There's an actual athletic field out back, but the track team is practicing, and their presence is probably enough to keep off any strays.

Carver has a full cup of coffee, two sandwiches wrapped in paper, and a long wait ahead of him.

He stares at the playground for an hour. It's going on fall, and the sun starts sinking in the sky. The track team shuffles off, a few of them glaring at his unmarked car with the look of, "We can see you, cop." He does a walk around, but sees nothing other than the custodians packing up and a few lingering students getting shooed home. No sign of stray dogs, and the holes in the fence aren't large enough to let anything bigger than a young kid to pass through.

He sits for another hour and let's his mind wander. The O's are playing, so he turns on the radio, just for something to listen to. He eats one sandwich, gulps some now-cold coffee. It's probably a waste of time, anyway, but he thinks of the piles of paperwork waiting on his desk, and settles into his seat.

No one's made the ID on the first body yet, which is strange. Usually, there's the ritual of the family calling in, mother wailing, someone - a sister, an aunt, a cousin - keeping their shit together, a trip to the ME's office, arrangement for a funeral.

But no calls have come in, no missing person reports have matched his description. Or rather, too many have, and unidentified black male, age 16-20 remains unnamed and unclaimed. They'll be dumping him in the community cemetery soon, a city-funded pine box on a plot overlooking the vista of central Baltimore.

No dogs have come sniffing around the school, either. It's past 9 now, full dark, though the streetlights make it look earlier. Carver's ready to pack it up, or at least go for more coffee, when someone knocks at his window.

The resource officer is standing there, arms crossed. She's good looking, good legs too, thick with muscle, maybe a little soft from only having to fuss at kids all day, blond. Carver would hit it, but then he'd probably try to go after Kima too, if she wouldn't take his balls for it.

"Just thought I'd check it out," he says, but way of greeting.

"You won't find what you're looking for out here," she says, then turns and heads into the school building, not looking back to see if he follows. He does.

The school's doors are open, the hallways dark. He steps through one of the metal detectors, just to hear it let out a wail as he passes through with his service weapon. The resource officer stops in the hall ahead of him, and gives him a sharp look. He shrugs.

She goes up the hall, then enters one of the classrooms, a science room from the look of it. There's glassware out on the counters, a few stray cans of Arizona tea on the tables, a sweatshirt left on a chair. She's standing at the lab-bench at the front on the room like she's about to give a lecture on mitosis or whatever else goes on in classes he mostly slept through.

Her uniform says 'Argent,' on the name placard. "You can call me Kate," she says.

"Kate," he says. "No offense, but what the fuck?"

Kate laughs. It's not really a nice sound. "The 'person' who you're looking for," Kate says, and Carver can hear her skepticism on the word 'person.' "You won't find them."

"Yeah," Carver says. "Draw me here at night, make me wait around for a couple of hours, and all to warn me off the case. Sure."

"I like you," Kate says. "You're feisty." She gives him an exaggerated once-over look.

"Or just not a fucking idiot," Carver says.

"You don't know what you don't know," Kate says, suddenly snarling, angry. She slams her hand against the lab bench, doesn't even wince at the impact.

He doesn't respond immediately, just sits at one of the tables, and puts his feet up on the desk. He steeples his fingers, just to piss her off. "Enlighten me, then."

"You're messing with things you can't begin to understand." She's scowling, voice serious, expression maybe what she really looks like behind all this nonsense.

He laughs. "Lady, this is Baltimore. Save your bullshit for someone else." He slowly rises, gives her time to watch him do so. The trick to an interrogation is that you can walk away, that your suspect can't. He's just not sure if he's the suspect or the interrogator here. Still, he makes for the door.

He's got one foot in the hallway, when he hears her sigh. He turns, slowly.

"You were in the woods after you found that first body," she says.

"You saw me?"

"All of Baltimore probably saw you. You don't exactly tread soft." She smiles now, and any inclination he had toward ever getting with her goes away. She'd probably eat him. "But it doesn't matter what I saw - it's what you saw."

"The wolf," he says.

"The werewolf." She puts her hands on the table, drops her head like just saying it has taken a weight off.

"And you?" he says.

She looks up at him. "They hunt people. And I hunt them."

There's a long moment, the statement that there are werewolves in the fucking Baltimore urban jungle just hanging there.

Carver can't help it. He laughs. He laughs hard enough that he draws a low noise of disgust from Kate.

"Yeah," she says. Then, "fuck you." She schools her face into something like calmness - if he don't look too closely at her eyes. "All right, get your ass out of here, then."

"No, no," he says. "Just give me a second to process all this."

She scowls, but doesn't say anything for a minute. "If you're done," she says, "You got two options. One," and she counts it off on her fingers, "you walk out of here, you forget my name, and we never spoke. I mean, who the fuck would believe you anyway?"

"What's option two?" he says.

"I'm so glad you asked." She gives him a feral grin. "Option two is that you don't walk out of here. I need a … cultural ambassador to Baltimore."

"You need me to talk to the yos for you."

She huffs a laugh. "They made me as a cop. And I can't really haul their asses in."

"Are you actually a police?"

"Sure am dressed like one," she says, glancing down at her uniform.

He wonders where she got it from, but doesn't press any further.

She says he can't hunt until he knows what the fuck he's looking for, so for the first time in his life, he's reading, and not just the paperbacks that get traded around the station or the endless dry code books that say nothing about being an actual police. Instead, it's big dusty things that Kate seems to have an endless supply of, ones with old-time spellings and calligraphic pictures.

It's strange; knowing Baltimore, its streets, isn't something that can be read. The rituals of clearing corners and chasing hoppers are unwritten. There's not much in the way of books that'll teach you when the stash is on the kid who rabbited or thrown into a nearby alley. There's no real manual for when to bring a snitch downtown on a trumped up charge, just for appearance's sake, and when to buy him a meal and let him spill what he knows. The closest thing to a beastiary is the BPI look-up. The closest things to legends they have are the tales spun by the old touts as they direct junkies to the finest blast.

He's working double shifts: Eight or nine or ten hours at the station, and another set with Kate, creeping through the woods or poring over books or just marveling at all the shit that no one bothered to tell him was out there, that most people don't even notice. He should be tired - should be run ragged, really - but he's not. He feels energized in the same way he'd been when he got detailed to the Major Case unit.

Herc notices, because for all his bullshit, Herc is not totally unobservant. Of course, he's an asshole about it, because he's also an asshole.

They're grabbing breakfast one day, Carver wearing the same shirt he'd worn the night before, looking like he'd slept in it, because he had.

Herc leans over and pulls a long blond hair off Carver's shoulder, where it clung to the fabric. "Something you want to tell me?" he says. "Neesi get new hair?"

Kate and he'd hiked deep into the woods last night, some area in rural Maryland populated by hicks and, apparently, a hick wolf-pack. They hadn't done anything other watch from a hunting blind, shoulder to shoulder, using a spotting scope to track them.

"Nah," Carver says. "She isn't coming 'round anymore. Guess my dick's too big for her after all."

Herc laughs and punches him in the shoulder, overly hard. He gives Carver a skeptical look, and steals the rest of Carver's coffee.

Carver goes out again that night, this time to a parking lot in the back of a bar in Billytown, watches the billies spill from the bar, drunk on cans of Natty and Miller, watches as two fight over a girl, watches as Kate eyes one whose eyes go slightly red, but doesn't get into the fight.

"What did you see?" she says, while one dude with an actual mullet punches another dude bloody on the concrete.

"His eyes," he says. "Just a flash, but there."

She doesn't go so far as to actually praise him, but she does let him take one of her crossbows when they go out that night, the one she favors, without complaint.

They're on patrol again, this time in Druid Hills Park. There's not enough trees to provide cover, so they're sitting behind shrubbery near an overpass. She's got her second-favorite crossbow over her lap, a set of throwing knives in a case at her feet, and she's popping her gum loudly, obviously bored. It's possibly a put-on, since she'd shushed him when he'd tried to unwrap a piece of gum, foil crinkling slightly.

It's about the same as any stakeout Carver's been: A lot of boredom, a lot of bullshit, the hope of any action weighing against not really wanting to get up and go chasing after someone who might kick your head in. The first always wins - Carver wouldn't be a cop if it didn't - but there's something to be said for being outside when most folks have tucked in for the night, just talking nonsense with your buddies, eating and drinking coffee and debating the merits of something you'll probably forget by morning.

Except Kate's not really one for buddy-buddy bullshit. She hasn't said much since they left the car, pointedly not commenting on his selection of weapon, but also not much else other than to tell him to get comfortable where she'd decided to set up.

She seems to be looking for something, but is trying to mask it. He can't get a handle what she wants, really, other than he'd prefer not to be on the other side of a crossbow from her. She didn't even need him to track down any of the Western kids she thought might be tearing people up: They'd abandoned that tack in favor of Carver seeing every tree, patch of mud, and meadow clearing within 20 miles of the city. Carver would ask, but he gets the feeling Kate would lie to him, anyway.

Whatever she's waiting for now doesn't materialize for another hour. Carver waits, thinks over the files on his desk, the young bucks who want to throw bracelets on every roughneck in the city, the fact that Neesi isn't taking his calls, the fact that he's been ignoring Herc's.

Kate appears to study a small patch of grass near her right hip. Her hair is pulled back, and her head is tilted, slightly, listening for something, but she doesn't say what. Whatever it is, she perks up, slightly, then grabs her bow and knives, and is on her feet in one movement.

"Let's go," she says.

They make for more tree cover, not keeping to the shadows, really. Kate walks soft and throws him a look when a twig snaps under his boots. They move to a patch of trees, and Kate drops to a crouch, motioning once for him to follow her. He squats.

From where they are, there's a slight rise, then a sharp slope down. At the base of the hill, he sees them - not even a pack, really, just two teenagers from the look of it, both moving in that strange way wolves move, half-human, half-animal, like they have springs for feet and shoulders that can bend in ways they shouldn't.

The wolves bound off each other, off the incline of the hill, off a few picnic tables. One yips and howls and tackles the other one, and they roll like puppies. They separate; one of them gives chase, and the other issues several short barks - lower than a dog's, something like person doing a great dog impression. They meet again, go tumbling across the grass. They're playing.

Kate brings up her crossbow, starts taking aim through the sights.

"What the fuck?" Carver asks. "They're just kids."

"That one -," Kate says, aiming the bow at the boy who's let go of the other, and is now springing from table to table, "left that body in the apartments a month ago. And he -" she now aims the bow at the other one, "got that boy at school."

"What -" Carver begins.

"Sorry," Kate says, voice harsh. "Did you want evidence? A jury of their peers? The elimination of reasonable doubt? We're hunting, not throwing them in Jessup. My woods, my word."

She aims her bow at him now, looks at him like he's prey. He puts up his hands, reflexively, dropping his own bow with a clatter.

The noise echoes through the trees, and there's a long howl, now, the sound of wolves running through leaf litter. He can't tell if it's toward them or away from them, but when Kate takes off, bow in hand, he picks his up and follows. They're at the top of the hill now, the two wolves having separated, one running toward the park's recreational complex, the other deeper into the trees.

"You get that one in the red shirt," Kate says, gesturing to the kid running toward the rec center. "I'll take care of the other one." She jogs away then, leaving him on the rise of the hill.

He makes for the rec center. He can hear the wolf moving, not trying to conceal its path. It's dark; the street lights in the park are supposed to be motion-activated, but the bulbs had burned out long ago. Carver's at a disadvantage, of course. The wolf's night vision will be far superior to his own, its hearing and sense of smell better. It doesn't have to lug its weapons.

The rec center is surrounded by a high chain-link fence. Carver figures he can corral the wolf against it through a feint like he would a kid rabbiting away. Except of course, most of the hoppers will just ditch the stash and take the resisting charge. He doesn't know what the wolf will do.

He makes for the perimeter of the fence, then does a quick check down the line. No wolf in sight, but there's rustling coming from the trees around the area. He drops to a crouch and waits.

The wolf can't resist, apparently. There's a flash of yellow - its eyes glow bright from the trees - and then it's charging.

Carver gets his bow up, resists the urge to identify himself as BPD, like he would if this were some street yo looking for suicide by cop, tries to keep his shoulders square, his aim steady.

All of which doesn't help when he recognizes the wolf - the boy - running at him.

"Holy fucking Christ," he says. "Bodie."

Bodie stops up short of him. He looks like himself - red T-shirt, baggy jeans, pristine sneakers - but he has fangs and claws. The punkass kid Carver and Herc like to bust up for fun is a fucking werewolf.

Bodie has stopped charging, instead choosing to sniff at Carver like he recognizes him. His eyes glint yellow, then fade for a second back to brown. He stands, now, instead of assuming the low crouch wolves seem to prefer, stands up like a person, recognition dawning on his face.

Carver lowers his bow.

Which is why Bodie suddenly going to his knees like he's been shot confuses Carver at first. When he tips forward, Carver can see a knife embedded in his back, enough in the meat of his shoulder that it probably missed anything major, but who knows what Kate tipped it with.

Not thinking, really, Carver leans and grabs the knife, yanking it from Bodie's back and drawing a long howl from Bodie.

"Run!" Carver shouts.

Bodie runs.

Kate comes rushing down at him, weapon up, look of blazing anger across her face. "We could have had him," she yells. "You fucking let him go. I had him. He was mine.."

Bodie's made for the trees now. Even in full dark, Carver has no doubt Kate could probably get a shot off and end him there.

Her attention, however, seems totally focused on Carver. She's in his face, bow between them, poking him in the chest and spitting mad.

"Oh, fuck this," he says, and yanks under his shirt where he has his badge hanging from a chain. "Baltimore Po-lice," he yells, making police two syllables like he would on a raid. He holds his shield up, right in her face. "Get the fuck off me."

She stops, stands, crosses her arms. "Oh, it's like that, is it."

"Yeah, Kate, it's fucking like that." He drops the badge, but keeps it dangling, visible.

"And no one will ask why the fuck you were out at midnight in the middle of Druid Hills Park, with a crossbow with your prints on it?"

"I followed reasonable suspicion as an off-duty officer in seeing a foot pursuit into the park, whereupon I followed the suspect, watch her throw a knife into an unarmed teenager's back, and having exercised reasonable force to disarm the suspect, called for backup," he recites, like he would a report to the brass.

It won't go down as smooth as he's saying, nowhere near as smooth, but she doesn't seem to know that, instead looking at him with narrowed eyes. After a minute, Kate raises her bow, aims it at the middle of his chest, where his badge is. "But I'm not disarmed."

He hadn't strapped on his service weapon: The paperwork on an off-duty discharge, particularly one involved in another jurisdiction in the middle of the night would probably end his career. He doesn't even have his backup piece in an ankle holster.

But he does have his badge.

"You know that wolf you let go?" she says, finally. "He's the one who killed that boy at school. Tore his guts out. They had to send grief counselors because the students wouldn't stop crying in class."

"Maybe," Carver says. "Maybe not."

"But you'll leave it to the rule of law to decide," she says, sneering.

"Just don't want to play at being executioner."

"It's an older justice," Kate says. She raises the bow again, but her finger is along the trigger mechanism, no longer at the pull. She's got good discipline there; he'll give her that.

"Sure it's a better one?" he says.

She gives him a long, steady look. She seems to be weighing the merits of killing him with the possibility - probability - of getting caught. If a cop falls in Baltimore, someone will probably take notice. Carver has to suppress a smirk at the thought of there being a detail on his behalf.

"If I let you go. If -," she says. "And you follow me, I'll put you down."

He nods. "Seems fair. If you stay in Baltimore," he says. "I'll be up on you."

She lowers the crossbow, but doesn't move, the closest she probably gets to surrender or truce.

He would have to turn his back on her to make for where he'd parked, so instead he sidles off to a path, starts a quick jog out of there. He's about 50 feet from her when he hears her yell.

"Sorry about your boy. Hear that dying like that hurts like a bitch."

Fuck. Bodie.

It turns out Bodie's not hard to find. He's collapsed in the woods just off the main path, whimpering. His shirt's covered in blood, and he can't seem to stop shifting, dropping fangs only to retract them. He's got his eyes clenched shut, but Carver suspects they're probably doing something similar, flashing between human and wolf.

Carver doesn't have anything with him, not even a set of gloves, but his kit is back in his car.

"Be back," he says. He can't tell if Bodie hears him.

He hauls through the park, boots hitting hard on the path, on grass, up an incline, then into the parking lot. His keys are digging into his leg, and he has to twist to get them out of his picket, to pop the trunk, grab his stuff and go. It's possibly Bodie won't be able to walk. It's possible Carver won't be able to carry him. He can't imagine calling an ambulance in - it's a summer night, so will probably take an hour or so to come. Might as well send a hearse.

Bodie hasn't moved really when he gets back, just huddled over to one side, curled up like he's trying to protect himself. Carver gloves up and tries to remember anything about the first aid training he's received. He manages to rip most of the rest of Bodie's shirt off, then gets a good look at the wound.

It's not deep, and shouldn't be bleeding like it is. Werewolves were supposed to heal. Everything he'd read was clear on that. Instead, Bodie's bleeding everywhere, soaking Carver's hands and beginning to bleed on the ground. Whatever Kate had put on those knives was effective - effective enough that she didn't feel the need to deliver a killing shot.

He applies a patch of QuikClot, and wads Bodie's shirt on top of it, adding pressure. He has no idea if that will help, but he needs to do something.

Bodie has stopped shifting, at least, instead just muttering in pain. He comes around after a minute, opening his eyes, seeming to recognize Carver.

"Can you walk?" Carver asks.

Bodie nods.

They make their way back to Carver's car, Bodie unsteady on his feet, Carver having to hold him upright. He gets blood on his shirt, on the strip of skin between his gloves and his sleeve. He keeps walking.

Bodie sprawls into the car, filling up the whole backseat. Carver has to push on his sneakers to get the door fully closed. He gets in the driver's seat, starts the engine.

"Take me down to Deaton," Bodie slurs.

"Deaton?"

"That hospital. By the Harbor," he says. "String said I ever get jacked like this, Deaton'd know what to do."

Stringer Bell. Of course he was running a fucking wolfpack. Carver puts the car in drive and heads for the Harbor.

They'd changed the name a year or back, so it says University Specialty Hospital out front. That specialty apparently includes lycanthropy. The night nurse tries to shoo him off, telling him there's no ER here. A flashed badge gets her to come out to the car at least. Once Bodie shifts, though, she calls in a code, rapid-fire, and then there's a flurry of activity.

"We'll take care of your friend," she says.

"He's not my -" he begins, but they're already strapping Bodie to a gurney and wheeling him away. He's not Bodie's friend, not really. Hostile coworker? Frequent arresting officer? Fellow foot-soldier in a war he realizes he's only beginning to understand? He's not sure there's a word for it.

An orderly finds him standing by the intake desk, dazed. "C'mon," the guy says. "We'll get you some clean stuff to wear."

Carver has to scrub down in one of the hospital bathrooms, the kind with handholds and bars everywhere. The orderly gives him betadine soap, even though Carver tells him Bodie hadn't bitten him, that he'd worn gloves. He washes his arms, his face, the chain holding his badge, which has picked up blood from somewhere. His shirt is a goner, his undershirt too, so he balls them up and deposits them in the bio-hazard bag the orderly had given him, dons a mint-green hospital scrub shirt.

He gulps from water from the sink, splashes some more on his face. It's past 2 a.m. He should probably call out of his shift tomorrow.

The orderly is waiting when Carver gets out of the bathroom. "Chaplain will see you now," he says. The orderly is a big billy guy with a few tats who doesn't seem too keen on Carver objecting to what he has to say. Carver follows him, past the turn to the hospital chapel, past the room where they said that Bodie was being treated.

They head into the cafeteria, of all places, where a short, red-haired woman is sitting at a table. She's wearing the kind of gauzy shit that Carver associates with women who've let themselves go, all flowing sleeves and big earrings. On closer inspection, her hair is dyed.

There are two plates in front of her, both with slices of pie, and two steaming cups of coffee.

"Please," she says, standing when the orderly delivers Carver to her. "Join me." She gives a nod to the orderly, a dismissal.

She picks up a fork, after Carver sits, begins to eat, motions that he do the same. The pie tastes like hospital cafeteria pie, canned apples and greasy crust. The coffee is overly hot and weak. He finishes both.

"You've had a rough night, Sergeant Carver" she says, after he's done. It's not a question.

"Yep," he says.

She smiles and leans forward. "You probably saved that young man's life. Quick thinking. My question is, however -"

"How'd I know to bring him here?"

She smiles again. "You are quick."

He resists the urge to roll his eyes. "Bodie said his … boss told him that you offered 'specialty' services here."

"Mr. Barksdale is one of our biggest donors," she says. "All off the record, of course."

"Of course," he says. They never did follow the money to charitable donations, but it makes sense. "Did you want something? I've had enough mind games for one night."

"You knew what Mr. Broadus is, and acted accordingly," she says. "We appreciate that." She swirls the last of her coffee in her cup, but doesn't drink it. "Do you want to know why you're talking to the hospital chaplain, and not, say, a doctor?"

Carver shrugs. "Whatever bullshit you want to sell me, ma'am, that's fine."

She laughs, a real laugh, nothing like Kate's, which had sounded like glass breaking. "I don't want to sell you anything, Sergeant," she says. "When you got to Mr. Broadus, he'd been hit with a knife tipped in aconite - that's wolfsbane. A poison to his kind. You did what you could for him and brought him here, probably at great personal risk."

"Didn't know what else to do," he says.

"That's what I'm trying to ask you, Sergeant," she says, then leans forward, whispers like she's conspiring. "Would you like to learn?"

Herc doesn't take the news well that Carver won't be around as much because he's enrolling at UMBC night classes.

"What the fuck does an asshole like you need with -" he grabs one of Carver's books, the chemistry one that Carver already hates. "Fucking inorganic chemistry anyway?"

But he buys him a pack of highlighters and doesn't let any of the other guys give Carver any shit about studying on breaks, even when Carver's looking over information on becoming a large animal vet.

"Sick of you animals here," he says, when Herc asks.

"Really much need for that in Baltimore? All our large animals walk on two legs."

"Yeah," Carver says. "Been thinking about that. Might have to go see how things are out west."