"Wait, so you're just going to kill me?" The kid squeaked and nearly tripped over his own chair in his hurry to back away.

I'd just told him it was a bad idea to invite strangers over his threshold and I'd explained the White Council's position on black magic which is basically 'one strike and you have no head.' Somehow the kid got the idea I was going to kill him.

I shook my head. "No, no, this is just a warning. Anyway you don't have that much talent and I'm pretty sure you haven't gone over to the dark side yet. Despite the decor." I gestured at the room which was resembled a horror movie set. Plastic skulls, gargoyles and candelabras; the goth was strong with this one.

Ahh, the life of Harry Dresden: Lecturer of teenagers and White Council stooge. I'd recently been sent from Chicago to a little town called Pleasantville to investigate werewolf sightings and a bunch of weirdness. Pleasantville. Try and tell me that's not suspicious and creepy. At least nothing had tried to rip my face off yet, but it was probably only a matter of time.

The only lead I'd found so far was Merton Dingle. Merton stumbled across me as I was performing a location spell in front of his house. I was trying to be subtle about it, but apparently I really suck at 'subtle.' After the initial 'hey, weirdo, get away from my house!' He criticized my circle-drawing technique and accepted that I was really a wizard. He'd invited me into his room to talk, which gave me some idea of his level of knowledge. It's never a good idea to invite anything magical over your threshold. Nevertheless I accepted since standing outside his door I had the strong feeling that I was being watched. Well, that and his sister was glaring at us. If she had psychokinesis, we both would have caught fire.

"Hey! What do you mean I don't have talent?" Merton was stung. "Okay, I admit I don't do a lot of magic, mostly because I'm not a fan of things eating my face off. (That can happen, right?) But I do one mean banishing spell and-

I held up my hand. "Whoa! I didn't say you couldn't do magic, I just said you didn't have much natural talent and where the White Council is concerned that's a good thing. Trust me. I just have to warn you that there are laws. Any magic that violates another's free will is punishable by death. If you hurt anyone with magic, I'd hate to have to bring you in before the Council. They're a bit stuck in medieval times."

The kid didn't look happy, but he nodded.

"Actually, I didn't come to lecture you so much as talk to you about the rash of werewolf sightings here."

"Pssh! Werewolf!? That's a myth. Someone's been watching a little too much of An American Werewolf in London. Or maybe An American Werewolf in Paris. Or come to think of that Teen Wolf, except Michael J. Fox played a pretty good guy in the movie so I don't think it would-"

I had to stop him again. "Look, it's been traced to this area. Your house in fact. Are you sure there's something you aren't telling me?"

"Uh..."

I reached under his desk and picked up a few stray hairs. "You won't mind me taking these to the lab then."

He held up his hands "Okay, you got me. I was the Pleasantville werewolf! But I'm cured! Really! You can test that right?" He grabbed the amulet around his neck. "See, I'm holding silver now. I just stuffed down some wolfsbane and bang! cured."

I felt the beginnings of a headache. "You ate wolfsbane?"

"Well yeah, because the werewolf me was totally evil and cheesy. It worked too! No more lupine transformations, no more stealing chickens, no more Pleasantville werewolf! I'm cured. So you can let me go now, yeah?"

I shook my head. "If you'd taken wolfsbane it would have cured you of a lot more than that. Breathing, for a start."

The kid turned pale. Well, paler. "They never said that" he muttered. "It just said that wolfsbane was a cure for lycanthropy."

"Yeah, it is. And so is a silver bullet to the head. That doesn't mean you want to take it. Wolfsbane is so poisonous that an arrowhead dipped in the juice could kill a full grown wolf. So either you're incredibly, amazingly lucky or you're holding out on me."

"Just lucky? Heh. Okay, I'm not lying! It must not have been real wolfsbane. I thought there was something suspicious about a site that sold both protein shakes and magical herbs. But I'm not a werewolf anymore."

"Really? The werewolf trail to your house is recent as this week. Maybe you should wait a while before you say you're cured."

He tilted his head to one side. "Yeah... hey, is there such a thing as Werewolves Anonymous?"

I smiled "Ever heard of something called the Paranet?"