So you think you're having a bad day, do you?

Hours earlier...

Burke, known among the People as the Seeker of Secrets, knocked on the door. "Come in," said a voice. Burke obeyed and entered the room.

The Cairn Elder's room was Spartan and clean, consisting only of a desk and two chairs. The desk was piled high with paperwork, but a gap had been made so that the people in the chairs could see each other. The Cairn Elder smiled at Burke and motioned for him to take a seat.

Burke nodded and sat down. "So. What's this about, elder?"

The Elder glanced at him. She was an old woman with dark hair, roughly forty to fifty years old. In the normal world, that was a pretty good lifespan to be in such a job. In the world of the Garou, she was downright terrifyingly powerful. She had the eyes of a killer and the kill record to match.

She grabbed a letter of the desk and handed it to him. "You know that I've been researching tribe bloodlines, don't you?"

Burke nodded. "Yes, of course. The normal lines of kinfolk have proven exceptionally barren lately, so you've been tasked with finding lost cubs." He glanced up. "What – you actually found somebody?!"

The Cairn Elder nodded. "I did. His details are in this letter I received from the school he attends. "

Burke looked through the letter. "Let's see here. . . Mark Allen, only child, mother and father no known bloodline... no known auspice, no known tribe, no known gifts, no known anything... damn." He smirked, having to laugh at the pitiful state of it all. "We're really scraping the bottom of the barrel here."

The Cairn elder nodded. "It can't be helped. These are trying times, after all."

Burke nodded and continued reading. "Subject's personality is quiet and reserved. Teachers report that he is an average student who could be a good student if he applied more to his work. Aside from minor bullying concerns, there is nothing of note to report." He looked up. "That's it?"

"Yes, it is. As you can see, there's not much information. You will need to use your own investigation skills to locate this cub. There is no record of where he lives. We do know that he is about fourteen years of age and goes to this school. He has no brothers or sisters. I have, however, managed to track the bloodline on his father's side, but just barely. He is about six generations removed from the Garou."

"When should I get started?"

"You must start immediately. We don't have the usual benefits of kin branding or anything this time, so we have no way of knowing when The Change is about to occur. Our contacts with the school report no warning signs within the past year, but that could change at any moment. A First Change out of our control..."

"... It would mean catastrophe, piercing of the Veil, certain doom, and etcetera." Burke shrugged. "I got it. Let's just hope the guy isn't catatonic and stuck in a mental home like the last one." He stood up from the desk. "Righto, give me a few shakes of a lamb's tail and ready some lodgings. I'll bring this lost cub back here before you can say Vegemite."

The Cairn Elder looked at Burke in irritation. "Pentex owns Vegemite. You know what they put in it."

Burke laughed. "Yeah, I know. Don't worry about it!" He left the room smiling, confident this was going to be an easy mission, if a little boring.

It had been a bad day. And now it was getting even worse. Mark Allen dug in his heels and prepared to fight.

Facing him was a gang of about nine teenagers, all armed with knives and cricket bats. They snarled at him, looking more animal than human, as they waited for him to make his move. Run or fight. Get beaten to a pulp either way. They were waiting for him to move, and he was waiting for them to move. It was a standoff. Mark closed his eyes and contemplated just how it had come to this.

In hindsight, yes – Mark was indeed the sort of kid who would get into trouble one day. He was the guy who tried everything once. The legality or morality of the thing generally didn't bother him, really. One time he'd punched an old, near disabled man in the jaw, knocking him out of his stroller, just to see how it felt. It felt like nothing and immediately afterwards he'd helped the old man back into his stroller. Again, just to see how it felt. Again, it felt like nothing.

But generally he wasn't the sort who would openly pick fights and get into this sort of trouble. Life, lately, had been anything but general.

For several weeks now things had been unusual and he'd started to see ... things ... that weren't actually there. He'd be typing away at his computer, playing video games, and suddenly he'd see something out of the corner of his eye, or reflected in the glass. At first it only happened when he was brushing his teeth at night and looked into the mirror above the bathroom sink. Then it began to happen everywhere. Sometimes the things he saw were only vague shadows or opaque blobs of colour. Other times, they'd be animals. And lately, he'd lain in bed at night and dreamt of wolves.

Howling wolves. Hunting wolves. Fighting wolves. Mating wolves. Wolves running and playing and smelling the ground. The dreams would be so vivid that more than one time he actually woke up and howled at the moon before he realized what he was doing.

This was odd. Wolves, however lovely, were not what a fourteen year old teenage male normally thinks of in his bed at night. Nor were they a subject Mark was particularly interested in. Yes, wolves were pretty. They were fierce and badass dog shaped predators who were rapidly dwindling in America, but that was about all he knew or wanted to know about them.

Yet still the dreams came, each night more vivid than the last. And then they started coming during the day, at moments when they were least convenient.

Mark would have discussed these bizarre events with his friends, except that he had no friends and even if he did he probably wouldn't have wanted to bother them with something so private anyway.

He had started to wonder if he was going insane, then almost immediately decided he wasn't. He had firsthand knowledge of at least one form of insanity and this didn't seem to be behaving in any way like it. But still, it was bothering him and interrupting his sleep, which was why he'd made the simple mistake of sitting in The Cool Guy's chair in the canteen at lunch time break earlier that day.

Mark didn't know and didn't really care about what The Cool Guy's name was, nor did he really care that The Cool Guy existed at all. The first time he really became important was when The Cool Guy slammed his hands on the table in front of Mark and yelled in his ear, causing his hot chocolate to spill slightly.

"What'cha doing, FAGGOT?! This is MY seat!"

Mark rubbed his partially deafened ear and sipped his drink. Maybe if I ignore him long enough he'll spontaneously combust and I'll be rid of him. Unfortunately, this didn't happen and The Cool Guy, though momentarily outraged that somebody had the audacity to ignore them, was soon back on the attack.

"Oi! FAGGOT! Didn't you hear me?! Wow. Take a look everybody, the faggot seems to think he's cool!"

When direct assault didn't work, The Cool Guy tried his second move – chipping away at the enemy, slowly reducing them to rubble. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, slower and more slick.

"You think you're so cool, Faggot? You're not so cool. You'll never be a cool kid. You're just a wannabe pretender. I know what you're thinking, little faggot. You're pissing your pants with fear. Are you crying, Faggot?"

The Cool Guy pushed Mark's chair, causing the hot chocolate to spill into his face. Mark stayed completely emotionless.

"Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to spill your chocolate like that!" He did it again. "Oops! Sorry!" And again. "Oops! Sorry!"

Normally, Mark would have laughed at the sheer lousiness of The Cool Guy. Normally he would have ignored The Cool Guy. Normally, he would never have sat in The Cool Guy's chair to begin with.

But Mark was feeling anything but normal. He was sleep deprived and angry. So he did something he usually didn't do and reacted. The Cool Guy reached in to push the chair and at the same moment Mark turned on him and hit the Cool Guy with the hot chocolate mug, spilling it all over himself and scalding his hands. The Cool Guy half saw it coming and tried to dodge out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough and caught a full blow in the nose. He was dazed but not very injured and even had enough time to shout. "Ah! You little –"

At this moment Mark went slightly ballistic. Wielding the cup like a sledgehammer and with the super human power of a boy thoroughly furious at the world in general, he bludgeoned The Cool Guy over and over again. By this time the other youths had noticed the trouble and were egging him on. Not because they disliked The Cool Guy, more because they liked to see a good scrap. So Mark kept going until he heard something crack, until the Cool Guy's nose was broken and his cup was broken and his hands were red and raw and the red mist that had consumed him was gone and all the time he heard wolves howling in his head and the half moon shining in the sky...

He came back to himself in the principal's office where he was immediately laid into with the strap – ten whacks upon his already scalded hands. He ignored the pain because it wasn't really important and instead tried to make sense of what had happened. That... that rage he'd felt in the canteen – it wasn't him.

Mark knew that he'd messed up. Not just because he'd earned himself detention for fighting and badly injuring somebody, but because that somebody had friends. The Cool Guy wasn't just the top guy in the high school. He was also a part of one of the local street gangs. And the street gangs always protected one of their own.

So, Mark knew that he was going to get in trouble that night. He knew it as soon as he got out of detention. Even before he was off the high school grounds he knew he would need a weapon. There was none to be found.

Mark knew there was nobody he could rely on but himself. There was no going to the police or anywhere. The police were supposed to keep the peace, but everybody knew all they cared about was eating hamburgers and issuing parking tickets and fines. The moment anything got heavy, every cop in a kilometre radius would pull a magic trick and vanish.

He saw them out the corner of his eye. He knew they were following him. Personally, Mark didn't really care if they beat him up or not. He did, however, care if they beat up his mother or his cat, so going home wasn't an option until later. In the meantime, he would have to sort out this problem.

So he stopped. He turned to face his adversaries, and he waited. One of his assailants smiled.

"The Cool Guy sends his regards," he smirked. Then the gang charged.

Mark hadn't stopped the pursuit in any old place. He had picked an alleyway far from his home for this last stand and he had positioned himself in a corner. Here, there would be no escape, but Mark intended to fight not run. The location would limit the use of the bats, at least.

Mark was not a street fighter. He had fought in the past, but he didn't have any real streetwise knowledge. In the past he had studied boxing and was actually pretty good at it, but boxing was for one on one fighting, not against a whole mob like this. His hands were also a bit injured, but that didn't really bother him. He raised his hands to cover his head and upper body and flattened himself up against the wall.

His enemies quickly realized what he was doing. The ones armed with knives moved in, stabbing straight forward for his vital points, only to instead embed themselves into his arms and deflect off the bone. The fight quickly deteriorated into a brawl as members bashed each other almost as much as they bashed Mark himself. The confined space largely negated the superior numbers of the enemy as well as their superior numbers. But he couldn't fight off all of them. When they saw he was being protected up top, they aimed for down below. One lucky knife stabbed him in the groin and he doubled over in pain, moving away from the wall. Blows rained down on him, trying to force him to the ground.

Then Mark saw his opportunity. Ignoring the pain and in sheer desperation, he pushed off of the wall and grabbed the closest bad guy around the throat, using his forward momentum to throw the thug off balance. They both fell, but Mark fell first, grabbing his captive by the arms and using him as a human shield. The fighters hesitated for a moment, but then began raining blows and kicks down on both Mark and his captive. Mark couldn't deter them all. A lucky kick hit him in the side of the head and he saw stars and he lost his shield.

Now he was in a bad position – fully exposed to the open air and being beset from all sides. The enemies rained down on him and he was powerless to stop it. He was on his back, half blind from pain and needed to move. All he could do was hold his hands up above his head and wait for it to be over. He counted the blows in his head and reached 32 before they finally stopped, panting and heaving.

He felt awful and it was miraculous that he hadn't passed out at any point during the whole encounter. Yet he also felt a strange jubilation. The pain was over and he had survived. He'd lie here until they were all gone, then he'd try to move. If he could move, he'd get home however he could, even by crawling. If he couldn't, well then, he'd just stay here and wait for however long it took.

"Do you think we overdid it?" one of the gang members said to another. "He looks pretty blooming terrible."

There was a slight pause. The whole gang spoke as one. "Nah." They laughed and gave each other high fives. "Now, Let's get going to this guy's place and give his little mommy some tickles as well!"

The gangsters laughed. "I hear the kid's got a cat. I'd like to..." he performed some obscene manoeuvres. "... if you know what I mean!"

"NO!" Mark shouted, clawing at the ground. The thought of what they would do to his cat, his most prized possession in the whole world, made the red mist form inside his eyes. His blood ran hot and he ground his jaws, baring his teeth. "You stay away from them!" He was angry, extremely angry, angrier than he had ever been before in his life. He had probably broken some bones, but that didn't bother him now. All of his pain was nothing. He launched to his feet and snarled at them. "Don't you dare touch them!"

The gangsters laughed. "Or what? What are you going to do, Faggot?" One of them leaned in to throw a punch at Mark's head, knocking him out for certain.

Something snapped within Mark's mind, some ancient beastial force was roaring, encouraging his rage, telling him to set it free. He stepped forward. When he spoke, it was not so much in a human language but in a wolfish snarl. He grabbed the youth throwing the punch by the hand and gripped it with an unnatural strength he had never before possessed.

"I'm..."

Everything was stunningly clear, everything vivid and perfect. His senses were sharper than ever before. He could see everything, from the darkening sky to the smirking looks on the gangsters' faces. He could smell everything, sense everything and hear everything. Nothing was left unnoticed. He lifted the youth clean off the ground, holding him by the hand.

"Going..."

Then he threw the youth, threw him with an over arm throw that sent the youth flying into the air and cart-wheeling before slamming into a far wall with a sickening thud. And even as he fell, Mark's body was contorting and twisting. His teeth jutted out of his jaw, lengthening and sharpening, his fingernails likewise undergoing the same changes. He seemed to grow in height with each step. Where before was a mere five foot four inch boy was now nearly eight feet tall. His clothes seem to bulge and tear, as though they struggled to contain something terrible within them.

"To..."

The smirking turned to stunned gasping as the gang members beheld something that simply couldn't be. Something from their deepest darkest memories had come to life in front of them and their minds rebelled. They dropped their weapons in horrified silence, backed away and turned to run.

But there was nowhere to run to. With eyes like blazing fire, the monster that had formally been Mark Allen leaped into the air, claws extended and snarling with fury.

"KILL!"

Terrified screams erupted into the night.

Burke had originally planned to rent a room at a local motel and wait until morning to resume his mission, but that didn't seem to be possible now. He knew something was up the moment he got within 10 kilometres of the school. It was a sixth sense, a gut feeling that caused him to stop his car and get out onto the road.

The road was deserted. There was nothing to fear, nothing to cause him unease, but he felt it anyway. Something had gone horribly wrong. He concentrated.

Burke was not a handsome man by any means, but he did at least look relatively normal. Or at least, he did look normal until his nose suddenly jutted out of his face, elongating and transforming into a dog's snout.

Burke sniffed the air, utilizing the Lupus form's sense of smell whilst still remaining mostly in the Homid form. As usual, the scents came in a torrent, too many to distinguish. He concentrated harder, examining each scent carefully

His nostrils flared. There was one scent he knew perfectly well – Blood. There was lots of it somewhere. Somewhere close. He followed the scent, down streets and through residential areas, until he came to an alleyway.

It was too dark to see anything, but his nose showed him the scene as clearly as if it were a flashlight.

"Oh –"

It was a scene of complete destruction. At first, Burke saw only a few bodies, too few for the sheer amount of blood that was smeared on the walls and pooled on the floor. Then he followed the scent out of the alleyway and beneath a streetlight. That's where he found the rest of the bodies, completely dismembered. There had been a fight here, and it hadn't ended pretty.

For a moment he was caught up in the emotions of his own First Change. They flooded through him – nothing concrete, of course, just emotions. Mostly Rage, followed by horror as it dawned on him what he had done. Mind blasting horror that wiped clean everything that lead up to that moment and replaced it with blankness. His mind had completely rebelled at the sight and destroyed everything. He remembered nothing of his life before his First Change.

Burke shook his head to make the memories go away. This was no time to reminisce, there was a lost cub wandering around doing god knew what to the Veil. Burke sniffed at the ground. Where had that cub gone off to?

Then he smelt it. His nostrils flared and his mouth opened, gaping in panic. Instantly he slammed his hand in his pocket, pulled out a small cell phone and dialled a number.

"Come on. . . come on you darn Silver jerk. . . pick up..."

His pack mate responded on the seventh ring. Burke didn't even wait for the Garou to respond to him before shouting orders. "I need you over here, now! We have a situation!"

The Silver Fang on the phone sounded irritated. "Who do you think you are, ordering me around? You should know your place by now. I think –"

"I don't care what you think!" Burke roared into the phone. "A lost cub's just changed and caused a colossal mess, and now Black Spiral Dancers have kidnapped him! Get over here! I'm going after them, but I'll need backup in case there's a big fight."

Now the Silver Fang was interested. "A fight?"

Burke nodded. "Yes! A Fight! A big one! Get over here!" He hung up the phone before the Garou could respond, placing it in his pocket.

He took off his jacket. The jacket itself had been Dedicated, but there was a variety of items inside it – car keys, cash, bank cards – that were too numerous to Dedicate. He left the jacket in the alleyway. Other members of the pack would appear later, cleaning up the mess. They would collect his jacket and ensure its safekeeping. For now, there was more important business. It would take time for the other members of the pack to appear, and Burke didn't want to lose the trail of the tainted Garou.

He concentrated for a moment, then Shifted directly into the form he wished to assume. Fur grew from his body and a tail jutted out from the end of his spine. Unable to remain standing, he fell onto hands that rapidly turned to paws. He had chosen the fifth form, the Lupus. He needed the Lupus' keen senses to track the enemy.

He followed the scent until it came to a dead end and continued no longer. At least, it didn't continue any longer in the physical world. But there was another world, a world beyond that of most mortal eyes. Burke reached into the breast pocket of his shirt and took out a small hand mirror. He concentrated on it, and then stepped sideways into this second world.