Sheryl’s phone was in her hand before she was fully awake, the news app already loading from the muscle memory of too many early mornings. She read the headlines in order.

  Raycon Aerospace Distribution Center Set on Fire. 12 Workers Feared Dead.

  Witnesses Report Giant Wolves Outside Facility.

  Security Guard Found Burned Beyond Recognition. Electrocution Suspected.

  Patrol Vehicle Found Flipped. Large Claw Marks Across Hood.

  She set the phone face down on the mattress and stared at the ceiling. “That has Lycara written all over it,” she whispered.

  She got up and went to the bathroom. She turned on the shower and stood under the water until the heat ran through the tension in her shoulders and neck. When she stepped out and wiped the mirror clear, she looked at her own reflection for a long moment. Then she went to the living room without dressing.

  Derek’s gift sat on the coffee table. She picked up the matte-black nine-millimeter, slid in the magazine, and took her stance in the middle of the living room. She worked through her drills: tight stance, quick aim at the window corner, low pivot toward the hallway, high aim at the doorframe, recenter, reset. She reloaded and ran it again, and again, moving across the hardwood floor with her breathing controlled and her grip consistent. When she finished the fourth cycle, she set the pistol down, then picked it up again thirty seconds later because leaving it down felt wrong.

  She dressed, returned to the kitchen table, and loaded the magazine, round by round, with slow movements. When the last round seated, the gold pushed up through her irises in a single, involuntary surge, and a low growl ran through her chest. She let it pass, set the magazine on the table, and looked at the dark window across the room.

  Lycara had Phil. She had Olivia. She had Karen. And now twelve workers at Raycon were dead.

  Sheryl picked the magazine back up and set it in the grip.

  Dr. Sarah Vargas came out of Bayou Mounds Medical Center at noon, bag over her shoulder and keys already in her hand. She spotted Phil leaning against a pillar near the stairwell exit and slowed, then smiled.

  “Hey Phil, what are you doing here? I thought you were on vacation.”

  Phil turned from the pillar, hands in his pockets. “I am. I just got a little bored at home, so I figured I’d come up here and see how my coworkers were doing.”

  “Aww, that’s sweet,” Sarah said, sliding her keys between her fingers as they walked toward her car. “So you have done nothing at all on your vacation? You weren’t that bored.”

  Phil chuckled. “Well, I did something. I experienced an event that pushed me into a period of transformation. Something that helped me better myself.”

  Sarah raised a brow. “Oh, really? You care to explain? And how are things with you and Sheryl, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  Phil’s smile cooled. “It’s getting there. I found out some things she was hiding.”

  Heels clicked against the concrete from behind them, steady and unhurried. A black Mercedes sat three spaces over, its rear door open, and Lycara walked from it across the garage floor in a black leather top, fitted pants, and stilettos, her straight black hair down, her green eyes carrying their faint ambient light even in the fluorescent-lit garage.

  Sarah looked at her and blinked. “Hey Karen, I haven’t seen you in a while. How’s everything?”

  Lycara tilted her head. “Sarah, this world has kept you in denial long enough. It is time for you to cross over.”

  Sarah looked from her to Phil and back. “Excuse me? What do you mean? Phil, are y’all in a cult or something?”

  Lycara stepped forward and touched the backs of her fingers to Sarah’s cheek. Sarah’s eyes rolled back; her legs buckled, and Phil caught her, easing her down. Lycara knelt, brought her face close to Sarah’s, and exhaled a steady green vapor over Sarah’s nose and mouth. The vapor slipped into her airways, spreading in faint, branching traces before fading completely.

  Lycara stood. “Pick her up. By the time she awakes, she will be one of us.”

  Phil lifted Sarah and carried her to the Mercedes, laying her across the back seat. Lycara took the passenger side, and Olivia was already behind the wheel in her black leather, the engine running. The car rolled out of the garage and into the afternoon.

  The pack had gathered in the main chamber when Lycara returned. She raised one hand, and the green projection materialized in the air above the marble floor: the Louisiana Superdome, Jackson Square, the French Quarter, downtown Bayou Mounds, then cities further out, all of them running under green-lit storm systems with Lycans moving through the streets below.

  Lycara looked at the display with her arms at her sides. “These humans have no idea what they are in for. Everything they call impossible, everything they declare as superstition and myth, will reveal itself on the next full moon. This world belongs to us. All of it.”

  She raised her right hand and closed it into a fist, the green in her eyes intensifying. “Every knee shall bow. Every beast of my world will rise. Every ghoul, every Lycan, every forgotten creature of the night will bring this nation to its knees. Their cities will burn. Their armies will crumble. Their faith will break. This realm will be ours.”

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  From the side hallway came the click of heels against stone, measured and unhurried.

  Sarah entered in black leather armor, hair loose, nails pointed, eyes blazing green. She crossed to Lycara, bowed, and pressed her lips to Lycara’s hand.

  Lycara looked down at her. “Be prepared to hunt, Sarah. You no longer heal the sick. You no longer save the wounded. Those days are over. Now you inflict pain. And with your gifts, you will inflict plenty of it.”

  Sarah straightened. A low laugh came out of her chest and moved through the chamber and off the polished walls.

  The pack watched without speaking.

  The warehouse on the south edge of Bayou Mounds sat behind a gravel lot, its tin siding weather-stripped, and its concrete floor cracked along the expansion joints. Jared Stallings from Stone Defense Company had his truck backed in when Derek and Sheryl arrived, a long black cargo case resting in the bed.

  Jared drove five hours from Sumlin, Tennessee, without question. That was SDC. Devin Stone had supplied people for this kind of problem for years, building the company’s reputation on such discretion.

  Jared looked Derek over. “Hey, man. You sure you don’t need extra help? Devin’s got a close associate who brings serious firepower.”

  Derek shook his head. “I appreciate it. But it might be too late for that. We’ve gotta move fast.”

  Jared nodded once. “Alright. Be safe out there.” He gave Sheryl a small nod. “Have a good day, ma’am.”

  The cargo case went into the van with a heavy clunk of metal on metal, the Orichalcum-jacketed silver rounds sealed inside.

  The gray Chevy Express sped north. Sheryl watched the road, the case between her feet.

  “So I’m supposed to drive a stake into her heart while you roar at the top of your lungs to force the spirit out?” she said.

  “Yep,” Derek said. “That’s the plan. Straight from the good doctor.”

  Sheryl exhaled through her nose. “You know the full moon is tomorrow.”

  “I know.”

  “That means I’ll be a werewolf. Out of control. Stronger. Meaner. And she’ll match every bit of it.” She looked at the windshield. “Derek, Lycara’s power, when I fought her, was equal to mine. Maybe stronger. And you’re a lion. A king. But this is different.”

  Derek kept his eyes forward. “Mom. We got this. I’m confident we can take them down.”

  Sheryl stayed silent, watching the tree line slip past.

  At the edge of dusk, Park Rangers Wayne Boudreaux and Cole Miller were finishing their evening walkthrough along the cypress line when the sky flashed green above the tree canopy to the south.

  Wayne stopped walking. “What in the hell?”

  Cole squinted into the trees. “Lightning? But the sky’s clear.”

  The second flash came closer. They moved toward it, and Phil stepped out of the tree line onto the trail in front of them.

  Wayne looked him over. “Hey fella, good evening. Can I help you?”

  Phil’s voice came out flat and unhurried. “Good evening, gentlemen. Just here to tell you your services are no longer needed.”

  Wayne’s expression went from curious to irritated. “What? Excuse me? Who the hell does this cowboy think he is?” He spat tobacco juice onto Phil’s shoes and looked at him. “Scat, boy. Scat.”

  Cole took a step forward. “Sir, are you deaf? Move along before we arrest you.”

  Phil’s jaw tightened. “You don’t know what you just did.”

  He grabbed Wayne by the collar and drove his claws through his abdomen in one thrust. He reached into the cavity and pulled. Wayne dropped. Phil looked at Cole. His eyes ran full green. The change moved through him, from the feet upward. Shoes split at the seams as the foot structure elongated. Legs inverted at the knee into a digitigrade stance. Muscle across his chest, arms, and thighs expanded outward. Skin darkened as black fur pushed through in dense coverage. His jaw stretched forward, an elongated muzzle lined with fangs. His frame climbed past seven feet, settling at eight.

  Cole ran north into the vegetation, pushing through cypress roots and palmetto scrub. Phil came behind him through the tree trunks, the foliage snapping and parting at his frame as he closed the distance. Cole went down in a depression between two roots and pressed himself flat against the ground.

  “Please, sir, don’t kill me. Please.”

  Phil located him by the sound of his breathing and dropped onto him and closed his jaws around the back of his neck.

  Phil fed until the body went still, shook it once, and stood in the dark swamp with his chest running a slow, continuous growl, and raised his head and roared into the sky.

  Inside the station, two rangers on the night rotation were running their standard end-of-shift checks when the growl carried in through the closed windows.

  Ranger Josh looked up from the desk. “You hear that? Sounds like a bear. Maybe a lion.”

  Ranger Jacob crossed to the window. “Go get the tranquilizers, Josh.”

  Sarah came through the front entrance before Josh reached the supply cabinet. She was in full shifted form, eight feet and black-furred, her green eyes at full saturation. Jacob raised his rifle and fired twice, the rounds hitting her chest and flattening against the fur without penetrating the muscle beneath. She took the rifle in both hands and snapped the barrel across the receiver and drove the stock end into Jacob across the desk, sending him through the window behind it in a cascade of breaking glass and aluminum framing.

  Carl came through the side window at the same time, and he and Sarah converged on Josh in the narrow space between the supply cabinet and the back wall, tearing through him in under ten seconds.

  Outside, Jacob had landed on the gravel and was on his hands and knees when he raised his head. Paul, Gwendolyn, Phil, and Olivia stood around him in a loose arc, all of them in full shifted form, their green eyes looking down at him. Phil crouched and lifted him by the throat and drove him down into the gravel, and the pack descended.

  Inside, Sarah and Carl destroyed the communications equipment, pulling the radio units off the wall and crushing the consoles underfoot. Olivia and Michelle took the two patrol SUVs in the lot, each of them gripping a vehicle by the undercarriage and lifting it off the asphalt and throwing it into the station’s exterior wall. The impacts caved the wall inward, and the fuel lines ruptured, and the fire spread up the wall framing and reached the roof inside three minutes.

  While the station burned, Lycara walked alone through the swamp in her human form, the heels of her boots pressing into the soft mud at each step, her green eyes tracking the ground ahead toward the sinkhole where the storm had opened the earth six weeks ago, and the sarcophagus had surfaced.

  She stood over the excavated perimeter with both palms raised outward and spoke in the language she had been speaking before any living civilization had developed a written record, the syllables moving through the swamp air and carrying no echo. Green light poured from her palms into the ground around the sinkhole’s edge and spread outward through the soil in branching channels. The swamp water at the sinkhole’s base receded into carved stone channels. The vegetation at the perimeter straightened and darkened, and the ground beneath it hardened. The structure forming at the site had the foundations of a palace built into the earth itself, and Lycara stood at its center, watching it take shape.

  When she finished, she dropped to one knee in the mud and raised her head and sent a single, sustained howl into the dark sky above the cypress canopy.

  Miles north, at the burning ranger station, the pack dropped to their knees in the gravel and the mud and the cleared ground around the fire and howled back in unison, the sound carrying out across the parish in every direction.

  Twenty-four hours remained.