Page 168 of Sigils & Spells

The inside of the car was dark, the headlights were the only lights for miles besides the moon, so Minho’s eyes were impossible to deny. They were normally black, but now they stared at me bigger than I’d ever seen them, glowing an intense gold that seemed to burn from inside his skull. But then he blinked and the truck was dark again, and I could only assume Minho’s eyes were back to normal.

“Wolves have really good night vision.” And as if the eyes wouldn’t have been enough he said, “How do you think I found you all the way out here? I have a good sense of smell, I tracked you.”

“You’re a werewolf!” It came out a squeak. “Like actually? You turn into a wolf? Werewolves are real?”

He nodded. “Yep. A lot of other stuff is real too. And, well, you might be one too.”

My eyes might have popped out of my head. I stared at him wide eyed and slack jawed. Holy shit. Holy shit.

“Will I be able to have glowy eyes too?” It felt like a minute thing to focus on, but the whole scope of what he just said refused to settle in my brain so I latched onto this, to avoid having to rethink my entire world view at three in the morning. I pulled the visor down and looked at myself in the mirror, trying to make my eyes turn glowy. I didn’t have a way to try so I just focused really hard, but of course nothing happened.

“Yeah, I mean if I’m right. It will take a while for you to be able to control any of it at all. And you won’t be able to do it without help.”

I shut the visor. “Did you have help?”

Minho made a grimace-hiss sound. “Yes. You know how I never work on Thursdays, and go out of town?”

“Yeah?”

“I go to meet a group of other werewolves. A werewolf support group kind of. There are older werewolves who have been around for a long time, and new ones like me, and we meet and talk about it and they teach us how to control it and stuff like that.”

“A ‘werewolf support group’?” I almost laughed, “What is it called, ‘Werewolves Anonymous’?”

“Yes. W.A.”

“You have got to be shitting me.”

* * *

Minho was not shitting me.He was also not taking me home. He was taking me to meet the leader of his W. A. meetings, a werewolf named Sterling who had actually been around since cowboys and lawmen were a thing. Yeah, apparently werewolves were almost immortal. Minho said they still aged, but the process was insanely slowed down. He told me how he could control it, but not well, and eventually he should have total control over the change from human to werewolf.

“At first it’s almost like the wolf is a second being in your head.” He explained. The soft strained voice from before was gone, now that I was mostly on board—though to be honest I’m not sure if I was so much on board as clinging desperately to the side and getting dragged along—and I could tell he was really proud of what he’d learned and the progress he’d made. I didn’t really understand a lot of what he was telling me, but, hell, I was proud of him too.

“It’s like trying to heel an excitable and aggressive dog at all times, but you are also the dog. It’s hard until you realize that the wolf is both a new thing and something that is part of you. The better you accept it the easier it gets to control, because it’s just another version of you.”

Werewolves have to change on the full moon, but the ones with better control can change whenever they want to, but the process wasn’t quite a magic in and out. It took a few minutes, and was almost painful. They didn’t pop into a new form, their bones and skin moved. Hair grew and their teeth lengthened, and they could feel all of it. It exhausted them.

* * *

Minho’s friendlived an hour from our apartment, so we pulled up a long concrete driveway at nearly four thirty in the morning. It was one of those big fancy modern houses, with a gate and a passcode to get inside. The yard was clean and green looking, but not uniform. There were dandelions and clover and big stones surrounding what looked like a pond. Minho knew the code, because apparently this was where W.A.—I couldn’t say it without laughing—met every Thursday.

We parked behind a very sleek looking car that was probably expensive and might have been impressive if I’d known anything about cars. Minho led me up to the front door, which for some reason was taller than normal doors.

“Should I like… not look them in the eye or something?” I asked under my breath. “Is there like the alpha thing? Do you guys mate for life?”

“Don’t make it weird, and no, that’s not actually how wolves work, man. You can look him in the eyes, just be nice.”

“I’ll do my best, Jacob.”

Minho rolled his eyes and rang the doorbell. It was four thirty in the morning, so I didn’t know what to expect, but after a few moments I heard footsteps on the other side of the door, and then it opened.

In the doorway was a huge man. He had to have been half a foot taller than me with shoulders like a rhino and a grizzled face. A huge scar stretched from one brow to the opposite jaw. A huge gray beard was lazily braided down a barreled chest, and he looked at us under bushy eyebrows with intently green eyes. The man looked like that could throw me like a javelin all the way to Canada. I wasn’t sure if I squeaked, but I had to resist the urge to hide behind Minho.

When he saw Minho, the face that a moment ago had made me nearly piss myself broke into a huge grin, and suddenly instead of aged Conan the barbarian, he was like a Viking Santa.

“Minho!’’ His voice was a warm whisky baritone that should have read audio books. “What are you doing here? Are you alright?”

He looked at his watch, blinking. I realized he hadn’t been glaring out from under his eyebrows, just squinting at us sleepily. I also realized he had on a bathrobe and pink bunny slippers. Ok, I’m a scaredy-cat. It had been a long night.

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