Not that we were secretly having an affair. Dee was happily married to the doctor of the local gorgon community, an imposing fellow named Frank, and I was equally happy in my relationship with the other visiting researcher attached to the West Columbus Zoo: Dr. Shelby Tanner, big cat specialist and potentially the most dangerous thing ever produced by the great continent of Australia.

I twisted in my seat, looking at Crow. “We’re here,” I said. “Office, Crow. Office. Can you do that?”

Crow continued preening his left wing, ignoring me.

I sighed. Chasing my griffin around the zoo grounds while I tried to keep him from being seen by anyone wasn’t my idea of a good time. At the same time, I couldn’t leave him in the car. Cryptid or not, he’d be killed if the car got too hot, just like a normal dog or cat—and even if that didn’t happen, I didn’t feel like spending the evening cleaning griffin crap out of the upholstery.

“Office,” I said. “Treats.”

Crow lifted his head.

“Yeah, I thought that would get your attention. Go straight there, and you can have two liver cubes.” I got out of the car and opened the rear driver’s-side door. Crow took off like a shot, his vast black wings straining at first to gain altitude, and then leveling off into a glide. Anyone who happened to see him pass overhead would probably take him for a raven, their minds automatically editing out the long plume of his tail and mammalian shape of his lower body in the interests of not seeing something that they knew couldn’t possibly exist.

Sometimes it’s convenient to have a pet that no one believes in. I’d never be allowed to bring a cat to work every day, but since Crow “isn’t real,” no one’s ever reported him to the zoo management. Other times, I think it would be nice to stop hiding him from the world. Miniature griffins could be the next big trend in exotic pets.

Or maybe not. They did require a lot of special care.

The guard at the gate was new, and I didn’t remember his name. He checked my credentials, said, “Welcome back, Dr. Preston,” and waved me through. I smiled amiably and stepped inside, closing my eyes for a moment in regret. The old guard, Lloyd, had been a friendly man who’d always seemed happy to see me. Unfortunately, he’d also been a homicidal gorgon hybrid who’d resented humanity for shutting him out; he’d stabbed Shelby and tried to kill us both before I shot him dead in the forest near the gorgon community.

Still, he’d been a nice old man for a long time before that happened, and I missed him. Logic and loss aren’t always great friends. Sometimes we mourn for the things that hurt us. Sometimes, that’s okay.

School groups and small clusters of excited zoo goers clogged the paths between the entrance and the reptile house, all of them trying to get in one last sighting of our shy snow leopard or our playful young male orangutan before the weather turned bad and the zoo became a much less appealing destination. Ohio winters weren’t exactly conducive to open-air pathways and natural enclosures. Some of the animals enjoyed the snow. Others would spend the whole winter inside, glaring at anyone who dared to open a door and let the wind in. I wove my way around the people, smiling politely when they cast curious glances at my muddy boots and zoo ID, until my destination came into view: the low round shape of the reptile house. I sped up. Almost home.

Stepping into the reptile house was like stepping back in time, into a world where the rich, dark smell of snakes and lizards dominated the atmosphere. The overhead lights were low, allowing the individual enclosures to shine just a little brighter. Crunchy, our big alligator snapping turtle, floated in his tank directly in front of the door, like a promise of better things to come or a warning about not pissing off the residents.

There were a few people inside as well as outside, but most of the zoo’s visitors were eschewing the warm confines of the reptile house until later in the day, when the chill would drive them into any enclosed exhibits they could find, and getting a good position in front of our cobra enclosure would prove virtually impossible. I waved to Dee, who was wiping smears off the front of the rattlesnake enclosure, as I passed.

“You have company,” she said.

I paused. “Good company?”

“You could say that.” She grinned. I walked a little faster.

My office would normally have been used for the director of the reptile house. The zoo didn’t have one of those right now: instead, it had me, and since I was serving the same basic function, I got to use the space. The door was unlocked. I opened it cautiously, hoping that Dee’s definition of “good company” matched up with mine.

A blonde woman in zoo-issue khakis was sitting on the edge of my desk, her slouch hat pushed back on her head and her long, tanned legs crossed at the knee, so that one hiking boot-clad foot thumped against the desk’s edge. She was leaning back on one hand and scritching Crow on the back of the neck with the other. My temperamental pet’s eyes were half closed, and he was making small chirping noises in his contentment. As for the woman, she was smiling indulgently, like she’d known all along that all she had to do was show up and I would appear.

I stepped into the office and shut the door.

“Hello, Price boy,” said Shelby Tanner, her Australian accent pronounced in the way that meant she was about to ask me for something. I didn’t mind. Most of the things Shelby asked me for were okay by me. “You know much about werewolves?”

Well. That wasn’t what I’d been expecting.

Two

“We try to avoid words like ‘monster’ when we can. They tend to prejudice people. And yet, sometimes, ‘monster’ is the only word that fits.”

—Jonathan Healy

The reptile house of Ohio’s West Columbus Zoo, visiting researcher’s office

“HELLO, SHELBY.” I walked past her, using the need to close the window as a distraction while I swallowed my atavistic desire to turn and run away. It only took a few seconds, but that was long enough for me to mostly recover from the shock of her question. I flipped the latch and turned back to her. “So what do you want to know about werewolves?” I asked. I was proud of myself: my voice didn’t even break.

“Everything.” Shelby sobered, all traces of levity slipping away. “Sit down, will you? I need to talk to you.”

Those words just made the fear that already gripped my heart grow even stronger. “All right,” I said, still fighting to retain my composure. I snagged my desk chair, rolling it to where it would give me a clear view of her face before I sat down. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me. “What’s wrong?”