“You really think you’re going to live long enough to benefit? Even if I don’t shoot you, the human body wasn’t designed for shapeshifting. Therianthropes survive their transformations because they’re adapted to them on a cellular level. The disease you have is breaking the laws of nature every time it rewrites you. You know what most werewolves die of?”

“Silver bullets,” said Basil. “Even I know that one.”

Cooper laughed. “I like your friend. He’s gonna be a wolf the size of a pony. That’s going to be something to see, don’t you think?”

“Werewolves die of heart attacks,” I said, refusing to allow myself to be baited. “They die because when they go from biped to quadruped and back again, sometimes their spinal cords restructure the wrong way, and they snap their own necks. They die because their livers explode. Do you understand me yet? Werewolves die because they have a disease. You have a disease, Cooper, and the fact that you’re spreading it to your own people on purpose—well, that’s sick. No pun intended.”

“They stopped being my people the moment I got bit,” said Cooper calmly. “Ask your friend there how the Thirty-Six Society deals with monsters. Ask your girlfriend. Shelby Tanner was always the worst of a bad lot, even when she was a little girl. Bigots, all of them.”

“I don’t think she’s so bad,” said Basil.

“They’re conservationists,” I said.

“Sure. They conserve. In pens and paddocks and aviaries, they conserve. In zoos and museums and private collections, they conserve. They love their koalas and their kangaroos and all those other nice creatures for the tourists to coo over, but anything that isn’t native—anything that seems like a danger—those things, they’re more than happy to lock away forever.” Cooper shook his head. “They weren’t going to lock me up. I’ve been one of them for too long. I know what their hospitality looks like.”

“So why didn’t you quit?” I asked.

“Didn’t mind it so much when I was on their side of the cage. Things have changed.”

“You still didn’t have to . . .” I trailed off. “Infecting the people you used to work with is wrong. Even if you know they’d treat you like a monster, you shouldn’t have done that. That was what made you a monster. Not the virus. Not the things you did when you were transformed and didn’t understand yourself. The choices you made.”

“Then I’m a monster,” said Cooper calmly. “That gun you’re holding, it has what, six shots in it? There’s four of us. I think I like those odds.”

“Cooper—”

“I like you well enough, Covenant boy, and I know you came a long way to help us. I figure if anyone can find a way for this virus not to kill us all, it’s going to be you—and my people deserve that chance, don’t you think? They deserve a chance at long, healthy, productive lives. We can do better work for this country as monsters than we ever did as men.” Cooper turned, walking back toward the woods. “Get him, boys. Infect, not kill. We need him.”

“Wait!” I cried.

Cooper stopped. The wolves, which had been tensing to spring, froze. If there had been any question remaining as to whether transformed werewolves were fully aware, that moment would have answered it: only thinking creatures would have reacted that way. “What, you willing to come quietly?” asked Cooper, twisting to look over his shoulder at me. “That would be the sensible choice. Much less chance that we’d accidentally damage you. I’d like to take you as intact as possible, since men who’ve just had their arms ripped off always need help in the lab, and that seems like a waste of resources.”

I didn’t shoot him. No one was going to reward me for that, and I would probably regret it later, but in the moment, the fact that I didn’t go ahead and shoot him felt like the most self-control I had ever shown. “Gabrielle Tanner,” I said. “How long ago did you have her bitten?”

“Ah. You found out about that one.” Cooper smiled slow and languid, showing more teeth than he really needed to. “Not that long ago. Did it myself, actually. I picked her up from school. She seemed suspicious. Watching me, yeah? She caught me sneaking off the property when I was supposed to be dead, so I gave her a little nip and pointed out what her family would do to her if they found out. She wasn’t willing to see the sense of my words right away, but she was willing to conceal her condition and my survival, so that’s something, right? Imagine the look on Riley’s face when his precious little girl went for his throat.”

“All I needed to know.” She had been infected within the last forty-eight hours. She hadn’t transformed yet. She could still be saved.

I raised my gun, and had the satisfaction of seeing Cooper’s eyes go wide in his suddenly bloodless face before he threw himself at the trees, and the wolves threw themselves at me.

Then a hand was grabbing the back of my shirt, and Basil’s voice was saying, “Sorry about this, but you seem like a fellow who enjoys air,” and I was flying backward through the air, hauled by that same hand. Jett was in Basil’s other hand, balled up and whimpering. The wolves skidded to a stop at the edge of the water, apparently unwilling to follow Basil into the swamp. They had been Australian naturalists before they became werewolves; they knew better than most what could be lurking in those waters.

The yowie strode through the water, churning it into a froth around his tree trunk-thick legs. Snakes, frogs, and what looked like a small crocodile fled from the disturbance he made—and many of them fled toward the bank, creating a second barrier between us and the werewolves. I hesitated, gun still in my hand. On the one hand, I now knew that werewolves were intelligent creatures, capable of moral decisions and ethical thought. On the other hand, they were disease vectors, and these werewolves were specifically targeting their former friends and companions out of the accurate belief that failure to turn them all would result in a widespread monster hunt.

Too much of my training had been focused on sympathy for every living thing. I was still debating whether or not to pull the trigger when Basil ran into a thick stand of swamp-growing trees and dumped me unceremoniously on a wide branch about eight feet above the surface of the water. He dumped Jett in my lap. She promptly tried to hide her entire head in my crotch. I wasn’t Raina, but I’d do for now.