“Did somebody get the number of that bus?” she asked.

Raina snorted. Then she began to laugh. The back door opened, and Helen stuck her head inside.

“Is it over?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said, moving to take the mouse priest from Raina’s hand and letting it run up into the safety of my collar before I crossed to Shelby and began untying her hands. “I think it is.”

Epilogue

“The best thing you can ever do for the people who love you is to make it home alive.”

—Kevin Price

Getting ready to head for the Brisbane Airport in Queensland, Australia

Twenty-nine days later

“YOU’RE SURE YOU CAN’T stay longer?” Charlotte fussed with the collar of Shelby’s shirt, pulling it up another quarter inch to cover the healing scratches on Shelby’s collarbone. “We’d be happy to have you, you know that.”

“I do know that, but I promised Alex’s family I’d bring him back, and we have to tell them we’re engaged.” Shelby gently pushed her mother’s hands away. “They’re going to worry if we don’t show up soon. Do you want them coming over here to make sure he’s all right?”

“It would make wedding arrangements easier,” commented Raina, without looking up from her Gameboy. Now that the werewolf threat was past and her sister wasn’t going to transform, she was back to focusing almost exclusively on the needs of her Pokémon, which were many and never-ending. “Get everyone on the same continent, kidnap a priest, problem solved.”

“No one’s kidnapping a priest,” scolded Charlotte. “It’s rude to abduct the clergy.”

“Let’s not start another crisis right this minute, all right?” asked Riley, walking in from the hall. He was still slow and shaky, and his injuries had been more severe than mine: it would take months for him to fully recover, if he ever did. But he hadn’t changed, and he wasn’t going to. Our anti-lycanthropy treatment had worked, thank God. After everything they’d been through, I didn’t think the Tanners could have survived shooting their patriarch.

Cooper hadn’t turned as many people as he’d wanted us to think—that, or most of them had chosen suicide over life as a free monster. Of the Thirty-Sixers who had been put into quarantine, only two had shifted, and both of them would be working with the Tanners and Dr. Jalali on a quarantine and containment protocol. They wouldn’t live long or healthy lives; the strain on their hearts would kill them years before they would otherwise have died. But they would live until then, and they would do it with the full support of the Society. If Cooper had believed he’d have that, maybe he wouldn’t have done what he did.

Or maybe he would. He’d been happy as a monster. Maybe some people are just looking for the excuse.

“But, Daddy, without a crisis, how are you to know we love you?” Shelby walked over and put her arms around his neck, careful of his healing injuries. “I’ll miss you.”

“Come home sooner this time,” he said, hugging her with equal care. “Gabby’s going to sing Carmen next semester. You should come hear her.”

“I will,” Shelby promised, and squeezed briefly before letting him go.

“And you.” Riley turned his focus on me. “Take good care of my little girl.”

“Daddy,” Shelby objected. “That’s patriarchal and rude.”

“I will, sir,” I said.

Gabby came thumping down the stairs with Flora on her shoulder, dragging Shelby’s suitcase. She moved surprisingly well for someone who had come home in the arms of a yowie, with two puncture wounds the size of quarters in her side. The wagyl’s venom had come with some sort of accelerated healing: the punctures had been covered by scar tissue inside of a week, and to look at her now, you would never know that she had been saved from becoming a werewolf via the intervention of a giant snake.

“Here’s the last of it,” she said. “You’re sure you can’t stay longer?”

“Positive,” said Shelby.

“You owe me five dollars,” I said.

She gave me a long-suffering look, and I laughed.

The rest of her family was looking at me in confusion—even Raina, who apparently thought that frowning at me was more important than whatever Pikachu was doing. “I bet her five bucks that you’d all ask,” I explained. “Gabby was the last one I was waiting for.”

“Should’ve gone for twenty,” said Riley.

I smiled. He smiled back. We might never be friends—our differences were great, and foundational—but he’d admitted that I wasn’t bad for his daughter, and that was all I’d ever really wanted. Well, that, and not turning into a werewolf. So far, I was batting a thousand.

Flora screeched and launched herself at Shelby, who caught the little garrinna and cradled her against her chest, making cooing noises. I watched her. This was her home, and her family: this was the world that had created her. I liked it more than I had expected to. One way or another, we’d be back, and probably sooner rather than later. The Thirty-Six Society was going to need to monitor the local livestock and wildlife for the next few years, to be sure lycanthropy wasn’t slumbering in the population, and an expedition to New Zealand was already in the offing. Basil needed his magazines and Tim Tams. Raina had promised to introduce him to the rest of her family, but that was going to take time. And while I trusted Charlotte and Riley to make an effort, they would probably need help learning how to relate to their local sapient cryptids. It’s hard to shrug off generations of training just like that.

But all those things were for later. Right here, right now, it was time for me and Shelby to go back to the States. We had records to update. I had a mouse memorial to attend—the funeral was long since past, but the rest of the colony would need the chance to mourn their fallen companion. And maybe most importantly of all, we had a wedding to plan.

Not too bad, for an Australian vacation.