The moon was full the night the car rolled into Whaterly.
It was a night for only the fearless and the sleepless to look out of their windows. Silver dusted the tops of the trees with spiderweb silk and the roof tiles were slick with damp, shining bright in the dark. Small creatures ventured out of the fields and into the town, where a few streets were still cobbled, mountainous, giving any rodent pause before scurrying across. Out just beyond the borders, owls swooped down with talons outstretched. This was their time, the time when humankind was tucked in behind its flimsy doors and taught curtains.
The car, more of a tank than a car, a massive 4x4 with enough space for an army to hide out in the back, stealthily crossed the bridge over the gargling stream. Great wheels turned slowly. It meandered through into the small town centre past stone walls hundreds of years old, stoic and guarded. A small car park was off to the left, the old market overlooking it. It slowed, pulled to a stop. There it sat for a moment, alone, waiting. It was a little before two in the morning.
On the main street, the stone gargoyles atop the church's roof watched on. They looked as if they were ready to take flight at any moment, rush at these intruders. But no, they bided their time, simply sat there, waiting. Watching.
The front doors of the car opened. Two figures stepped out into the cold moonlit night. They were dressed in black suits and long coats to protect them from the chill. Anyone watching might have thought that the men in black had rolled into town, and they wouldn't be far wrong. The irony that little Lee Wallace, nine years old, had watched the film that night but was now peacefully asleep five streets over, was something nobody would know to appreciate.
One of the two new figures into the night, a woman in her forties with long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail, regarded the quiet. She stood with hands on hips and surveyed the town. Her mouth was tight shut. She had all the outward appearance of utmost composure, but inside, she quivered. She could feel it. After a time, you just knew when something was wrong.
She turned to her partner, a young man with a side parting and a penchant for eyeliner that made some of the girls back in London swoon whenever they laid eyes on him. He had his phone in one hand and a gadget in the other with a small radar dish attached. He frowned, intently watching graphics dance on the phone screen. Symbols and numbers flashed and twirled in a digital snowstorm.
"We got anything, Raven?" asked the woman.
The young man nodded. "Definitely one here. Traces of Selide DNA in the atmosphere. Male, probably, looking at the hormone balance, but possibly not."
"What do you mean, probably male?"
"This thing isn't an exact science, you know. Get bad air currents coming in and it messes up even further."
"But you're certain there's a lupe around?"
Raven shrugged. "Within a hundred yards or so."
Inside the car, someone murmured in agreement, their voice muffled.
"Inside the town? Not out in the woods?" asked the woman.
"Unless it can fly."
He looked his boss in the eye, a place identifiable on her face only by a flicker of moonshine reflecting off them. "I say we arm up, leave the car here, and track on foot. I doubt it's huddled up inside, and if it goes down one of these piddly little side streets, we'll never get the car down it."
The woman did a quick 360. Everything was quiet, a type of quiet she didn't like. Everything was holding its breath, knowing that something lurked in its midst, hoping that if it didn't make a sound, the danger would pass it by without tearing its throat out. If tonight went well, they'd be in and out in minutes, an hour tops. Nobody would have to know they were here. If it didn't go well...
"Let's do it."
They opened the boot and threw back a cover. They took out two black handguns each. Loaded them, then grabbed several spare magazines. The bullets inside them shone silver even without the moon's help. A knife or two. Strapped them tight. Shut the boot quietly to not wake the sleeping dead.
The woman stepped to the driver's side back door. "You got any idea where it is?"
Raven shrugged. "There's a breeze blowing west, so I'd say over the other side of Main Street is a good place to start. Stuff's apparently coming from that way. But I don't have the nose for it. Just a screen."
The figure in the car shouted a muffled agreement once again to the outside world.
The woman stooped down and opened the door. "Ok. You're up. And as always, sorry in advance about the leash."
Out of the car stepped a bundled young woman, a great black blanket thrown over her head like a criminal being escorted away from reporters after a court case. Two holes in the front allowed piercing blue eyes to look out at the world. A leash of cold steel chain snaked out from under the blanket to the grip in the woman's hand.
The figure under the blanket reached out and touched the woman's breast pocket. "Your name badge fell off, Persephone."
"No. I took it off. It gets in the way. And I'm not intending for anyone to know we were here, let alone my name. Now, get your hand back under before..."
The skin on the hidden woman's hand began to ripple, as if the pulse were passing through it in advance of a tidal wave running on behind. She tucked it back underneath, but not before a few rugged tufts of hair had begin to sprout, and her nails had begun to change chemical composition, hardening, sharpening, lengthening.
"You're going to blow this whole thing if you keep doing stuff like that," Persephone said.
"I've got a blanket over my head, and I've got a collar and leash around my neck. Do you think I give a fuck?"
"If anyone saw that..."
"They're more likely to be worried about a woman being leashed around with a blanket over her head than my hand getting a little hairy."
"I'll keep the leash on you all the time if..."
Blanket Woman snapped her head towards the main street so swiftly her protective covering almost fell off. The chain jingled against itself.
"It knows."
Raven's attention went quickly to his phone. "Numbers aren't showing anything yet..."
"Trust me. I can smell it. I've been scented out. A few minutes ago. Must've been as we dropped into town because the wind's blowing this way."
"You stink that bad?" Raven asked with an arched eyebrow.
Under the blanket the woman sniffed. "It's young. Not long turned. I don't think it's ever smelled a female before."
"Don't tell me it's going to get excited and start pissing everywhere."
"No. I think..." she stopped.
"What is it?" Persephone's heart rate, which had been just about under control, had decided to go for a late-night climb up a mountain, and was rising fast. "What's going on?"
"Pheromones changed. Saliva now. I smell saliva. It's hungry."
"Shit."
"No. Not hungry. It..."
A howl went up across town. It was a howl that would have sent the early settlers of the hills of Britain scurrying for the spears and torches. In the modern day, it would send the hackles up on anyone hearing it, the sound deeply ingrained through a thousand cheap horror films. It was terror in a mournful cry.
"It wants to please me. An offering." Her voice deepened. "It's going to kill."
"Ok. Let's move. It's you he's trying to woo, so you lead on. Raven, behind..."
"No time. Let me run."
The leash tugged taught in Persephone's hand but she gripped the loop tight. "You know how hard it is to contain you again once you turn. If you..."
"Now. Or there's blood."
"One of you is bad enough, but two is a disaster. We..."
The leash violently snapped out of Persephone's hand. The blanket was ripped off and fell into a stagnant puddle, abandoned.
"Hysteria! Come back!"
The moon shone down on a young woman barely in her twenties, blue hair, piercings, tattoos of horror and nightmarish ghosts and ghouls running in sleeves down her arms. Arms that soon began to ripple as fur covered them in a wave. She screamed as her face contorted, bones grinding and flesh contorting into a muzzle. Her clothes ripped and fell away in ragged scraps of cloth. The chain flew behind her like a second tail. Her blue eyes changed to venomous yellow, her pupils narrowed to slits. She returned the howl and dropped to all fours, saliva dripping from ravenous fangs, claws grinding into the asphalt.
Raven raised his gun to fire, but Persephone rushed across and lowered his arm. "You want to wake the whole damn town?"
"Two bloody werewolves going at each other won't do it?"
"Not if we get this over with quickly. We'll be gone before anyone realises it wasn't a bad dream."
Hysteria Scorn, a blur of fur and fangs with only a blurring understanding of who or what she was, ran for the main street of Whaterly, and her handlers followed.