Red Rider's Hood

All at once it came to me?not a memory of her face, but a memory of her style. The way her hands would move across a game board. The way she would sing to me when I went to sleep. For an instant I flashed on a memory of her perfume?sort of vanilla and spice. She didn't smell like that now, though. She had the same strange, unnamable smell as the rest of this place.

'Rowena?'

'So you do remember me!'

I nodded. I couldn't imagine my parents trusting me to the hands of a babysitter like this.... But I guess she wasn't always like this.

'You were a sweet kid,' she said.

I frowned and pushed up my shoulders. 'Yeah, well, sweet doesn't get you much in this town.'

'It can get you further than you think,' she said.

'Were you always so mysterious? I don't remember that.'

She responded with a silence as mysterious as her words. Pulling a pen out of thin air, it seemed, she flipped over the note and scribbled on the back of it. 'Take this back to Cedric,' she said, handing it back to me.

She took no care to conceal the note in an envelope, or even to fold it so that I couldn't read it. Somehow I sensed she wanted me to read it, so I did. The message read:

IT IS AGREED.

SEND HIM AT MIDNIGHT,

THREE NIGHTS IN A ROW.

'You can go now,' she said.

'Can I ask what the message means?'

'Better if you don't.'

Knowing I'd get no more out of her, I turned to go, and as I neared the door, the first girl appeared out of the shadows, opening it for me.

'A word to the wise, Red,' Rowena called out from behind me. 'If you can't stay on Cedric's good side, then stay out of his way entirely.'

Then the door slammed closed behind me, and I was alone in the stark shadows of the dead industrial canyons.

12 A Few million werewolves

Being a double agent takes a toll on you. You spend your days lying, pretending to accept friendship like you mean it, knowing you're going to betray those same people who trust you. Cedric had so much power in his gang, but in a way I had even more power than him. Their fate rested entirely on me. I could save them by telling the truth. I could destroy them by lying. No one should have that much power.

When a growing half-moon hung above the city, Cedric took us all back to the roof of his apartment building, to give me the big talk. It was a week until the night of first change.

'You want to know why there are werewolves?' Cedric asked as we sat in rusty chairs on the roof. It wasn't as dark as it had been that first time, and I found myself less terrified than I had been then. The memory of being held out over fifteen stories of thin air isn't something that fades too quickly. Some­how I couldn't help but think this was another test.

'There are werewolves because one of your ancestors got bit by one,' I told him.

'That's not what I mean.' He pushed himself closer, the legs of his chair scraping on the gritty tar paper of the roof. The rest of the Wolves sat in a circle around us, like this was another secret rite of the werewolf order.

'Everything on Earth is here for a reason,' Cedric said. 'Trees are here to make oxygen, worms are here to make dirt. There's no such thing as a freak of nature. If it's here, it's nat­urally meant to be here.'

Unnaturally, in your case. I didn't dare say it out loud.

'Most other animals got predators to keep their population down?but see, us humans are too smart for predators. Even the stupid humans like Klutz.'

The others razzed Klutz, and he threw a few well-placed punches to shut them up.

'We build walls and fences to keep the predators out,' Cedric said. 'We put 'em in zoos, and the ones that get loose, we can put 'em down with a single rifle shot. See, we got brains.'

'So, what's your point?'

'I'm getting to that.' Cedric leaned forward. 'It used to be that diseases kept the human population in control. Before we knew how to fight them, things like the plague came and wiped out people like flies?but not anymore. We got vaccines, and antibiotics, and Pepto-Bismol and stuff, so suddenly the bugs ain't so bad anymore.' He looked around to make sure he had everyone's attention, although I got the feeling they'd all heard this a dozen times before?every time a new Wolf was going to be 'made.'

Cedric spread out his arms. 'So here I am, Mother Nature, trying to figure out how to keep humans down, on account of the population is reaching like a gazillion.'

'Six billion,' I told him.

'Whatever. Anyway, Mother Nature scratches her head, thinks for a while, and says, 'Hey, I know?I'll come up with a predator as smart as a human. One with a thirst for human blood.' She can't use evolution, though, because that takes too long, and she don't got that much patience. She needs to work herself up something real quick . . . so what do you think she does?'

I wanted to answer with something obnoxious, like 'She goes on eBay,' but the truth was, I couldn't answer him. All I could do was listen, my mouth dry, my throat closed up, and my eyes fixed on those yellow eyes in front of me.

'Mother Nature,' Cedric proclaimed proudly, 'creates werewolves to solve the problem. Oh, she'd been working on us for a thousand years or so, and with each generation we've gotten stronger. Hungrier.'

Cedric's logic was as twisted as his supernatural DNA. I found myself amazed by how he stretched everything to fit the way he saw the world. A person could fall into that, believing the things he said.

'In ten years, how many more gazillions of people will be on this world if something's not done about it?' he said. 'A few million werewolves could take care of the problem just like that,' and he snapped his fingers, like he could magically create a few million werewolves. Then I realized that he could. Bite enough people, who then bite more people, and pretty soon, werewolf'll be the world's fastest-growing ethnic group.

'Of course it will take time,' Cedric said. 'But we're ready to start expanding outward. Next month A/C is heading out to Chicago to start his own pack there. Warhead will be going to Los Angeles. I figure in less than a year we'll have packs in twenty cities.'

The air on the rooftop suddenly felt thin, like I was trying to breathe in space. I thought I might pass out, then I realized I'd been hyperventilating, breathing in and out so fast I was getting dizzy. I couldn't tell if it was excitement, or fear.

'And we won't be just your ordinary werewolves. No! See, I've got another trick up my sleeve. One that I don't even think Mother Nature was counting on.'

'He still won't even tell us what it is,' grumbled A/C.

'I know what it is,' Loogie said, but Cedric threw him a silencing gaze.

'Why are you telling me all this?' I said, trying to slow my breathing.

'You're one of us now,' said Klutz, looking to Cedric for approval.

'Right,' Cedric said. 'You deserve to know what's in your future.'

I looked around and saw that one of the Wolves was hanging back. 'How about you, Marvin?' I said. 'What city are you going to?'

'None of your business,' Marvin snapped.

'You gotta be with us for a year before you can start your own pack in a new city,' Cedric told me. Then he smiled. 'But that doesn't mean you can't make your reservation now.' He snapped his fingers, and then Warhead