Chapter 3
With the hints Rachel dropped, it wasn’t hard for Charlie to figure out when and where the werewolf party was likely taking place.
His Uber took him out of town and down a poorly paved road with farms on one side and steep mountain cliffs on the other, then wound up and around a small peak a few times before dropping him off in a pebbled parking lot surrounded by forest. A few lanterns illuminated a footpath further up the slope, through the trees.
He was lucky Rachel had clued him in about this event existing at all.
Wise Old Crone had gotten hundreds of letters about werewolves by this point, almost as many as he’d gotten about vampires, and last night had been a total bust on the latter front.
He’d enjoyed getting to know Rachel and Maggie, but he still needed Lorenzo to answer at least some questions about vampirism if he was going to have any hope of writing a column people would actually read.
And Ava had been breathing down his neck about the column due tomorrow, which he’d yet to send her.
After running into Lorenzo at the coffee shop, he’d only told her that he might have something, a tidbit so tantalizingly vague she’d been blowing up his phone constantly looking for updates.
He was ignoring her for now. He didn’t want to do anything that might derail his progress, even something so small as express hope to another person.
Maybe he’d actually get enough out of this arrangement with Lorenzo to write something good. Or maybe these were the surreal final days of his dream job; the death rattle of a wizened crone who, it turned out, wasn’t very wise at all.
Unhelpfully, his thoughts went to the last time he’d spoken to his father—when he’d opened up about the changes at Midnight and the threat to his career, committing the classic mistake of thinking that his dad might be encouraging or even just warm.
It was hard enough to convince his rich, boomer father that in this century’s economy, anyone could be screwed over at any time, especially when new owners came in——it didn’t matter how “indispensable” you made yourself.
Insufferable advice aside, Professor George Wever had never respected Charlie’s career choice.
It’s a blessing in disguise, he’d said. Go get a PhD.
I don’t want a PhD, Dad, Charlie had replied, for at least the thousandth time. I don’t know anything.
And yet you’re an advice columnist. His dad loved his own sense of humor, regardless of its effect on others. Charlie remembered gripping the phone so hard his palm hurt.
You could go to medical school. People do that late in life, his dad had rambled on. Hell, go to law school! That’s a bit pedestrian, but it’s a living.
I’m making a living, Charlie had told him. I’m a writer.
And his dad had said, You’re not making a living at being a writer. That’s why you called me.
Charlie had muttered something about regretting that choice and hung up. And now, here he was, weeks or possibly days away from losing everything. He started climbing the forest footpath faster, trying to outpace his anxiety.
Right as he started to huff from the slope, the footpath emerged from the woods into a large clearing with a small barn on the far end and a dance floor in the middle.
Trees decorated with twinkly lights hemmed in most of the clearing, but a small break in the woods opposite him provided a picturesque view of the town below.
Off to his right was a table laden with party snacks and a couple of speakers in the process of being set up, and people were beginning to gather on either side of the dance floor, dressed in summer party clothes. He felt a surge of tentative triumph.
And then he got his confirmation that he was in the right place: Lorenzo was standing off to the left, scowling when he spotted him. “What are you doing here?” he hissed.
He walked over to Lorenzo, lifting the cellophane bag he’d been carrying. “I brought you your dry cleaning,” he said, knowing he sounded a little smug.
Lorenzo crossed his arms, causing his leather jacket to stretch pleasingly across his biceps. His expression, however, was less encouraging. “I can’t believe you came.”
“Sure you can,” Charlie said happily. “So, what is this? A mixer for all the werewolves in town?”
Before he could answer, a tall man with an air of leashed energy approached them.
He was wearing a fantastic blazer embroidered with abstract shapes in dark charcoal thread, and carrying a clear acrylic clipboard with a pen threaded through the mechanism at the top.
He had a stiff, polite smile on his face, and didn’t seem much like a werewolf.
Then again, Charlie had no idea what werewolves seemed like.
“Hi,” the man said as he reached them, clicking his pen twice. “Are you with the caterers? Because we’ve got everything set up—”
“Oh, uh—no. Hi,” Charlie said brightly, offering a hand. “I’m Charlie, I’m here with Lorenzo.”
The man glanced at his hand and then asked Lorenzo, “Here . . . with . . .?”
“He’s a human who has been . . . following me,” Lorenzo said darkly.
“We’re working together on a project,” Charlie said, turning his outstretched hand into a friendly wave. “Nice to meet you.”
“I don’t understand,” the man said, clicking his pen again twice. “How can I help you?”
“Oh, well, I’m a graduate student,” Charlie explained, offering the same cover story he’d told Lorenzo. “And I’m writing a thesis on relationships between humans and supernatural creatures, so I was wondering if I could maybe interview a few folks, or just mingle, or observe.”
The man lifted an eyebrow. “You want to observe . . . teenagers?”
“Teenagers?” Charlie echoed. Then he stopped to take in the scene around him in a way he hadn’t fully done before.
Most of the people milling around the dance floor did look somewhat . . . pubescent. There were a few ring lights on tripods set up at various points around the clearing, turning them into pre-made selfie spots. And the speakers were pumping out pop songs he didn’t recognize.
He looked back at the werewolf, who was clearly in charge of all this, with a newfound sense of embarrassment and mild horror.
“I—I’m so sorry,” Charlie rambled. “I had no idea this was an event for—I won’t talk to any of the teenagers, believe me. I just—maybe there are some chaperones I could speak to, or—or maybe you—”
“I am busy,” the man said, clicking his pen twice more.
Charlie was fairly certain he was about to be booted from the event—or possibly mauled—when Lorenzo jumped in. “I’ll keep an eye on him, Gray,” he told the man wearily. “I will make sure he does nothing to disturb the event.”
The man—Gray—eyed Lorenzo in an I don’t have time for this sort of way, and then said, “Great,” and walked away. As he did, Charlie could see that the shapes on his blazer actually formed an image of a large wolf howling at the moon. He didn’t know whether to laugh or shiver.
He did turn to confront Lorenzo, thoroughly appalled. “You could have warned me this was a—a thing for teens!”
“I told you not to come,” Lorenzo pointed out.
“That’s . . . fair,” Charlie sighed. “So, what is this—werewolf prom?”
The werewolves—teens, he now saw quite clearly—were chatting excitedly in small clumps around the dance floor, though no one seemed to have worked up the courage to start dancing yet.
A few were taking videos of each other jumping and posing excitedly—for some TikTok trend, maybe? He hadn’t felt this old in a while.
“It’s not healthy for the packs to only mate among themselves,” Lorenzo explained.
“So they throw this event every year for the young wolves to meet each other. This way the pack leaders can approve any new alliances. And they hire vampires as security because we’re not allied with any of the packs and are therefore neutral. ”
Charlie glanced around. “Are there any other vampires here?”
Lorenzo scoffed. “You don’t need more than one vampire to control some rowdy wolf pups.”
Charlie bit back a grin. Maybe this night wouldn’t be a total bust after all. He began rummaging in his bag for his journal and pen.
As Lorenzo spotted him, he said, “You can’t be serious. Don’t talk to the young wolves, it’s creepy.”
“I don’t want to talk to them, I want to talk to you,” Charlie said. “Say more about vampire security, it’s fascinating.”
“No, it’s not,” Lorenzo said flatly.
“I brought you your dry cleaning,” Charlie pointed out. “So really, you have to talk to me. That was our deal.”
“What about the plumber?”
“I’ll get a plumber.”
“And I will answer your questions once you do,” Lorenzo said, turning away and clasping his hands behind his back.
“Oh, come on,” Charlie said. “Talk to me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Lorenzo thinned his lips and didn’t answer.
Charlie sighed and looked back at the dance floor.
It looked like the formalities of the event were getting underway; the few adults in attendance, including Lorenzo’s friend, seemed to be introducing some of the teens to each other and leading them into a coordinated dance that reminded him of a cotillion.
The teens looked notably less excited about this part.
And it was clear that none of these people would agree to an interview with him. The adults were preoccupied, and it would be creepy to talk to the kids. The fact was, he was an outsider here. The only person he had any sort of connection to was Lorenzo.
Clearly, then, he’d have to charm him a little if he was going to make anything out of this night.
“Look, can I at least put your dry cleaning somewhere?” he asked Lorenzo, lifting the bag. “I Ubered here, and these look delicate. Are they . . . vintage? Like, from your time?”
Lorenzo gave him a stony look. “They are from ASOS.”
“Oh,” Charlie said. “Well. Still—I don’t want them to . . . wrinkle. So . . .?”
Lorenzo sighed shortly. “Fine. Come with me.”