Actaeon Reborn

From Shifti

After months of emptiness a layer of dust covered everything in the cabin. Alexander Iagaris and his wife Marion carefully put their hard-cases full of camera equipment on the floor and sighed. Cleaning wasn't a favorite task for either of them, and with this much dust, everything would need to be cleaned before they could even unlatch the cases on their expensive camera equipment. "Did we leave a window open a crack, you think?" Marion said.

"Possibly, it's not stuffy in here," Alexander replied, looking about the large space of the living room. The cabin sat about a mile back from the two lane main road, connected over a rise by a gray gravel driveway, in the middle of thick forest. It wasn't a large cabin by any means. Half of the space was given over to the living room, with the kitchen taking up a corner. There was a single bathroom attached to the master bedroom, while the other bedroom had been converted into a darkroom. He went inside and glanced at the four relatively new vertically sliding windows the living room had, and then noticed that one of the quartered panes had broken. Beams of light were quite visible in the dusty air. There were bits of feather on the pointed edges, but oddly enough, no bird on the floor next to it. "Must've bounced off the window."

Marion sighed sadly at the thought. She loved birds and always managed to get the best photos of them, something that escaped Alex's picture-taking abilities completely. Between the two of them they made a very good living as wildlife photographers. "Well, we'd better get to cleaning. There should be a spare pane in the storeroom. I hope the darkroom is in better condition than everything else," she said.

Thankfully the darkroom was dust-free, so Alex was able to help his wife all the faster. He worked without complaint; sharing the unpleasant tasks as well as the career they enjoyed was simply a given in their years of marriage. "Think we'll see a griffin up here this time?" Alex asked, knowing that his wife had an obsession with them.

Marion's green eyes sparkled. "I hope so. Charles got a wonderful picture with a thousand millimeter last summer. Two thousand dollars with one click of the shutter! And the royalties!"

To his credit, Alex had never done more than think about trying to find a basilisk. The taker of the single photo that existed was now a stone statue kept in some hospital in England. Thankfully, the basilisk's power didn't extend to being stared at from a photograph.

Alex wiped the sweat from his brow and rested on the old couch that sat in the center of the room and took a moment to look at his wife of seven years. She was quite pretty, with a heart-shaped face and shoulder-length, dark brown hair that was currently bound by a beige hair clip. She normally didn't wear any makeup, and that was how Alex actually preferred her. He felt there was something phony about makeup, and Marion had a wonderful athletic figure. With a tired sigh she put the dusting cloth on the kitchen table and sat down next to him on the couch.

The cabin had much in the way of luxuries, at least compared to the dome tent where they normally spent their time. In addition to a wind generator there was a Honda gas-powered model in a shed close to the front door, just in case. This was home more than the house they had in Burlington--and there were always animals around as subjects.

Working in soaking rain, freezing snow, and stifling desert heat had left both of them fit and trim. When running away from a manticore or a ceberus a few extra pounds could mean the difference between escaping and becoming an entrée. Of course, most of the couple's subjects were far more mundane--birds, deer, wolves. Almost anything that would stand still long enough for them to catch it on film.

"Are you hungry?" Alex asked.

"Now that you mention it..." His wife replied. "Did you hear something?"

Alex heard it only after his wife mentioned it. A quiet rattle coming from the kitchen. "Yes. Sounds like..."

A cupboard swung open and a what appeared to be a tiny rat-like human jumped out. He wore a jerkin made out of leaves and had his rodentine teeth locked around a Saltine cracker. "A gnome!" Alex exclaimed. "I thought the warder was still under warranty!"

Marion and her husband both grabbed brooms and tried to sweep the little pest towards the open door. But gnomes were notoriously fearless, and needed to be magically "convinced" to stay out of human dwellings. "I'm going to give that salesman a piece of my mind!" Marion said.

"It's always worked before!" Alex said, looking for an opening. The gnome clawed holes in the back of the couch as he climbed it. The little pest then taunted them with the cracker in a chittering voice, only narrowly avoiding the sweep of the broom. "Damn it. I wish we could kill these things..."

"I know, I know. But they're supposedly as smart as humans are. Remember that Stanford study?" his wife reminded. The gnome was now hiding under the couch. Marion dropped to her knees and shoved the broom under one end. "Shoo!"

The gnome, because he'd had enough fun with these humans, paused at the open door to taunt them one final time before dashing off into the woods. Marion closed the door. "My fault for leaving the door open," she said, returning the broom to its proper place.

"Don't worry about it, hon. I'll go check the warder."

The warder was one of those "as seen on TV" brands, styled like a plug in air freshener. Unlike a lot of things on QVC, it actually seemed to work. Alex returned with a reassuring smile on his face. "No big deal, hon. It just needed a new insert. The warding rune only lasts a few months after activation, anyway."

But this news didn't cheer Marion up at all. "But how long has it been out? We had a lot of dry goods in storage."

"Well, if it's empty then we'll have to go down to Fred's. It's only a few miles. Don't stress, hon."

Unflappable best described Alexander. They were opposites in many ways. She was the worrier of the two of them, the detail-minded. She checked every bin in the storage pantry and found that half their stores were gone, and the rest were very likely inedible. Alex grabbed the keys to their aged Jeep Cherokee and started to head out the door. "Just a moment," Marion called. "There's one more thing I should check. There might be another reason the warder didn't work."

The Greek paused halfway out the door while he watched his wife walk over so a small display panel on the far side of the room. "While you're at it," she said, "check the batteries. We're going to have to survive on the Honda for a while, so bring some gas."

"Yes, dear," Alex replied with a smirk. His expression then turned more serious. "Something wrong?"

"I forgot to check the battery shed," Marion replied in that worried tone of hers. "Either they're completely dead, or we've been robbed."

Alex jogged over to the other side of the log cabin, where he found his wife's fears confirmed. The padlock was the kind locked magically as well as physically, and it had been completely circumvented by the simple expedient of tearing open the metal lid. There were claw marks in places and huge paw prints in the dirt. Werewolf? he thought. Could be. There was a neighbor of theirs who was a werewolf, but he was something of a hermit who had no use for technology. He was also quite territorial where other werewolves were concerned, though he actually treated others quite cordially. Whoever had robbed them had probably been sent packing with his tail between his legs.

Marion looked at the damage and winced. "At least he only broke the lid."

"And Fred's bound to have a spare. It's a standard battery shed around here. I'll be back in two shakes, hon..."

"But can we afford this?"

Alex shrugged. "This is what emergency funds are for. Don't stress."

Fred's General Store had a little bit of everything, as one might expect in a rural area where there wasn't a supermarket or hardware store for another twenty miles of winding roads. It was a relatively large building--though not because he had so many goods. Centaurs simply needed far more space than humans in order to live comfortably. The store itself carried perishable food, dry goods, hardware, a well-protected gun and ammo section, and gas pumps out front. A bit of this, a bit of that; including the local post office. And what his customers couldn't get from him directly, Fred had set up an internet connection so they could buy online.

"I was hoping you'd stop by, Alex," the dark bay centaur said, smoothing back the thinning hair atop his head. On his human torso he wore a beige polo shirt that was much longer in front to cover all the bare skin. "We've had a rash of thefts lately. The State Marshall says the FBI sent someone out to investigate, but I haven't spoken to anybody yet. Sorry to hear about your batteries, though."

"Thought so. Thanks." Alexander had always liked centaurs. One of his best friends in high school had been one. It'd been great having a friend who could take you on a ride to the local Hardee's for lunch. The last he heard his old friend was working for Zeus Consulting. "How's the little one?" he asked, knowing that just before they'd left the year before Fred's wife had foaled.

The centaur flushed with pride. "Not quite so little anymore. We grow much faster than you do, remember. Have to keep up with our horse halves. He looks... oh... about four human years old now."

Centaurs--and equitaurs, their horse-headed cousins--matured faster but lived about as long as humans. It'd been admittedly strange in high school, because Mark looked like he was in his mid-twenties where he was really the same age as Alex.

Fred loaded up the Jeep with the heavier purchases, then came back in to lean his human torso against the wall, next to where Alex was looking at batteries on the internet and wincing at the prices. "Where have you been the last few weeks? We expected you midsummer."

"We got a little sidetracked in Alaska," Alex explained, not looking up from the screen.

"Bigfoot? Yetis?" Fred said with a wry grin.

"Caribou, moose, and a bear or two," Alex replied laconically. "It's a little thin this year."

"I hear you."

They chatted a bit as Alex went from site to site, trying to find a place that would deliver in a reasonable amount of time and price. But by the look of things, since both he and his wife knew that you got what you paid for, he wasn't going to get away with spending less than half of the emergency fund. This is not good. If something else happens we're not going to have much money to work with.

Outside it grew darker. Fred thoughtfully gave Alex a cup of coffee (plain, black) as he continued to search the internet, also catching up on the news. Over six months in the Alaskan wilderness had left them completely out of touch, although Alex wasn't sure he cared. He blinked at a headline. "Apollo sued Delphi for trademark infringement and lost?" A god was a force no human wanted to reckon with. Alex scanned the story for details.

"I heard about that," Fred said. "They got some obscure god from India to defend for them. It was quite a battle, I understand, though it lasted less than five minutes..." Fred broke off when he heard the sound of a car park on the gravel lot out front. Having equine ears gave him quite an advantage. But the strange thing that struck him was the fact that he hadn't seen the headlights. But now that he saw it, the car was clearly visible in the moonlight.

Moonlight? It wasn't even up yet!

Alex looked up as a woman entered the store. He couldn't help but look. She was the most beautiful women he'd ever seen in his life! Her hair gleamed with a silvery light, and she had this sense of sheer Presence. "I'm after a particular quarry, and I was wondering if you gentlemen have heard anything," she said.

Alex didn't like the way she'd said "gentlemen". There was more disdain packed into that single word than anything hurtful Marion had ever said to him (which were quickly forgiven in any case). Alex suddenly felt like an insect confronted by a big frog; an image that turned him off instantly. "How can we help, ma'am?" the human asked.

"A month ago a werewolf stole something from Boston University. Apparently he's some sort of computer criminal. I'm looking for any possible leads. Would you gentlemen have any information that might be useful to me?"

Both men tripped over their words during the short "interview", so the goddess simply took the information she needed right from their minds. Alex didn't enjoy the experience. But, in this case, it was tolerable. She left almost as quickly as she came, leaving the two men breathing a sigh of relief. "You know who that was, don't you?" Fred asked once the car had gone.

"Diana, Luna, Artemis?" Alex replied. "Who else would be in constant moonlight?" From a young age people were taught to recognize when one was in the presence of one of the old gods, especially the Greco-Roman ones who'd been mostly pushed out by Christianity. Mostly so you could stay out of their way. "I don't like this at all..."

"Pray she's done quickly," said the centaur. "Find anything?"

Happy to get back to more mundane matters, Alex shook his head. "Everything's so damned expensive. I'll have to sleep on it. It's too late to order and get delivery tomorrow, anyway. Thanks for the coffee."

"Anytime. See you tomorrow."

On the way back to the cabin with his loaded Jeep, Alex decided that it would be best not to tell Marion about what had happened. She tended to worry overmuch about things she really couldn't do anything about. And when there was a goddess in the area, there was nothing anybody could do. Not even a minister or bishop had the power to exorcise a being of that caliber. While a certain portion of the population was immune to "godmagic", neither Alex nor Marion were among them. I just hope she finds that thief soon, he thought.

He arrived to find the front door open. It wasn't yet late enough in the year for all the insects to stop biting, so there was only one reason why the front door was wide open like that. Marion and the expected company came out once he pulled to a stop. "Dog! How are you?" Alex called as he got out of the Jeep.

The werewolf, who was never more than half human, loped up to Alex and shook his hand. "Great, man. Howling," he said in his laid back tone of voice. The werewolf was one of those who had taken some "furry acid" that had gone around at Woodstock. And because he was who he was, Dog had decided to take the hint and "follow his totem". He hadn't back to civilization since, and living like a wolf for over thirty years hadn't changed his outlook much. He was "just 'Dog'" to his friends, and didn't own a stitch of clothing, or anything else, as far as the Iagarises knew.

"Dog had a couple surprises for me when he got here. Dinner... and our batteries!" Marion said happily.

Alex smiled widely and gave the werewolf a petting behind his ears, something that he enjoyed. "Thanks, man! You're a lifesaver!"

"'S no problem, man. You're great folks," the gray wolfman replied in his oddly pleasant growling voice. "Finally used some of that magic I learned in college to keep 'em safe and usable, too."

"More than I was ever able to do in Magic 101," Marion said.

"Thank much," Alex repeated. "What's for dinner?"

"He brought us a couple of rabbits," Marion informed with a smile.

"Fresh food's good for the soul, man," Dog said.

With Dog's help the Jeep was unloaded quickly, and they were able to go back inside to enjoy the fresh meat. Marion had already gutted and skinned the rabbits and was roasting them in the oven. Since they spent so much time outdoors both of them knew how to hunt, as well as gut and dress a carcass. The smell of the cooking meat permeated the cabin. "Good catch," Alex complimented.

"I could've gotten better," Dog replied. "But there's some competition in the neighborhood," he said with a slight edge to his growl. "It's bad news, man. You're lucky I caught him when I did. But what scares me is that I lost him. I'm getting old, man."

Alex decided he could volunteer a little of what happened earlier. "Well, the FBI has sent out a master investigator," he said. "They'll catch this guy in no time."

"I dunno. This guy's crafty. I'll be hanging around your place for a while to make sure he doesn't come back while you're here."

"We'd really appreciate that," Marion said.

Dog's tongue lolled in a lupine grin. "A wolf's nothing without his pack."

Marion still worried even though she knew Dog was reliable--if a little erratic. Normally she was able to put her tendency to worry behind her, but there was something about this whole situation that made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. All her husband would do was shrug and tell her "don't stress." Normally that'll all it took to dispel her worries, but this time it just didn't seem enough.

It wasn't as if Alex were an unemotional man--far from it. He was a very tender lover and she felt he understood her various failings and accepted them. But unfortunately she couldn't yet describe what she felt, so she decided to keep quiet until she knew more of what was going on.

With the return of the batteries things more or less returned to normal. They spent the day preparing the darkroom and cleaning their cameras. While out in the field there was rarely an opportunity to give each piece of equipment a proper cleaning. Some things just shouldn't be opened to the cold, dusty outdoor air. Alex paid special attention to the lenses and bellows of his large format cameras, where the negative could be as large as ten by ten inches.

"Dog said it's liable to be an eventful rutting season," Marion said. "Lots of big bucks this year and few hunters around."

"I'm more hoping you'll find those griffins," Alex said. "We really need the cash. Royalties just aren't enough."

"Still planning on going scouting this afternoon?"

Alex nodded. "I thought I'd check some of the spots I know for deer sign. If the herd is as good as Dog says it is, I should be able to snap a few photos with the Leica before it gets dark. Don't worry, I'll wear my locator so I won't get lost."

"You do that," Marion said. "And don't get distracted," she added without knowing why.

"Don't stress."

The late summer weather remained humid at the time of year, but since there was enough elevation it didn't get so beastly hot. The cabin sat in the middle of a mixed forest of evergreens, oak, maple, and a scattering of ash. Already in higher elevations there were touches of color. Got back here just in time, Alex thought as he made his quiet way through the dying undergrowth. He took pictures of squirrels busily packing away food for winter, woodpeckers on their own diligent tasks, and geese on the small lake less than a mile from the cabin.

The cabin had been one of the first choices Alex and Marion had made together after getting married. It was literally the Perfect Place for wildlife photographers. Alex visited each of his favorite spots one by one, the lake, a couple of meadows, and lastly, a small, hidden pond created by a clear sweetwater spring. Quietly, from long years of experience at his craft, he pushed aside the thick, tall grasses that grew around the edge, camera in hand.

What he saw froze him in place. Artemis bathing in the clear water of the pond. His eyes were drawn to her perfect figure in spite of himself. Even in the sunlight her hair glimmered with the light of the moon. The goddess, not three feet away, noticed him instantly but made no move to cover herself. Instead she just glared at him, hatred making her eyes glow with silver moonlight. Oh lord... he thought. What is she going to do to me...

Two possibilities raced through his mind. The moon goddess could either change him into a stag like Actaeon... or a woman, like Siproites. His muscles were frozen, he was unable to even blink. And he really, really hoped it would be the latter; because if she did change him into a woman at least she wouldn't bother him again. He tried to sputter this preference, but he was unable to speak the words. It was the goddess who would decide his fate, not him, a mere mortal.

Artemis swam around in the spring for agonizing minutes, obviously taking great pleasure in making him feel so uncomfortable while she came to a decision. She stood up and displayed her supernatural physique to him, and smiled in such a way to send a chill down his spine. "Do you like this body? Sure you do. I suppose I could give you one just like it, but you look just like a deer frozen in headlights," she said with dark humor, one hand cupped in the swirling water, looking at the camera. "Yes, just like a deer." Then she dashed a handful of water in his face.

Abruptly released from her grasp, Alexander turned and ran as fast as he could, his mind filled with panic that blotted out every rational thought. Antlers sprouted from just above his ears as he ran. His neck stretched out, and he pricked his ears. His clothing tore off of him at the seams as his changing body forced its way out; at one point he tripped and fell to all fours, and didn't notice that he moved with a swiftness that no human could ever hope to match. Abruptly the fear drained out of him and he stopped in his tracks.

And realized that he had not gotten away unscathed.

He saw the world in grayish green tones, many details were gone but anything that moved stood out against the flatness of what didn't. Alexander's ears pricked and rotated at the sound of a breath of wind though the leaves above. And the smells... the smells! They overwhelmed him!

Somewhere behind him his ears picked up the sound of a stream. He walked over and looked at his reflection in the clearly running water. What looked back was a whitetail buck that would look perfect over any hunter's mantelpiece. Twelve perfect points, the velvet already shed. "Oh Lord," he cried, his voice coming out a distorted groan. I should have stayed home...

Alexander wasn't the kind of person who brooded over a bad situation. Ever since he was a child he'd been amazingly resistant. He didn't berate himself for his mistakes, he made plans on how to do it better next time. His parents had had nothing when they'd come to America from Greece when he was five. From that early age he knew he had to help his family by behaving himself. That'd often made him the butt of many jokes in school, but he couldn't have cared less what his enemies thought.

Alex slowly gathered his thoughts, taking a moment to slake his thirst at the stream. He'd decided that he'd panicked enough already. Now he just had to get back to the cabin and somehow convince Marion what had happened. Shouldn't be too hard, he thought optimistically.

Unfortunately, optimism didn't have to deal with having four cloven hooves and a tail.

The world was so different through the senses he now possessed that he didn't recognize anything. The muzzle that divided his vision also gave him two single views of the world, for the most part. The tiny bit of depth perception he still possessed was mostly blocked by its huge grayish mass. Alex swished his tail back and forth, pawing at the ground in frustration as he looked about him to see if there was anything at all he recognized, trying to match it with his mental map... only to find his it gone.

He nearly panicked again. Alex knew that he'd walked these woods dozens of times with his wife and alone. He'd thought he knew every tree and rock. But now those years of experience were gone--or blocked somehow by what Artemis had done to him. Yes, that made sense. But it didn't help matters.

Okay, deer 'see' the world through their noses. I'll have to start there. The buck put his nose to the ground to see if there was anything that might smell familiar. He discerned a thousand scents at once, a flood of emotions rushing through him in an instant. His body, it seemed, knew what they were. But it was like being a child in a candy shop. Which one?

He found an answer to what a few of these myriad of smells were right away. A doe and two large, unspotted fawns appeared to his right. He suddenly had no doubt that he would recognize their scents again should he encounter them. He raised his head to look at her, curling his upper lip instinctively. The doe's fawns, all unconcerned, looked at him with huge brown eyes and stayed behind their mother. Her scent shifted from moment to moment, he realized. She wanted to know if it was safe.

And somehow he let her know that it was, because the trio came into the small meadow and started to heartily eat the vegetation.

Alex was content to watch them as they browsed while he tried to figure out what to do next. That is, until he realized that they were gorging on ripe blackberries. Their smell wasn't yet locked in its proper place in his cervine mind before he joined them.

It wasn't unusual for Alex to remain out after dark, but Marion worried all the same. Her mother had often warned that she'd worry herself into gray hair before she was thirty (and she'd worried about that, too). But when nine o'clock passed by without a peep from the locator she decided that she had cause. Something's happened to him.

She opened the door and shined a powerful flashlight out into the woods. The greenish reflection of a dozen animal eyes looked back at her, startled at the sudden light. It was a small herd of about six deer, all does. During summer evenings the deer were always more active around the house. There were blackberry bushes all over the place in the small clearing where the cabin was, which drew dozens of animals out of the woods. One of Marion's best pictures ever was a blue jay industriously tugging at the last berry on the bush. The perfect greeting card for nature enthusiasts.

The only other animal in the yard was a large raccoon trundling his way towards the berry bushes, obviously intent on a meal himself. Once she shut off the light the deer went back to their browsing. They knew they had nothing to fear from this human, at least. Now what? she wondered. He wouldn't get lost around here.

Outside she heard the deer blow and stomp, then make a dash for the woods. A moment later there was a polite knock on the door. She opened it to see Dog standing there in his rather large seven-foot tall half-human form. He itched at the dark gray fur on his neck. "Alex not back yet?" the gray werewolf growled.

Marion shook her head. Dog undoubtedly picked up her anxiety in her scent. "Where have you been?" she asked a trifle accusingly.

"I just got up an hour ago and I spent half that time just getting here. Cut me some slack."

"Sorry," Marion apologized. "Alex left here about three to check on a few spots. I didn't expect he'd be out after dark."

"I didn't smell anything strange on the way here," Dog said, rubbing his muzzle thoughtfully. While the lupine hippie took very little seriously, when there was something wrong with the couple he considered to be his pack, his voice lost all trace of its characteristic laid back tone. "Don't worry, I'll sniff him out and have him back before midnight."

"You're a lifesaver, Dog," Marion said.

"No problem," he replied, hoping that wouldn't be literal.

Dog shifted to the full wolf form he normally used and loped away from the Iagaris cabin, his nose to the ground. He had to admit, Alex was a very good woodsman when he put his mind to it. Almost as good a mage as you could have been, you silly wolf, his conscience nagged. He'd only been a sophomore when the opportunity to go to Woodstock had popped up. The pressure of several good friends (and a little dope, his conscience reminded) had made him go. About the only thing his conscience didn't nag him about were the past thirty years. Ever since that single hit of furry acid nothing unnaturally created by man had touched his system.

Dad told you that lycanthropy runs in the family, even if he wasn't affected. Stupid, stupid wolf. He would have disowned you anyway.

Dog brought his mind back to the present when he smelled something strange. It was completely dark, and the quarter moon was only just rising over the mountains. But he didn't need to see what he smelled. He was right next to that pond that Alex liked so much. He was up here about five hours ago. Where did he go from here...

But the scent that left from the spot that Alex had occupied wasn't the same. It smelled like a deer--sort of. There was some human scent mixed in that was Alex's, but Dog dismissed this as anything unusual. The human had an uncanny way of getting close to the animals he wanted to photograph. He could creep up on them one step at a time. All it took was one click of the shutter.

Just to be sure, Dog circled the spring a couple of times. When he didn't scent Alex coming out from any side, then he began to wonder.

And then he saw it, the moonlight glinting off of its shiny metal surface as he came back to where Alex had stood. The werewolf changed forms and picked it up. The circular metal disc was marked with a simple rune (by what looked like a stamping machine). Alex's locator... The chain was broken and seemed to have some bits of fur caught in it. He sniffed them out of curiosity. That's odd. Deer fur.

The werewolf's thoughts froze in their tracks. There were few enough Native American spirits left in these woods to really make them a danger to white people, but Dog had encountered enough in his time to make him wary. Only being a quarter Algonquin had saved him on one occasion. But there was nothing within two hours walk that he didn't know about, and the couple knew what to avoid. Would they have changed him into a deer? he wondered. No, they would have killed him. Not that I would blame them if they did... He didn't condone murder, but the native spirits of the Americas had little love for Europeans in general.

Dog put his nose to the ground again and followed the strange-smelling trail a bit farther. There wasn't enough moonlight to really help much, although he could see far better than a human could in that light. But then, sitting in the grass, he saw another glint. The lens of Alex's expensive camera. He picked that up and moved farther along, the scent becoming progressively less human as he first found shoes, socks, jeans, and shirt all torn to pieces. The very last thing he found was a watch, right next to where a deer had fallen and then dashed off.

The smell was undeniably whitetail. Deer left trails of scent wherever they walked. And this one was running at full speed after he got up. What in God's name happened? There's nothing at that spring that could cause this! But just to be sure, he went back to put his hands in the water and use what magical knowledge he still possessed to see if he could sense anything. Nothing. The water was exactly what it appeared to be. What the hell am I going to tell Marion?

Soon after gorging themselves on blackberries, the doe and her fawns found other deer and gathered into a larger herd. All the bucks that Alex saw still had their velvet. It wasn't quite late enough in the season for shedding it, so most of them deferred to the twelve-pointer without contention. Alex flattened his ears slightly as he walked through the herd, still following the doe and her fawns. He'd seen this sort of behavior before. The fact that he was now doing it as if he'd been a deer his entire life was more than a little disturbing. But since he was still so new to his body and its instincts all he could do was go with the flow.

Whitetails didn't normally herd like this at this time of year. Does and bucks formed their own little groups during the year, only coming together during the Rut, and then in individual mated pairs. The only time they herded together was when the snow was deep in the middle of winter. What could possibly be making them do this now?

They weren't precisely afraid, but they were acting on a deep-seated sense of caution that seemed to Alex a central part of their existence. There was safety in numbers, with more noses, eyes, and ears to keep a look out for any possible danger that might sneak up on them. And if it should appear, they'd scatter in every direction in an instant, somehow knowing that there was a far greater chance that they'd live to see the next morning than if they'd stayed on their own. The feeling was particularly indescribable to Alex, who still could only marvel at everything he sensed.

He was still focusing on getting used to his own senses when the reason for the herd's gathering percolated through the mass of smells and sounds. There were two new hunters in the forest, the werewolf fugitive, and Artemis. Dog had inhabited these woods for so long that there were many generations of deer who had always lived with his presence. He'd often told Alex that they seemed to know when he was hungry and hunting and when he wasn't. It wasn't as if he could get within touching distance, but predator and prey had lived together for so long they knew what to expect.

These newcomers disturbed the balance. More than that, one of them was a powerful being whose very existence was defined by hunting. And surely the goddess of the moon wasn't adverse to getting sidetracked on her hunt for a lone fugitive to take a few prime bucks. Who would dare arrest her for poaching?

Fear. The smell slowly crept into the meadow, prickling at the back of Alex's cervine mind, touching off unfamiliar reactions in a world of new and strange perceptions. He felt, in many ways, like a newborn fawn. After so many years of careful observation of deer, he was now experiencing everything firsthand, and it was turning out to be a lot tougher than he thought it was. It's going to take a while before I can control this. But with experience he knew he could.

He had to.

Marion stared at the torn flannel shirt that Dog had given her. There was reddish deer fur plastered all over the inside and caught in the seams that hadn't torn. The clothes even smelled like one. A strong, somewhat unpleasant musk exuded from his boots and pant legs. Oddly enough, the camera was almost completely undamaged. Dog looked at her with a plaintive expression. She hadn't said a word as he'd recounted what he'd found.

But the thought of her husband, out there in the body of a prey animal while there was a rogue werewolf on the loose made her faint.

She awoke some time later, Dog splashing water on her face from the tips of his claws. "Good, you're awake," he rumbled. "Marion, I'm..."

"Why apologize? It's not your fault," Marion said through a throat tight with near-grief. Her husband wasn't dead. He was just... different. What mattered the most was if they could find him, and how to reverse it. "You said you don't have any idea at all?"

The werewolf shook his head. "I'm at a complete loss. I've been by that spring hundreds of times. Frankly, Marion, there hasn't been a lot of magic going on around here for a few years. I haven't seen a griffin in at least a year and a half, and the only other sizable population of mythicals is a very small dryad grove about seven miles up valley. The only thing I can think of is something coming in from the outside."

"And you've somehow seen to it that not even human hunters are interested in your range," Marion added, sitting up on the couch.

"Just a tiny warding spell," Dog replied dismissively. "I keep the herds healthy enough all by my lonesome." Marion blanched and he immediately wished he hadn't said that. "Geez, I'm sorry..."

Marion smoothed back her shoulder-length hair and got a hold of herself. "Would you recognize him if you smelled him?"

"No problem there, but I'm afraid that he won't let me get near him." Not that I'd blame him... "It all depends on how deer-like he is. He didn't seem to have a problem galloping, though."

Another unknown I don't need, Marion thought with a sigh. If he doesn't even remember who and what he was, then what? Will he even be the same person if I get changed back? Her mind spun with worries and unknowns. It was entirely possible that her husband was for all intents and purposes, dead. But before she could admit that to herself, she had to know one way or the other. "How safe do you think he'll be out there tonight?"

Dog scratched his muzzle thoughtfully. "Well, the deer were acting a bit strange last night. They were yarding up like it was deep winter or something. If he's a smart buck--and I'm sure he is--he'll find a yard and stick with a herd. Safety in numbers, you know."

"I'll have to go down to Fred's tomorrow and report this," Marion said. "I'm sure he'll know something. I just hope that fugitive wasn't responsible for this. He has no reason to change my husband into a deer of all things."

The werewolf nodded agreement. "This guy couldn't be more unmagical, except for his lycanthropy. He tried to steal batteries from you, stole a laptop computer from the Hoovers, some other odds and ends from fuse boxes, and a small wind generator. You're lucky your generator is too big to carry, even for a werewolf."

Alex said that the Marshall had sent someone up to investigate. But there's no chance in hell an investigator-mage could have done this. The very thought was preposterous. First thing's first. Find Alex and bring him home.

Just in case, Dog agreed to stay near the house when she went down to Fred's the next morning. Marion drove a little faster than she normally did, but there were times when she felt speeding was justified. Fred's wife Debrah and her foal trotted out to see her skid to a stop on the gravel. "Marion? Is something wrong?"

The worry all came back to her for a moment, but she regathered her determination and held it back. The centauress paled when she described what she thought had happened to her husband. "My dear Lord... He should have known, with Luna in the area..."

"Who?!" Marion exclaimed.

"Artemis," Debrah clarified. "Surely you know the old stories. Alex didn't mention anything about this? She's here to hunt down that fugitive. He and my husband met her last night."

And it'd be just like him to not tell me. I would've worried. But he should have known better... Should have. He had no way of knowing that he'd meet her out there. If only the locator hadn't broken. It's Actaeon all over again. "We need to organize a search party..."

The gray centauress raised her hand. "Marion, that's not going to help. If we all go tramping into the woods without even knowing how much control he has or what he looks like, we'll just scatter all the deer in the area," she said calmly. "If he's still Alex, then he'll find his own way back to your cabin."

"But that could take months!"

"Dog knows his scent, right? He'll keep track of him and make sure nothing bad happens. In the meantime, I suggest you use whatever extra money you might have to sit tight and wait. Besides, it's not safe to leave the cabin with a goddess in the area."

Marion sighed. Debrah was right. There wasn't a huge amount in the emergency fund, but it was enough for her to wait for at least a couple of months. And there were always the Alaska photos to develop and sell. Just so she wouldn't have to leave the cabin, Debrah agreed to deliver food. "And I'll only charge you cost. I'm sure Fred will agree, considering."

Marion smiled at her friend. "Thank God for people like you."

Dog sat at the substantial kitchen table, playing with the Iagaris' laptop to pass the time. When they'd first gotten one a couple years before the werewolf had thought it pure magic, but they'd assured him that it was yet another one of the technological breakthroughs that had been made since he'd last been an active member of society. He really had no use for such a thing, but had played with theirs on occasion. While he waited for Marion's return, keeping his nose out for any sign of the Alex-buck's scent, he played a game called "Minesweeper".

He wondered what else he'd missed over the last thirty-one years. Oh, he'd been able to catch little snatches of news now and again. He knew the millenium had turned (the calendar on the wall read September 6, 2000). Before, he'd been content with these little bits. But now, with his conscience pestering him daily, he felt... out of touch. Doris could help you get back into the swing of things, his conscience nagged. She still checks in on you every year.

But she works for the DEA, he retorted. She does that to make sure I'm not doing anything "illegal". And she's the one who gave me the furry acid in the first place!

His conscience didn't have an answer for that one.

Dog heard the Jeep coming up the driveway long before it arrived. He quickly shut down the computer and went to wait at the door. Marion parked under the carport, but didn't come into the house right away. Concerned, Dog went outside to find her collapsed against the wheel, crying. Disturbed at the sight, Dog tucked his tail between his legs and went back into the house to wait.

The night passed nervously, but uneventfully. In daylight the herd separated again, and Alex found himself torn between finding his home and following the doe that didn't seem to object to his presence. The other bucks snorted belligerently at him in a manner that he'd come to think of as jealousy. After all, he had his antlers free of velvet and he'd already staked out his doe.

In spite of this, and the surprising possessiveness he felt over the doe, he decided to go his own way and find home again. That's where my real doe is, he told himself firmly. It was too bad his body remained unconvinced. He only realized that he was still following the doe when one of the fawns suddenly popped out of the undergrowth beside him to dash off playfully towards his mother.

To separate himself from her trail had been very nearly physically painful.

But a night of having to depend on his senses had taught him much. The hours he'd spent with the herd had taught him that he had an innate mental organization of what smells meant what and what sort of reaction his body had to them. As the sun rose he even thought he recognized a particular young tree--but only because he ended up scraping the trunk with the base of his antlers. There was only one yard within walking distance of the cabin that had a marking tree as well-used as this had been. He smelled the scents of dozens of bucks who must use it in some way even when they didn't have antlers.

He went off in the direction he thought led to the house, but couldn't help but pause to eat at every opportunity. The urge to eat was even stronger than the one to follow the doe had been. And when he was full, he found a secluded place to bed down and chew his cud. It wasn't something he thought about doing, it just happened on its own.

And then he realized that he was being followed.

It wasn't anything he smelled, or heard, or saw. It was simply knowing that someone was watching him--and they didn't like him. The feeling made Alex jump to his hooves, sniffing the air, his ears in a whir. But there was nothing. Nothing.

He redoubled his efforts to find the cabin, and the safety of his wife's presence.

Marion was in the darkroom when the lone buck stumbled out of the woods around twilight. Dog knocked furiously on the door. "Get out here, now!" he shouted.

Inside, Marion was nearly startled out of her wits; but she couldn't risk exposing any of the film she and her husband had worked long and hard to take. There was a particular one of a herd of caribou silhouetted against the arctic sunset that was very promising. Alex himself had taken it and she wasn't about to ruin it. "I'm coming!" she yelled, finishing the treatment of several rolls of film. Once the images were fixed, she turned on the safety light and dashed out through the double door. Dog was crouched under a windowsill, trying to make sure he wasn't seen.

He was a wildlife photographer's dream, frozen right at the edge of the clearing, his ears twitching madly with one forehoof held frozen in mid-stride. He had the most perfect set of antlers she'd ever seen on a buck. If that is him, Marion thought.

The buck couldn't seem to bring himself any closer to the cabin. He trembled with nervousness, lowering and raising his head, looking around. "Damn it," Dog said, "he probably smells me..."

"But he isn't running!" Marion replied in a whisper. "It's got to be him!"

The front door still hung open. Slowly, Marion moved to stand in the doorway; the buck noticed and stared at her. His eyes seemed to flicker as he stretched his neck out towards her, sniffing furiously. Moving slowly, she left the doorway and crept towards him. Come on, Alex. That has to be you.

The buck fought with his instincts. For whatever reason he had a deep fear of humans. The deer around the cabin didn't fear them, so why should he be so afraid of Marion? Even Dog's scent was bearable. A wolf not hunting was no danger. But as Marion came slowly closer, it was all he could do to turn tail and never return again. He was so nervous that he was literally quaking with anxiety.

She slowly got close enough that all he had to do was reach out with his long neck and sniff her offered hand. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life. To top it off, she didn't even smell good. Her smell was worry personified, and there was a greasy sort of smell also. Marion always did like sausage for breakfast.

They stood frozen for several minutes, until, with a final supreme effort, Alex nosed his wife's hand and licked it.

Then he collapsed to the ground, suddenly drained of energy and unable to hold himself up any longer.

Dog bore the silence anxiously. The wind had shifted and he could no longer smell either of them. Only the quiet shuffling of Marion's feet told him that she was still moving closer. Finally, he heard Alex fall to the ground and Marion's startled gasp of dismay. Deciding to take the risk, he perked his ears and peered above the window sill, to see Marion placing the head of her fainted husband on her lap, making sure to tilt his antlers away from her face. The buck let out a single gruff-sounding bleat of relief. Marion started to stroke her husband's muzzle comfortingly.

The gray werewolf's conscience nagged at him, but for once he didn't snap back at it. Instead he started to peel away over thirty years of memories, trying to remember his days as a university student. Before he'd gotten involved with the hippie crowd he'd made quite an impression, making A's in all of his classes. The certain spell he was looking for was a sort of perk for those who had the aptitude for it, and with luck it would help Alex immensely.

After several minutes of deep thought it came to him. But instead of trying to creep around the cabin and trying not to be seen, he instead did quite the opposite. In the mind of a deer, he well knew, the predator that you could see wasn't a danger. He had no pack--at least, not one of other werewolves--so when he didn't want the deer to be nervous he always made as much noise as possible. Most of the time they didn't run away--and Dog was taking a risk that Alex was too shocky to care.

He picked up a pad of paper, and as an afterthought, a bunch of carrots, then walked over to stand in the doorway. Marion looked up at him in surprise, but when Alex didn't startle, she didn't argue. The buck was making repeated attempts to communicate with his wife, the frustration apparent even from this distance. Well, I'll take care of that right now.

Alex watched the werewolf as he slowly moved towards him. The urge to run was there, but he was simply too exhausted to obey, and the presence of his wife had weakened certain barriers. Dog was a longtime friend, so it wasn't much effort to cease fearing him also--at least for now.

Dog padded over towards Marion, who still looked puzzled. He briefly explained himself, which made her smile in delight. "Wonderful!"

"I just hope this spell works," Dog said. "It depends on how much abstract thought he can accomplish. Do you realize how much smaller a deer's brain is?" Alex snorted. "No offense, man," Dog added quickly.

Marion smiled. The way the buck's head was tilted, one eye was looking directly at her face. It was like a scene out of some unwritten myth. The tragically cursed husband returns to his wife in a form where he cannot communicate, and they must find a way to change him back, or lose each other. Damned if I'm going to let that happen, thought Dog. Here goes...

There were at least a dozen major forms of magic. Alchemy, artifacts, ancient books, runes, and may more. Sorcery, the one Dog still knew best, didn't even have images or words, but was directed by the will alone. Even after thirty years of little use, his magic was still as strong as his Magic Aptitude Test had indicated. He felt the effects of the spell settle over the buck's mind without a problem, which was a good omen in itself. If Alex had lost the capacity to think in words, then it simply would have bounced off.

Dog placed the pad in front of Alex, who still had his head in a comfortable place in his wife's lap. The feeling of her gentle hands running her fingers through the fur on his neck was almost putting him to sleep. But it also had had the effect of soothing away the physical wrench of the change of such a deep-seated smell association. She smelled worried, but was clearly happy about his return. He licked her hand often when it ranged nearer his mouth.

When he felt magic being worked on him he was surprised, and even slightly nervous. He lifted his head carefully and watched the werewolf. The spell stimulated the human parts of his mind and touched at an undeveloped region of his cervid brain, activating dormant nerve cells into making connections. A different sort of perception sparked, and a little more of the human Alex Iagaris gained control. He looked at Dog questioningly. "Just think of what you want to write," the werewolf said. "Back in school we used this spell for taking lecture notes."

The words came slowly, and the "handwriting" was almost illegible, but with the sound of a pen on the page, words appeared. "Li...ke.... This?"

Dog lolled his tongue happily, but that was surpassed by Marion's glowing smile. She reached out and hugged her husband around his thick neck. "I knew you'd come back!"

"Hard... to," Alex scrawled. "I can't... even... begin to describe.... this." He paused. "I suppose... I shou... ld... tell you who did... this to me."

"Debrah told me," Marion said crisply. "But I don't care. We just need to find a way to reverse it..."

Dog looked thoughtful. "Just who did do this, anyway?"

"Artemis," Alex wrote, his words now clearer and not taking as long to write. There was something in his handwriting that communicated chagrin. "I was stupid..."

Artemis? thought Dog. This could get complicated. "Uh, I have some rather bad news for you, but I don't know if this is the time."

"You might as well say it," Marion said. "I know just what we're dealing with, so I know it can't be good."

"Well, the gods have always been rather capricious. If you remember, Zeus changed Lycaon into the very first werewolf and it all went downhill from there. But my point is that they don't like their curses tampered with. Either we're going to have to find another god to fix Alex, or we'll have to find a powerful non-human mage. Perhaps a fae, if we can find one."

"Elves?" Alex wrote. "They've hardly come off of Avalon since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Too much iron."

There was a possible solution, but it required something of Dog that he wasn't sure he was willing to do. But his conscience started to nag at him, this time full force. Don't you remember that first winter they were here? You got gored in the thigh by a moose, and they nursed you back to health! You're lucky they were out there that day! You owe it to them! "Um... but they do come off their island to teach, occasionally," Dog added reluctantly. "At least they did when I was going to school."

Alex had smelled the carrots and seemed drawn to them. For whatever reason, his cervid mind had decided that this werewolf was no threat--and since he happened to be holding something that smelled quite good, Alex felt he might as well take advantage. Dog fed the buck the carrots one at the time, who devoured them fully, including their uncut tops. Then he sniffed Dog's paw-like hand. Marion had to turn the page. "I think I have an idea about the world you live in, my lupine friend," he wrote. "I take it you know one of these elves?"

"But from a different angle," the werewolf replied. "That we can talk about later. But yeah, I knew one. He took an interest in me when I was a sophomore." Call Doris, his conscience pestered. "But maybe I can call someone to help me get in contact with him."

The buck and his human wife looked at each other. "We would be eternally grateful," Alex wrote.

Eventually darkness made them return to the cabin. But Alex wouldn't come inside, no matter what. "It's another one of those things," the buck wrote. "I really don't want to go through what I just did all over again. I'll just take it slowly, if you don't mind." Since they were used to keeping the door open for Dog, and it wasn't yet late enough in the season to be very cold at night, it wasn't a problem.

Dog begged off to go catch a meal. "I want to do my hunting as far away from the cabin as possible," he said. "The last thing I want to do is startle Alex."

"I'm still jumpy enough as it is," Alex wrote. "I may be able to think like a human, but I somehow doubt I'm going to be acting like one." His wife gave him a worried look. "It's not like I have any choice, hon."

"I know," Marion replied. "What amazes me is that she made you into such a handsome buck."

"All the better to appeal to trophy hunters. Remember the original story," Alex wrote, his ears twitching nervously as he stood in the doorway. "Hunting season is what? A month away?"

"We'll have you changed back before then," Marion reassured. But she still worried. She knew this animal was her husband, he had the same personality. But it was the personality of a human projected onto an animal brain that had all the instincts and habits that went with it. She watched him blithely chew cud as if he had done it all his life; and he'd occasionally lose his train of thought to some smell or sound that only he heard. And she well knew the rut was coming.

Although she didn't know it, Alex's thoughts echoed her own. The doe's remembered scent kept crossing his mind over and over. Then his stomach growled. "Hungry," he wrote.

Marion stood up and got some more carrots. They'd bought few fresh vegetables, and Alex was quickly eating up the supply. "I hate to say this, but maybe you ought to go eat up those blackberries," Marion said.

The buck flicked his ears, but his face was incapable of any sort of recognizably human expression. He bobbed his head at her, obviously a conscious effort to imitate a nod. Marion returned to pick up the pad to see what her husband would reply. "There are a lot more deer around here than I originally thought," he wrote. "Hold on..." He turned and walked off into the darkness, vanishing from sight. Marion waited nervously at the door for his return. When he finally did, he nudged his wife's hand with his wet nose and licked it lovingly. "Something's going on out there. I don't think you're going to like it."

"Oh? What?"

"Just a moment. You'll see him."

As if on cue, a buck walked into range of the light from the front door to stare at Alex belligerently. He had a set of eight-point antlers, from which hung the tatters of shedding velvet. Alex glared back at the smaller buck and traded a hard look before the newcomer walked off quickly. "The Rut is just around the corner," he wrote, snorting depreciatingly.

Marion noted the capitalization worriedly.

The fast, loping rhythm of Dog's four paws was almost hypnotizing. He always did this when he had to run long distances to find food in his range. Game was plentiful everywhere this year, but because he didn't want to disturb Alex, the farther way he did his hunting, the better. So he headed up towards the dryad grove. The dryads themselves loved meat-eaters, since they only allowed a small number of herbivores into their woods to keep things from getting overgrown.

They were also among the few Old World creatures to be accepted by the spirits of the New.

Dog considered his next step as he closed in on the grove. You know that Doris is going to gloat. Can't be helped, I suppose. But by the sound of things, elves don't teach as much as they used to... But you could be wrong, you stupid wolf. You just don't know anything about the way they do things now. Even if he could find Doctor Alysen, there was no guarantee he would do anything for him. Besides, the very last thing he'd seen on the elf's face was a scowl of disapproval when he learned Dog was going to Woodstock. And you just looked at him and said, "whatever, man."

He caught a whiff of something strange just as he came over a rise just before the grove. It smelled like well-used canvas, mixed with something that got his hackles up. The fugitive werewolf's scent. Dog instantly slowed to a stop and found cover, moving so quietly on his paws that a cat would be jealous. Staying downwind of the apparent camp, he crept closer.

The army tent was pitched right on the edge of the grove, the front open with the flap snapping in the breeze, just barely visible in the moonlight. Above the tent, he heard the wind generator whirring furiously. The scents were all at least an hour old, and there were no sounds of movement other than birds. Dog pulled back when he heard something that crinkled smack against the bush next to his face. Shifting to a more human form, he reached out and picked it up. It felt like a foil food wrapper, and smelled like chocolate chip cookies. City wolf, he thought.

Dog decided that a little independent investigation was in order. The smell of this werewolf permeated everything, and Dog's thirty years of experience had given him many skills. Knowing where to step, he carefully moved closer to the tent. Once inside, he found a lantern and turned it on, confident that if this guy should return, he'd be able to handle him.

In one corner of the tent sat two car batteries, jury-rigged to some sort of transformer that plugged into the laptop, which sat closed on the floor. Surrounding the laptop was what looked like a pair of sunglasses, and a large metal disk about the size of a Frisbee attached to four much smaller ones, each inscribed with spidery runes. On closer inspection, the glasses themselves had runes etched into inner part of the lenses. Dog recognized none of these, but he did feel some strange magic associated with them. Curious, he picked up the glasses and looked into the circular areas, right where a human's pupils might be.

Dog dropped them instantly as he felt the magic almost take hold, playing with his vision and making him dizzy. That wasn't real. Seemed like some sort of illusion. Then he noticed that a pair of cables connected the glasses to the back of the laptop through another box also inscribed with runes. What the hell? Magic and technology? For what?

Outside the tent, the moonlight suddenly grew sharply brighter. Dog without warning found himself unable to move, and standing face to face with the goddess of the moon, who had a silver arrow aimed at his heart.

The sound of antlers being scraped against trees permeated the woods around the cabin. The smell of blood saturated the air; it was shed from dry, peeling velvet that for a brief moment, sometimes made certain bucks wish they'd been does instead. But thankfully for them, it was a fleeting experience that left their present-centered minds after only a few hours. There were does to be courted, a hierarchy to form, and one's own position in it maintained at all costs.

Alex felt his blood stir in anticipation. He knew he shouldn't be feeling this way, but as his experience had taught him, his body didn't care in the least what he thought. But at the same time, he wasn't sure it was worth the concern. He'd been photographing elk, deer, moose, and other cervids ever since he was twelve. But now he was experiencing it firsthand. This would be invaluable once he was human again! Not even the helpful hints the whitetail ¬sileni had given him could compare, and those half-human people were often quite reliable in that respect.

He watched the does eat the blackberries. The raccoon chittered a complaint at him, as Alex was standing right next to his favorite bush. The buck ate a few more choice berries, and deciding he was filled enough to go chew more cud, started to walk back over towards the cabin.

The herd smelled it a few seconds before he did and nearly bowled him over in their tail-flagging dash to escape. An instant later Alex turned tail himself, following his brethren into the woods to escape the abrupt danger. Hunting werewolf! his nose had shouted at him, briefly driving all other thoughts from his mind. Marion! The thought of his doe--his wife--in danger brought it all back. Only a moment's indecision passed before he decided what to do next.

Marion heard the deer scatter and reflexively slammed the heavy oak front door shut, locking the deadbolt. The thought of Alex still being out there almost made her open it again, but with those four fleeting cloven hooves of his it would take more than a single werewolf to bring him down. But what she really wondered was why the deer had scattered like that--the only time that happened was when Dog was hunting near the cabin, which didn't happen often. And Dog was somewhere up valley.

The feeling of a pair of eyes drilling into the back of her neck made her look towards the other side of the room. Standing in the window, looking at her with a pair of piercingly golden eyes, was a ghost-white werewolf. He looked at her like she was a sick doe waiting to be brought down.

Marion tore herself from that gaze and took a deep breath, then ran over to the gun cabinet, unlocking it and taking out a loaded pump-action shotgun. There were rifles in there, but they were unloaded. And while the shot itself wasn't silver, it would hurt like hell and would probably knock him out. Dog had been shot by the previous owner of the cabin when he'd first made the area his home, and had attested to that.

She removed the safety, pumped one cartridge into the chamber, and glared right back at the surprised werewolf. Marion wasn't a small woman, and had gone duck hunting more than once with this particular weapon. She pointed the muzzle of the gun at the intruder and traded a predatory glare of her own. "Unless you want a muzzle full of buckshot..."

He was gone from the window in an instant, but Marion soon heard him tearing at the battery shed again. She could hear the sound of bending metal. This guy was strong. She started to feel afraid again. He only wants the batteries, she told herself, turning on a lantern. Then he'll be gone...

Dog's pounding heart was in his throat. Artemis' silver arrow was leveled right at his chest, yet she didn't release. Does she think I'm this criminal? If she did, then he was in for a hell of a time. She could kill him if she chose, or transform him as she had Alex. And the goddess was notorious for changing the men she captured into women--if she felt like it.

The werewolf felt a tingle in his head. Artemis lowered her bow slowly. "You are not my quarry," she stated. "What are you doing here?"

"Chance, I suppose," the hippie replied tersely. "This quarry of yours had the misfortune of setting up his campsite within my range. Which is confusing, since it wasn't here a couple days ago..." he stopped himself when he realized he was babbling.

The goddess didn't reply, and didn't even seem to notice Dog's presence any more. Instead she turned around, kneeled to the ground and took up a handful of dirt. He was suddenly coughing from the dust kicked up by her superhuman dash down valley.

Well, so much for that. I hope she gets him. He was just glad she was gone.

All this hadn't been here a couple days before. Though he knew this was a crime scene, Dog decided to check some things to make sure everything was okay. Since the Iagarises had moved in he'd actually made quite a few friends in the valley; people who had previously considered him strange and held themselves aloof. Even though he had a mailbox down at Fred's and visited the centaurs at least once a month. So now he felt obligated to make sure his neighbors would get their things back in good order.

Then he realized. Artemis had made a beeline for the cabin. The car batteries, the wind generator... that can't have nearly as much power as he needs. What did Marion call that... 'virtual reality'? He's probably lucky he gets a few minutes use out of that thing.

The cabin was the closest dwelling that had such a battery system. But from here it was almost a half hour's lope away. Without a second thought he dashed after the goddess.

Alex charged back towards the cabin at nearly the pace he'd left it, coming to a halt just before entering the clearing. Creeping quietly, he poked his head between a pair of blackberry bushes and surveyed the area with nose, ears, and eyes in that order. The front door was just across from where he was, about a hundred feet. The wolf was nowhere to be seen, but Alex smelled his presence and heard the bending metal. He's going to have a bit more trouble with that this time. I got a sturdier lid and two locks.

The door was closed. Marion wouldn't have panicked like he had. She was probably inside with the shotgun or a rifle. Maybe I should let him just take the batteries. He's not likely to be around much longer, with Artemis hunting him.

The buck heard a snarl of frustration that chilled him, removing some of his resolve to come back and defend his home. Every nerve was poised to obey an urge to run that became more powerful by the minute. With a final snap of metal, the lights in the cabin flickered out except for what was probably a lantern. Then, coming around the side of the long cabin through the carport, came a ghostly white werewolf carrying two black battery packs. There was an unnatural sharp, acrid smell associated with him. Dye? He's dyed his fur white?

Alex felt his fur stand with what happened next. The werewolf stopped next to the front door, put the batteries down... and gave it a wood-shattering punch. If the door hadn't been over a hundred years old and made of incredibly thick, heavy oaken planks, it would have shattered. As it was, he only broke a single plank.

That was all the warning Marion needed. She opened fire.

It was all he could to keep from running away again when he heard the shotgun, but at the sight of his wife being put into further danger, his blood boiled. With a snort, he jumped out from behind the berry bushes, charging with all his might. Over three hundred pounds of whitetail buck met four hundred of utterly unprepared werewolf. The buck's antlers failed to puncture the skin, but the shock of being thrown to the ground by Alex's tremendous momentum was more than enough to knock the wind out of him.

Alex didn't look back and dashed on into the woods, hearing the werewolf scramble to his feet and give chase, howling for revenge. The white werewolf caught up amazingly fast--too fast for the buck's comfort. He let instinct take over, depending on his four nimble hooves and incredible ability to turn on a dime be his defense. It worked more than once--the wolf couldn't turn as quick as he could, and would often slam into a tree, giving Alex precious moments to gain ground.

But then he broke into the Meadow, not realizing that he'd been going in that direction. It was the Meadow. Open farmland that hadn't been used for years, but it was huge and covered with tall, drying summer grasses, totally open ground. The wolf had the advantage there, and Alex couldn't turn back into the forest without putting himself in more danger. Alex was getting winded. The werewolf's loping, ghostly shape closed in.

But it seemed he hadn't learned his lesson, and received a hard kick to the head. Alex spun around to face him, snorting and pawing at the earth. I can't beat him! Damn it, just like Actaeon! At least this isn't Dog...

They both froze an instant before raking claws would have hit Alex in the face. The half moon brightened, and they were surrounded by silver light. Artemis appeared, making an entrance fitting for a goddess. She only looked at Alex in passing, and took a small index card out of the pocket of her modern hunting outfit. "I agreed to read this," she said, as if to a fly on the wall. "For some reason I feel like keeping my word tonight. It's been a good hunt. Anyway." She took a breath. "You have the right to shut up. Anything you whine, howl, or snarl might make me snap and change you into something more to my liking. So if you really want to be a she-wolf, just tempt me," She looked at the fugitive, daring him with her smile. "Your worthless mortal self has a right to a lawyer, and if you can't scrape up the money the court will provide one for you." She snorted derisively and tossed the card on the ground. "That's enough of that." The werewolf vanished into thin air.

Artemis looked at still-frozen Alex, and he knew that this was where the feeling that first night had come. But strangely, she didn't take the bow she had strapped to her back and nock an arrow. Instead, she smiled humorlessly, and walked around him as if she were a shark. "You would make a fine trophy. But instead, I think I'll let you live. The male fawns that come from you will make the herd the best on the entire continent. I've even let you retain your human lifespan so you can give me more of them. Enjoy your life, stag." Then she vanished, leaving him in moonlit darkness.

"Well, that's one problem solved," Dog said, watching Fred repair the door. The werewolf was very sleepy, having eaten a healthy amount of red meat--it didn't taste as good as rabbit, but it was filling after not eating for two days. But he wouldn't sleep yet--not here, at least.

Marion cleaned the kitchen from the meal she'd served, while Alex frolicked with Fred's little colt outside. The buck seemed to be having great fun, dashing back and forth across the clearing to the foal's whinny-like giggles. "So," Marion said. "I guess Doris wasn't as haughty as you thought she'd be?"

"Once I told her about Alex, she was quite sympathetic," Dog replied. "Unfortunately she can't get up here until Saturday, so we have a few days to wait."

Marion sighed and put the last of the dishes in the drying rack. "Did she say anything about that fae professor of yours?"

The werewolf sighed. "Only that he hasn't been seen on campus for twenty years. I'm lucky enough Professor Derkins still teaches there. Of course, he was a fixture at BU for thirty years before I enrolled. Magic tends to preserve mages, you know."

"How well did you know him?"

"Hopefully..." Dog yawned carefully. "Hopefully well enough that he'll at least point me in the right direction. If not... well, a university is the best place to go for help anyway. There's got to be someone knowledgeable enough about the old gods and their curses."

"I just hope we'll be able to afford it," Marion said gravely. "There has to be a way..."

Dog nodded, then yawned again in spite of himself. "I'm going to have to get some sleep. It's been a couple days..." He got off the couch and moved towards the door. Fred was just finishing up. The door had taken quite a bit of damage; two planks had been ripped out, and much of the rest had buckshot holes in it. But with a little time and care (and a good coating of stain) the repair would hardly be noticeable.

Alex paused to watch Dog lope off towards the cave he used as a home. Thankfully, the foal wasn't quite so frisky when he returned to playing. He was panting with fatigue, but actually being able to enjoy himself in his new--and hopefully temporary--body was quite a treat. He and the little colt tired out at almost the same time. Fred led his child back into the RV-sized vehicle that centaurs used as transportation, where the rooftop air conditioning was running. "I really have to thank you for occupying him," the centaur said. "He was really causing problems down at the store."

"My pleasure," the buck wrote in the dirt. "He smells like the perfect little colt."

The centaur glowed with pride, which quickly changed to concern. "I hate to say this, but what if they can't change you back?"

Alex scribbled out what he'd written. "Then I'll deal with it. It's not like curses like this don't happen--how many new weres get stuck in animal form their first times?"

"But for normal people it's like getting struck by lightning and being bitten by a rattlesnake on the same day! I know there are ways I could, say, become a human if I wanted to. But that's always reversible. This is different."

The buck tilted his head, flicking his ears. "Don't stress, Fred. Even if I'm stuck this way, I've still got a long life ahead of me."

"Do you know how many deer diseases and parasites there are? I wouldn't count on it!"

Alex sighed and pawed the gravel, knowing that Fred was telling the truth but unwilling to get himself worked up. "Don't stress. I'll be fine. Excuse me." He went over to the door to see what his wife was doing.

Marion worried. Alex had returned only at dawn, still shaking like a leaf from his encounter with the fugitive and the goddess. He hadn't been able to write, and had given her a blank animal stare whenever she'd said anything to him. The fact that he'd returned at all was cause enough to be happy, but for a while he'd simply been a buck that wouldn't even allow himself to be touched.

Only when he'd started to write rudimentary words on the pad did Marion allow herself to go down to Fred's and get his help. By the time she got back, Alex was himself again--or at least to the degree he'd been before. When Marion had explained to him how he'd been on his return, he'd just told her "don't stress" and started to recount what had happened.

The thought of her husband being used for breeding stock made her blood boil. If that had been Artemis' original purpose, what hope was there if Alex was still a deer when the Rut was at its height? Would he react like a buck, seeking out does no matter what? And if he did, could she blame him for that? She took a deep breath. One step at a time, girl. One at a time.

Even more worrisome was the possibility that he would simply leave her for some doe and never come back, having lost his mind to his body and the urges that came with it. There was a precedent that Marion had read about in high school. Although that case had been a dolphin and not a deer.

The sound of cloven hooves on the cabin's hardwood floor made her turn around. Alex was standing in the doorway, panting like crazy. Marion put on a happy face and filled a clean plastic bucket full of water for him to drink. Her husband drank greedily, then cocked his head. Marion couldn't read cervid expressions, unfortunately. She held the half-full pad in front of him. "Don't stress, hon. I mean it. I'm not going to start worrying until Dog finds out 'yea or nay' that it can be done."

She reached out and rubbed his soft muzzle fur. "You know me..."

He hated it when Marion worried, and wished he could pat her on the back and hold her like he could before. Instead, he nuzzled her hand. "We'll get through this, love. I promise."

An hour before Doris arrived, Dog looked at himself in a mirror, trying with all his might to return to a form he hadn't used in decades. After an hour of trying he'd only been able to make himself look only slightly more human than the huge half-wolf form that was capable of speech. What looked back at him in the mirror was a wolf-headed man with a tail, fur all over his body, with hands and feet that retained claw-like nails. Well, at least I'm human sized. Alex's clothes fit me well enough, too. The pants had needed a slit for his tail, and even then chafed horribly at times. "Damn it, why can't I change back?"

"Maybe your body just doesn't remember how?" Marion suggested.

"Could be," the werewolf replied. "Didn't you say there's more sileni around?"

"Yes, they're rather more numerous than they used to be. I can't remember if there's a reason why. So I don't think anyone will give you a second glance." Marion smirked. "But then, who ever makes eye contact in Boston?"

I still can't believe I'm doing this, Dog thought. At least his conscience wasn't nagging at him.

Doris arrived right on time, as she always did. The strangest thing about her was that she'd been of the most enthusiastic hippies he had ever met--until Woodstock. When he'd seen her the very next year, she'd been as sober and straight-laced as his father. She didn't even offer any explanations about her change of heart, and Dog wasn't the type to pry. But she hadn't lost the warm-heartedness that he'd liked so much about her.

She was a rather pretty blonde, her hair always shoulder-length and scrupulously neat. Almost fifty, there were some smile lines on her face, and her blue eyes twinkled. Dog remembered her as being very cute in tie dye with a flower in her ear, free with herself, and unafraid of nudity. In over twenty years with the DEA she'd broken through any glass ceilings. She also knew both Alex and Marion from previous visits, so introductions weren't necessary. She made a face when she saw Alex. "My, you folks are in a bind, aren't you?"

"It's been hell," Marion replied tensely.

"Well, if this doesn't work I can always make use of some of my contacts in the Mage Corps," Doris offered. "But frankly, Boston University is cutting edge when it comes to magic research. Not even Harvard can match them. There's got to be someone. These sorts of things have been undone before."

Yes, but only by another deity, Marion thought. "All we can do is hope. And I really don't want to keep you two from getting started."

"We'll be on our way shortly," Doris said. "First I need to ask you a few things."

Dog perked his ears. She did this every time she came up here, asking questions to make sure he hadn't been touching anything illegal. While there were a few mushrooms that had hallucinogenic properties, Dog hadn't touched anything since the furry acid. She knows that, so why doesn't she trust me? He knew the routine, so he went outside to wait next to the car.

Alex walked up to stand in front of him. "You look sharp," he wrote in the dirt.

"Sorry we had to ruin a few pairs of your pants, Alex," Dog replied.

"No big deal. But that must chafe like hell."

Dog realized that Alex wasn't at all self conscious of his own nudity--and certain parts of him were in plain view of one looked from the right direction. Dog's tongue lolled as he changed his train of thought to something a little more cheerful. "I never thought I'd have a deer as a pack-brother."

The buck flicked his ears, then shook with mirth. "We'll have to get Marion to take a picture of the two of us before the curse is lifted. I think it would make a wonderful photo, my friend." He scratched out what he'd written, but whatever more he was going to say was cut short. The gravel wasn't cooperating much. He snorted in frustration.

Just then, Marion and Doris came out. Doris' expression was unreadable, and Marion smelled confused. "Well, we've got a long drive ahead of us," Doris said. "We'd better go if we plan to make Boston by nightfall."

Dog thought that Doris' Ford Taurus looked like a squashed white bug. The inside was spacious, but there was hardly enough room for his tail. She didn't say a word to him as she started the engine and made her way down the mile-long graveled driveway towards the paved main road. He was so nervous about leaving that he only returned to his senses once he saw Fred's pass by, going closer to any kind of large town than he'd been in decades. He whined quietly in spite of himself.

"Open the glove box," Doris said abruptly. "Please."

The werewolf did as he was asked, and gaped at what he saw. Sitting atop the car owner's manual was an old leather wallet, well-worn and very familiar. He picked it up and opened it, knowing what he'd find. A long out-of-date driver's license with the name Edward Callahan on it. "Never thought I'd use that name again..." Dog mumbled. "I'm amazed you kept it."

"I'm amazed you didn't come back sooner," the blonde replied. "But I've always understood that this was your choice to make. Even your father understood that, Edward."

He chose not to hear that last part. Dog's father had died ten years before, the cause he couldn't quite recall. He'd been left everything, but when the lawyer eventually found him, he'd refused the inheritance he'd been given. The lawyer had just walked away. "It's just..."

"No, it's not 'just Dog'."

"You're the one who first called me that you know," Dog growled. "Once I told you that I had some werewolves in my family tree."

"I'd forgotten that..."

"I thought you had."

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but thought better of it and remained quiet. Dog spent the next hour turning his old wallet over and over in his hands, the scent of aged leather strong in his nostrils. Rain started to patter on the windshield. There was little traffic out the window; to take his mind off his wallet he simply watched the egg-shaped minivans, organic-looking cars, and larger vehicles, pass by while waiting to arrive in his hometown.

Eventually Dog felt he had to break the silence. "Why didn't you trust me? You know I haven't touched anything bad in thirty years."

Doris sighed heavily. They were caught in Boston traffic, much worse than Dog remembered. "I do trust you, Edward. But ever since that day I've felt horribly responsible. I'd had a hit of that acid before I gave you one, and nothing had happened to me. I gave it to you as a joke. I didn't think it would do anything.

"Then I saw you grow fangs and claws right in front of me. Scared me to death, you know. That's why I dropped out of the hippie crowd." A horn honked behind them, Doris gunned it to move the ten more feet that had opened up in front of the car. "I'm sorry if it appeared that I didn't trust you. But for a while I didn't know how else to act, and it just became habit."

"And you've kept it up for thirty years." There were times when he'd wondered why she'd kept coming to see him after so long. But after a while he'd also ceased to question. Even though she had an annoying habit of asking questions to make sure he'd stayed clean, she was still a face he looked forward to seeing yearly. "If I've never said it before, thank you."

"You haven't," Doris replied with a note of amusement. The rain grew heavier as she pulled off the expressway in Quincy, driving up to a posh-looking complex of townhouses. Dog was completely indifferent to most weather, but since he was wearing clothing, he reluctant to get out of the car. Doris gave him an umbrella.

Well, here goes nothing. He opened it and followed Doris to her house.

Marion spent the afternoon in the darkroom, focusing on processing a hundred rolls of film taken on their Alaskan expedition. They'd gambled a lot on that trip, and hoped that most of that they'd taken would be marketable. Normally this was a day's work for two of them. It would definitely take Marion longer than that. From the rolls she took there were pictures of eagles, ptarmigans, puffins, and a dozen smaller birds. She hoped she could do justice to her husband's landscape photos, also. Large format wasn't her forte.

This left Alex to himself, but he wasn't idle. By the time the sun went down there were several medium-sized trees around the clearing that had felt the scrape of his antlers. He marked his territory like any buck would, justifying it to himself that since Marion was his "doe" he should make sure the other bucks well knew that. He ate blackberries and chewed cud between marking sessions, resting in the shade and waiting for it to cool off.

Other deer came around sunset. The presence of Dog and the centaurs had almost erased the hunting-scent of the fugitive. Instead, Alex's scent pretty much crisscrossed the whole area. An eight-point buck wandered in and added his own calling card to one of the smaller trees. Alex simply sat and watched, unconcerned. It wasn't yet time for serious fighting, he knew. That was at least a month away.

The other buck sensed his presence and walked over. Alex stood up, and they meshed antlers in a practice-sparring session. A slow, deliberate dance that wasn't meant to decide outcomes, but merely confirm where each buck stood in the hierarchy.

When Marion came out of the darkroom she found her husband just finishing up sparring with a strange deer. When they were finished, much to her own shock, they groomed one another, then the smaller buck walked back off into the woods. Alex trotted up to Marion. "Something wrong?" he wrote.

"You know you just..."

"I know, I know. But it's what deer do. It's as instinctive as breathing."

He's making excuses, she thought. Or is he? "I just worry..."

"We just have to sit tight until we hear from Dog." He paused. "Want me to try to come inside tonight?"

"That would be nice." She didn't have the heart to tell him that he smelled bad. Just deal with it.

But he did come inside the cabin, although he shook like a leaf for at least ten minutes and couldn't come in farther than the just inside the door. "I... I can't come in any farther. Something..."

"It's okay, hon. Really. I guess I'll see you in the morning."

Alex nodded, obviously having to consciously do the unnatural action. It looked more like he was sizing Marion up as a danger. "I'll stay close to the house."

He watched his wife close the door, then turned to go back into the woods. He felt safe where he could hide himself well, and now that the door was closed and the light was out, more deer were coming back towards the clearing. Alex encountered several does, who all watched him carefully as he passed by. Times like this I wish normal animals really could talk. Somewhere in the back of his mind was a little boy who'd grown up on cartoons who still spoke up every now and again. If I'm Bambi, then Marion's Faline.

The buck curled his upper lip at a scent that had abruptly returned. It was the doe he'd found himself following, and she was upwind of him. Her scent drove human thought from his mind, and he quietly trotted off to find her.

Boston University was an unusual school. It didn't have a traditional campus, but was strung out on several streets between the Charles River and both sides of Commonwealth Avenue. The buildings were so well integrated into the city itself that unless one was specifically looking for the campus it would be easily missed.

Dog rode the Green Line trolley-subway, since Doris was unable to take any time off of work to help him just yet. "I've got several pressing cases that I'm working on, and unfortunately I can't just leave them," she'd said apologetically. "But I should warn you that the campus has changed a bit. New buildings and such. Unless you want to spend time wandering aimlessly, go to the administration office."

The woman sitting behind the desk wasn't much help, unfortunately. She directed him to go someplace called "Transmorphic Studies" and speak to some mumbled professor's name. "Can you tell me if Professor Derkins still teaches here?" he asked.

The woman looked back at him, then tapped a few keys on her keyboard. "Hrm. Maxwell Derkins? He's just gone on sabbatical for a year. You won't be able to reach him, I'm afraid."

"Thanks anyway," Dog grumbled, leaving the woman to her work. Now what? And what the hell is 'Transmorphic Studies'?

Coming back to the city had quite an effect on him. The chaotic mix of smells alone was almost incapacitating; and the high-pitched whine of electronics, the constant chatter of people, and imperfectly lubricated machinery overwhelmed. There were times when he simply had to stop and cover his ears for a while. And there were so many people. After decades of near-solitude, being thrown into a crowd of thousands was nearly the straw the broke the camel's back.

He found some measure of solitude in the library, going up to the very top floor to escape the crowds. Very few of the old, musty books were familiar to him. He slumped down between a couple of shelves and shut his eyes.

"You look like you could use a hand," said a friendly female voice.

Dog opened his eyes to see a rat sileni. She was a perfect mixture of human and rodent features. The rat-girl was more or less human-shaped, and wore a pair of khaki coveralls and a white shirt. Like himself, she lacked hair like a human would have. Instead she had light gray fur. She also had a friendly, unafraid buck-toothed smile. Dog felt mild surprise that at that. She tilted her head. "Are you okay?"

Dog shook his head slightly. "I'm lost as all hell."

"What are you looking for? I was just on campus to go to the library, but I can point you in the right direction if you want."

"I'd appreciate it. Do you know if Mystical Arts still has their building on Granby?"

"Granby? They expanded years ago. They share space with a lot of the departments, since they're applying magic to just about everything, especially computers. Do you know what you're looking for specifically?" Dog told her. "Transmorphics? I really don't know, they keep on getting bounced around. By the way, my name's Angela."

"My name's just..." he paused. "Edward."

"When were you here last?"

"Just before Woodstock," he said without thinking.

She paused a moment to stare. "No wonder. I'm an Alchemy major, myself. Never could get into that transformation stuff. I'm happy as I am."

"Well, it's pretty important that I find them, so I'd appreciate any help you can give."

"No problem. We'll just find the infodesk."

He followed her to a fairly large desk he'd missed entirely on entering. But since the Student Union was in an attached building, the strong smell of coffee from a Starbuck's had driven him to find someplace where caffeine wouldn't diffuse directly into his brain. The man sitting behind the desk looked and smelled slightly like a chipmunk. He was certainly energetic enough, and was again unafraid of Dog--not that there was reason to be. "Transmorphics?" He said, tapping on some keys. "Ah, here we go. It's now officially 'Metamorphic Studies' and they've moved out to a new facility in Hanover."

"Why'd they move them way out there?" Angela asked.

"Remember last year when a misdirected spell turned an entire class next door into frogs?"

The rat-girl groaned. "Gods, yes. Took a week to sort out. Something was wrong with the building shields, though. I can't imagine why..."

The chipmunk shrugged. "They've been wanting something like this for years. Most of the grad students live out there, too. It's an old farm."

"Thanks," Dog said. Transformation had always been part of graduate study, Masters level at least. Changing one's physical form or that of others was not undertaken lightly, and could be very dangerous. Especially when the target form happened to be very large--like a dragon.

"Need a ride out?" she offered. "I've got the time, no classes on Mondays."

"I really don't want to impose..." Dog sputtered.

"You're not," she replied sincerely. "You're really worried over this and I hate seeing someone down. Let's go."

That night the first frost touched the forest around the Iagaris cabin. Alex hardly noticed through his thick fur coat, and the thicker scent of the doe he followed. She wasn't in heat yet--but it paid to be cautious. He couldn't help himself.

And yet, a little corner of his mind nagged at him. Like Jiminy Cricket sitting on Pinocchio's shoulder, it annoyed until it was heard. He stopped in his tracks, his breath puffing in the cold air as the frost froze on the branches around him. Your doe is back at the cabin, it reminded him. So what the hell are you doing way out here?

He was on the edge of the Meadow again, surrounded in the silver light of a waxing gibbous moon. The smell of dead summer grasses filled his nostrils, their stalks moving back and forth, standing out in his motion-sensitive vision. The doe, one in a herd of about six plus their fawns, had briefly stopped here and moved on along the edge, eating as she went. He could smell her trail easily.

He followed her scent-trail at a trot, intent on keeping up with her, and marking his presence on the most commonly-used trees. He couldn't help but feel a little guilty. But Marion was asleep and wouldn't know, as long as he returned by dawn. Besides, he thought self-importantly, If I can't get this curse lifted, I might as well deal with it and do what comes naturally. Wasn't that the nature of his curse, after all?

Marion awoke to find that the puddles left by the rain were covered with a thin film of ice. Alex was nowhere to be seen, but there were new cloven hoof prints all over the place.

As was her nature, she worried.

Angela's car was no more boxy than Doris's had been. But at least the seats had very convenient tail holes in them. She was also the consummate Boston Driver, blithely moving through traffic as if she was the only one on the road. The werewolf's heart hadn't pounded so hard since that time when he's stupidly tried to take down that moose all by himself.

Dog was quite happy to be able to leave the city. It'd been too much, too soon for him; and the smell of the new car was far more bearable than the ever-shifting scents of thousands of humans and others. "You seem much better now," Angela said matter-of-factly.

"I haven't been around people much," Dog explained, looking at a map. It said that this road turned to gravel, and about a mile after that they'd come up to the farmhouse, right at the end. "Especially so many humans."

"Been out in the woods for thirty years?" Angela joked.

Dog turned to her, and replied in his best deadpan. "Yes."

"Then you're a braver soul than I," she replied, obviously not sure if he was telling the truth or not. The tires crunched onto the gravel. "Almost there."

It certainly didn't look like a farm. A brand new sign, with blue letters on a white background had been erected in front of a pair of security gates, announcing "Boston University, College of Mystical Arts, Metamorphic Research Campus". A security guard--human, Dog noticed--let them through upon sight of Angela's parking permit.

Right beside what had formerly been a farmhouse was what looked like medium-sized single story dormitory. There were signs of just-completed construction everywhere. A large pile of muddy dirt, wood scraps, a tractor not yet taken away, the smell of sawn wood. Next to the former farmhouse were what looked like a stable, and connected to that was a huge white building at least four stories tall with an arched roof, with large translucent windows on the end. "Looks like an indoor practice ring," Angela supplied. "My parents own horses, and they have theirs stabled where they have something like that."

The rat-girl parked with a few other cars next to the farmhouse. This wasn't a small structure, either. Whoever had owned it before must have been a centaur, judging by the size of the doors. Of course, it could have been modified for students. Dog paused before entering. Do I really want to involve any kind of administration in this? The last thing I want is the press to get wind of Alex's curse. "Let's check out the dorm," he said.

Angela looked a bit surprised, but she followed him anyway. He noted some hoof prints in the dirt. Centaur, or a student changed into a horse? he wondered. Metamorphic Studies hadn't been a separate discipline when he'd been in school. Magic had been lumped into two categories of study, Alchemy, and Arcana. A magic major chose one of the two and was happy with what they taught. Wonder why it got so pigeonholed.

They entered a door halfway down the side of the building, finding that there were two hallways, and about four doors on either side down each, making about thirty two rooms total. The dorm seemed empty, until he heard a scratching sound. The smell of raccoon was nearly overwhelmed by that of new linoleum. Slowly, a door swung open and a large raccoon came out, coming their way. Dog's stomach growled. He hadn't been able to eat since arriving in the city. That's probably a person... he reminded himself.

Sure enough, the raccoon sat down in front of them. "Are you two new students?" he said in a tenor voice, puzzled.

I don't believe I'm talking to a raccoon... But after talking to a deer, what's the big deal? "Actually, no. I'm looking for some help--some pretty serious help. I thought this would be the best place to come."

"Oh? Why is that?" the raccoon replied with a note of suspicion. "Do you want this werewolf curse of yours lifted? It can possibly be done, depending--but you'll have to pay for it."

Dog wondered just how the raccoon had known--but after a moment's thought, it was probably easy enough for someone who specializes in those sorts of things to tell. He shook his head quickly. "Oh, no. It's not for me at all. I've got a friend in dire need of getting his humanity restored up in Vermont. Artemis changed him into a deer, see..."

"Whoa!" the raccoon yelled in an amazingly commanding voice from one so small. "Are we talking godmagic, here?"

Dog couldn't help but whine a little. If he refused--and at the moment it seemed that whoever this was had some degree of knowledge in the field--then what? "Well, yes..."

But the raccoon's reply was eager--not a refusal. "You can explain to me just what happened to your friend over dinner." The raccoon's black ears twitched. "Assuming they got the kitchen up and running yet. If not, I know a place in town that caters to people with our tastes."

As it turned out, the kitchen--located in the farm house--wasn't even half completed. So they took Angela's car back into town. The raccoon introduced himself as "soon-to-be-Doctor Richard Lotor".

"Lotor?" Angela said. "As in 'Procoyon Lotor'?"

"The scientific name for 'raccoon', I know," Richard said with a sigh. "To make a long story short, I was at a Spring Break party hosted by Baccus Beer when I was a sophomore. Guess who showed up at the celebration? He thought it'd be so funny if he got me falling-down drunk and do this to me. I woke up in a garbage can the next morning with a huge headache. Took me four days to convince someone I wasn't just a raccoon. I've been trying to break my curse ever since--and not without some success, I might add. It's the subject of my dissertation, in fact. A study on godmagic curses and how to break them."

"Then I'd say I came to just the right place," Dog said.

"Fortune's Wheel turns both ways," Richard replied.

"And you haven't seen him since last night?" Fred asked, his tail swishing. He'd come up to visit the Iagarises at midafternoon to find Marion standing in the doorway, watching the woods. She'd looked like she hadn't moved in hours.

"Not at all. It's not like him to worry me like this..."

"And Dog isn't here to sniff him out. Damn it. I hate to say it, but if this curse is anything like he said it was, he's probably following a doe. They sometimes come into heat early, you know."

Just what I wanted to hear, Fred. Thanks a million. "Would you mind not reminding me?" she said tartly.

The centaur shrugged stoically. "I'm sure he'll be back, Marion. We'll just have to be patient."

Three miles away, the formerly human whitetail buck was hovering over his prize. She had a sweet, enticing scent coming from her. At first she'd run from him, and it'd taken quite a bit of doing to separate her from her herd. A merry chance had followed, dashing through the woods at top speed, led on by her heat-smell. He nuzzled and groomed her neck, and she his. And when they were finished, she moved her tail aside from him.

WHAT THE HELL DID YOU JUST DO?! his conscience shouted, nearly bowling him off his feet, causing him to stagger away from the doe once the act was completed. All concerned, she came over and started to groom his muzzle again. He felt his body again respond to her caresses, utterly out of his control.

It happened several more times over the next hour, until her estrus-scent vanished. Only then did he regain full control of his body.

Alex dashed away from the doe as fast as he could run. Damn! Damn, damn, damn! I thought I had more control than that! But his body, it seemed, had other ideas. The act had been mechanical, deep-seated, and irresistible. It hadn't even been particularly pleasurable... although the flood of guilt he felt wouldn't let him admit that he had enjoyed it.

It's got to be the curse, he thought, remembering what Artemis had said. She wants me to father fawns. Well, there's one pair right there... And there would be many more to come if he couldn't either get a hold of himself, or if Dog found a way to undo the curse--something that he highly doubted. He felt even more guilty; for what he had just done, and for what he would be compelled to do in the future.

Before he burst into the cabin's clearing he smelled Fred's presence. It was just after dark; every light in the cabin was blazing, and he heard the sound of the generator going. Alex skidded to a stop in front of a surprised and relieved Marion. It took a while before he could gather his thoughts to mentally put the words on the page. His ears drooped with guilt as he wrote what had happened. "I can't even begin to express how I'm feeling right now. There's just no words..." he wrote. He cursed the printed word for not expressing his emotions like a human voice could. But it was clear that Fred could smell his regret.

Marion felt her anger rising as her husband told the story. She almost couldn't read it, but when she was finished, she threw the pad down on the gravel and stormed inside, slamming the door.

Alex moaned as the centaur carefully knelt down to pick up the pad. "It wasn't your fault," he said.

"Hell yes it was my fault! I shouldn't have gone into the woods all by myself in the first place!" he wrote in slashing strokes.

"You realized what was happening and you still couldn't stop yourself," Fred calmly pointed out. "What Luna wants, she gets. History has shown that time and again."

Alex felt like he had just lost his wife all the same. "I'd kill her right now if I could..."

"Many have tried. But she is the Huntress. It takes another god to kill a god." The centaur whuffed. "Just give Marion time. She's a very good girl. She'll come around." I hope, he added to himself.

The buck just hoped he wouldn't smell another near-heat doe before morning.

Dog quickly learned that Metamorphic Studies students tended to be on the strange side--at least to his mode of thinking. There were fifteen of them, most of which were Masters-level. In the split common room at the end of the dormitory building were tables, some older arcade games, four computers hooked up to the internet, a large TV/VCR combo, and a small kitchenette that was indeed working.

"Why's this place so big?" Dog asked Richard, looking around at the mostly empty room.

"We get about twenty rooms, but the rest are divided between Boston College, Northeastern, couple other schools. BU footed most of the bill for this place, so we get to put our name on it," Richard explained.

Seven of them sat at one of those tables, called by Richard to discuss Dog's problem. The raccoon sat in the middle of the table, explaining things to a very diverse group of people. Only two of them were human, four were in varying sileni forms, and the last was a blue jay perched on the back of a chair, busily preening himself.

Richard finished explaining things. "Remember this is unofficial as yet, everyone. I'm going to speak with Doctor Freeman tomorrow and get this circumspectly added to the case studies for my dissertation if I possibly can; I know he'll be quiet about it. If I can get grant money to help out with Edward's predicament then it's all for the better. But I need ideas now."

"How about that spell elements runic program I wrote last semester?" one suggested. He was one of the close-to-human students, only sporting a pair of lupine ears and a partial muzzle. Dog recalled his name was Carlos. "It worked pretty well in that were-ostrich case you had."

"True, true," Richard said. "It might speed things up a bit. Go ahead and run it and see what pops up."

The part-wolf smiled. "I'll just need a listing of the curse conditions."

"Excuse me," Angela said. "What's 'runic'?"

"RuniC with a capital 'C' on the end," Carlos, explained. "It's an experimental variation of the C programming language, see. I haven't yet gotten a computer to actually do magic, but it's pretty good at coming up with spells on the fly. Although the failure rate isn't what I'd like it to be..."

"Then why use it?" Dog growled. The presence of another wolf got his hackles up.

"Because if I did it the traditional way it could take weeks, or even months," Richard said. "I'll review each and every element the computer suggests, so don't worry."

Angela was still skeptical, however. "I don't suppose you've had any luck with this curse of yours?"

"I'll show you. Can someone put me on the floor?" A pretty girl who had been introduced as Terry lifted him off the table and put him down, where the raccoon closed his eyes. After a moment's concentration, the raccoon glowed a soft blue, and began to grow. Two minutes later a man who was about as human as Dog could manage was standing there--completely nude of course. "I can hold this for about three hours at a time, with a rest time of at least a couple days between changes. Unfortunately, I can't change myself back from this until that time runs out, so I'll be right back."

He returned clothed in a bathrobe, taking a seat at the head of the table, putting down a bunch of papers. "I've done histories on about twenty gods and demigods, including Artemis. I'm quite familiar with the Actaeon myth. What I've got here are about a dozen different versions of that story. So let's begin at the beginning, shall we?"

Angela bid goodbye around nine, saying she had early classes and still wanted to get in some studying before bedtime. "We might be able to use an alchemist," Richard said before she left. "Can I have your email address?"

The rat-girl was clearly uncomfortable in the presence of so many odd people, Terry especially, for some reason Dog couldn't figure out. She'd shied away from her during the meeting. "I'm just a junior," she said. "I know a Masters student that can help you out, though. She's trustworthy."

"I'd appreciate that," Richard said. Angela left at a clip with Terry smiling at her.

Dog had been offered to share Richard's room with him. It was obvious that the raccoon didn't need a whole lot of living space. The rooms themselves were only meant for single students, more like studio apartments than dorms. The bed even looked moderately comfortable. Doris had been quite happy to hear that Dog might have found a solution, and was very willing to let him stay at the campus.

Richard slept in a sort of "nest" made of pillows and blankets. "You have no idea how happy we are to finally get this place," he said.

"Why is that?" Dog asked, trying to make himself comfortable on the bed.

"For one thing, it's surrounded by both magical and physical fences. There's about forty acres of land here, all enclosed so students can try out whatever form they wish without bothering anyone. And the fences keep them inside the boundaries just in case they lose control. The practice ring can handle anything up to apatosaur-size. And best of all, no innocent bystanders will get changed into frogs on accident. It's perfect."

"I'll take your word for it," Dog replied. Then he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning his growling stomach awoke him. He found Richard already gone, and the door slightly open. His ears picked up the sound of chatter from the common room. So he pulled himself out of bed, put on his pants, and headed out.

Richard was eating some fruit while a guy that looked a lot like Terry was making breakfast. The human was bare above the waist, wearing a pair of pajama bottoms. The air smelled like toast and peanut butter. "You really need to stop scaring people like that," the raccoon was saying to him.

Terry gave Dog a sideways look, shrugging. "I don't see what the big deal is. If they feel uncomfortable that's their problem, not mine." The human crossed his arms across his chest and smiled. Then Dog's eyes went wide. The man's blonde hair grew longer, his facial features became familiar again, his body gained feminine curves, and between her crossed arms a pair of fair-sized breasts grew. "You can take it, can't you Edward?" the girl said.

Dog's jaw dropped. The Terry last night had been a bit less of a looker. This one could have graced the cover of Playboy. The girl noted Dog's expression and returned to her male form, going back to fixing breakfast. "I just love that expression," he said with a wry grin. Richard chittered reprovingly. "What? How is this different from the rest of you changing yourselves into animals?"

"It's okay, really," Dog said quickly. "I mean, we had a gender specialist in the department when I was in school. You just caught me a little off guard is all." Sure he did... she did. Whatever.

Richard sighed. "Never mind. I know I'm not going to change you, anyway."

"Damn straight," Terry replied, spreading peanut butter on his whole wheat toast.

The werewolf regained his composure. "I don't suppose there's anything a carnivore could eat around here, is there?"

"You can't be more human than that?" Richard asked.

"Blame it on a bad choice in my youth..."

"Let me guess. Furry acid, right?"

Dog nodded, amazed. "How did you guess?"

"That kind of drug leaves a sort of 'taste' in the manna-field that surrounds you. You should also be very happy you can be as human as you are. Most users of furry acid either die from a differential morph, or end up changed completely and with an animal lifespan."

"Excuse me, 'differential morph'?"

"Imagine having a wolf's heart trying to service a human body--or a lupine brain inside of a human skull. You seem to have some werewolfism somewhere in your family line, else you probably would have died. The scary thing is that the stuff stays in the body forever, and there's almost nothing that'll get it out of the system."

Dog realized just how lucky he was--and how much luckier Doris had been. The raccoon flicked his ears. "Enough with the morbid thoughts. Let's go see if Carlos has any results yet."

The part-wolf didn't answer when Dog knocked. After waiting a few minutes, he knocked louder. "Are you sure he's up yet?" Dog asked.

"I'm sure of it. He's quite nocturnal and sleeps at odd hours. Put your ear to the door, maybe you'll hear something."

The werewolf had learned that the building was heavily soundproofed, which was probably a good idea since most creatures had better hearing than humans. However, he still heard the quiet tapping of keys when he did as the raccoon asked. "He's up. Why didn't he answer?"

"Carlos can get pretty focused on his work," Richard explained. "Just open the door. He won't mind. He may not even notice."

The raccoon had said that they'd only moved in two days before, but the mess that was Carlos Velasquez's room looked like it had accumulated over months. There were papers everywhere, books strewn about the floor with titles like Running Linux or Tcl/Tk In a Nutshell. Sitting at a large-screened computer with at least a dozen windows open was Carlos, still tapping away at the keys. "I've got the program running a couple of parallel processes on your curse conditions," he said, not looking up. "Should be finished in an hour or so."

If his floor was messy, the area around his computer was neat. It seemed that whatever couldn't fit on the bookshelves that filled most of the wall space had simply gone on the floor of the fair-sized room. Richard walked across a page scribbled with simplified runes. "I'm surprised you're not still working on it."

The part-wolf shrugged. "I had to change a hundred or so lines of code and recompile the thing to allow for godmagic, but it wasn't any big deal. But the big problem was with the database format, for some reason it wouldn't..."

Dog's mind came to a halt under the assault of so many technical terms. "Whoa there. Just as long as it works."

"I guarantee it." The computer abruptly beeped, and yet another window appeared. "And it looks like it came up early. Let's see what we can see..."

"Would you mind printing it out?" Richard asked. Carlos did so and handed the raccoon the results. He looked over the pages and sighed. "This is going to take some doing. There's at least a dozen likely elements here... A couple I know I'm going to need right away."

"Oh? What's that?" Dog said.

"Moonstone and a sample of your friend's fur. In fact, I think I should meet your friend before I do anything else. Excuse me while I go find Doctor Freeman..." The raccoon ambled off.

"Hungry?" Carlos asked, going over to a small refrigerator. He pulled out some meat wrapped in brown paper. "It's venison..."

The smell was enticing, but he couldn't help but think of Alex in conjunction with that smell. "Er... no. Got any beef or chicken?"

"Yeah. Happy to oblige."

He knew he was being treated like the alpha wolf, being given the first choice of meat before Carlos took a bite. But he also didn't really care, because he immediately felt more comfortable with the part-wolf programmer. The presence of other lupines had always made him behave like this. It wasn't something he could ignore.