56

How hard is it to find a twelve-foot Garou covered in runic scars? You stride along the edge of the woods, until you hear the roar and howl of two titans inside the farmhouse. The front door is gone. You're just consider whether to go inside when Elton flies through the kitchen window, taking the entire wall with him.

He lands in a bloody, ragged heap, five hundred pounds of torn blue-black fur. He's missing part of one arm, and his chest is shredded to the bone, revealing pink ribs. Heinrik steps through the ruined wall, ducking low to accommodate his height, and looms over the theurge. Blood drips from his muzzle and claws, shining black in the moonlight. His runic scars shimmer like hot asphalt in summer.

You lead with your right claw, scoring a bloody rent across his shoulder. Heinrik grabs your throat and slams you into the other wall of the farmhouse, shattering wood and plaster, but you kick him in the guts and twist out of his grip.

He comes at you again, but then he freezes, his pale eyes going beyond you to the rusted-out trailer.

To me. Where I sit with paws folded and tail swishing. The air sizzles, and Heinrik's fur stands on end.

"You can't stop us," the Cultist says. "You're just a ghost." Heinrik walks past both of you, then strides purposefully into the black woods.

He was scared of me, though. I'm sure you saw that.

Elton crumples in on himself, returning to his glabro form, his body spasming as he struggles to heal from his grave wounds.

"Get him inside," Roscoe says, throwing open the back of his van. He sounds perfectly calm. He's been doing this since before your parents were born.

Next