“How come?”

“The cold, the dark, the wilderness, the seclusion. He stays further up north. They have a few national parks and some ski resorts. And Helsinki, Stockholm, Amsterdam, they’re not that far away, whenever he requires bustling city life.”

The way he said “life” I knew he meant more than dinner and a show. Actually, he just meant dinner. Peter might enjoy isolation, but he needed a population to eat, preferably a mixture of vampires and people. Vampire bars and blood banks made eating so much easier, and the fewer the people, the less the options.

“So that’s where we’re going? Up north?” I turned to Ezra. “What’d you call it? The Lapland?”

“Yeah. It’s the northern most territory in Finland.” He took a deep breath, and he sounded reluctant when he continued. “There’s something I haven’t told you.”

“There’s lots of things you haven’t told me.”

“This is important.” He licked his lips and shifted his gaze. “You’ve heard stories of werewolves, right?”

My stomach dropped. Sure, I may be a vampire, but there were certain things I couldn’t take. Like finding out an endless stream of monsters and folklore were real. After this, maybe we’d roll with a Yeti or go swimming with the Lochness Monster and a Leprechaun.

There had to be some point where fiction remained fiction, and I was determined that it ended immediately after vampires.

“No, no, no.” I shook my head. “Jack told me there weren’t any werewolves. There’s no such thing.”

“No, there’s not,” Ezra agreed. “Shape shifting of any kind is an impossibility. Or at least as far as I know.”

“So…” My heart slowed a little, but he was still holding something back. “Why even bring them up?”“You’ve heard the stories about them, though, haven’t you?” His deep brown eyes looked at me intently.

“Yeah,” I answered uncertainly.

My knowledge of werewolves was very limited, and mostly based on Michael J. Fox’s portrayal in Teen Wolf. I had never thought the film was very factual, because I couldn’t imagine how surfing on a van could be possible, werewolf or not. The only thing I carried from it was that wolves were good basketball. This information did not seem pertinent to the situation.

“How the full moon makes them come out, and they attack without reproach?” Ezra went on. “They turn into vicious animals, unfettered by remorse or logic.”

“Okay, sure,” I nodded, hoping he would just hurry and make his point.

“Do you remember when I told you about the vampires I had encountered when I first turned?” He grew more solemn. “They were … rabid animals.”

“You’re not… they’re not…” I faltered. “What are you saying exactly?”

“Sometimes,  some vampires, either by choice or just by design, don’t ever fully civilize,” he explained carefully. “The ones that are entirely primeval are killed quickly. Even vampires can’t stomach rampant monsters. But some willfully seek out a different life, one separate from people and humanity.

“We believe the early stories of werewolves are based on vampires living like this.” He took a deep breath and looked out at the night sky. “In small packs they hunt together, living more like animals than people. By necessity, they can’t kill most of their food, but they want to hunt and kill. They hunt big game, like bears and elk, even wolves. Not for food, but for sport.”

“People do that too,” I interjected, but I’m not sure what point I was making with that.

“We call them lycans. It’s short for lycanthrope, which just means werewolf. It’s a little inside joke for vampires.” Ezra smiled at me with that, but I didn’t really think it was funny. “Lycan, I think, just means wolf in Greek.”

“This was a round about way of giving me a lesson in Greek?” I asked dryly.

“There’s a pack of lycan that live in the Finnish Lapland,” he ignored me. “I’ve come across them before, but it’s an ever changing group, with only the leader remaining. He’s a sadist, and the life expectancy for his pack isn’t anywhere near what it is for the average vampire, or even for other lycans. They’re known for their brutality, and they’ve killed people and vampires indiscriminately.”

I swallowed hard and focused on the bright lights flashing outside of the window. By now, I figured out how this story ended up with us here, waiting for a plane to take us to the lycan. Our destination was very much connected with theirs.

“Last week, Peter killed a member of their pack. They want revenge, and they won’t stop until they get him. And, Peter, in his current state, seems happy to offer himself up,” Ezra said quietly. “We have to find him before they do.”

I could barely control my own bloodlust, but we were going out to the wilderness to track down a pack of crazed werewolves-cum-vampires so we could save a vampire that tried to kill me before. It all made perfect sense.

“Alice?” Ezra asked when I just kept staring out the window. “Do you have any questions?”

“Nope.” I shook my head. “But Jack’s gonna be so pissed when he finds out what we’re doing.”

- 5 -

The hotel was a cross between a Holiday Inn and a hunting lodge, with fireplaces and antlers hanging on the wall, but I was still pleasantly surprised by the set up. After another flight, followed by a short drive in a rental car and a brief stop at a local blood bank to stock up, and we checked into the hotel.