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  He launched into the copy with gusto. "Are your pets ruining your holidays?"

  There was a pause. Hounds and dogs still scrambled at Santa's feet. But the action had stalled.

  Lucy looked around. All sets of human eyes were fixed on her. Michelle held her breath, her salientian eyeballs almost bugging out of her head.

  "That's you," Xochitl hissed and poked Lucy's back. Lucy stumbled onto the Christmas set next to Santa and the Hounds. The dogs were still dancing all around, making a racket.

  "Your line is, 'Sit,'" Peggy prompted.

  "Sit!" Lucy repeated awkwardly.

  No response. Hell.

  "Sit!" Lucy commanded with intent. The Hounds and dogs sat instantly and directed their attention to Lucy. All sets of canine and Were eyes were fixed on her.

  "There's a girl," Granny said. Her words sounded like praise and made Lucy smile.

  "Can’t tell the difference between a Hound and a Feral?" Noel quoted the script. He leaned toward the man behind the camera. "This is where we have to get the Christmas angel looking Hound one to jump on the chair. We'll work that out with Michelle later. Maybe get hot dogs."

  Lost, Lucy looked to Xochitl, who had her nose stuck in the script.

  "You say 'come,'" Peggy said with pointed impatience, "and get the one with the curls to come to you."

  "Come!" Lucy directed the command to her suspected Feral, Christmas Angel. The golden boy rolled his head and then moseyed over to her.

  "We'll take care of that," Noel broke in, reading the scripted line with ringing pride.

  He's really getting into this.

  Shoulders nearly up to her ears with tension, Xochitl stepped next to Lucy, snapped a brown leather leash on Christmas Angel and walked him off set quickly.

  Didn't she have a line there?

  Lucy watched Christmas Angel saunter after Xochi without fuss.

  Making a big production out of it with throat clearing and shoulder rolling, Santa reached for Lucy's hand and limped it with a dead trout shake.

  That's not how he shook hands before.

  Santa's eyes looked glassy, as if he were far away.

  What's he doing? Is he acting?

  Santa looked at the camera as if he was about to kiss it and delivered his final line in a brilliant, sincere baritone. "Thank you, Hanna's Rescue and Rehabilitation!" He laughed the deep, iconic Santa laugh.

  "Wait," Xochitl bursts out from where she stood. "Shouldn't it be, 'Thank you Werewolf Whisperer?"'

  "No, that's right," Peggy spoke up first. "It's the new copy. Don't you have the pink pages?"

  "Yeah, I got your pinche pink pages. And I still think it should be 'Thank you, Werewolf Whisperer."' Xochi returned Christmas Angel to his pack and stomped over to Noel. "It's who we are. It's what people know."

  "The client sent this revision this morning." Peggy blocked Noel physically, protecting him like a lioness would her cub. "We have to go with what the client wants."

  "Aren't we the client?" Lucy asked, confused.

  "That's not what it says on the down payment check." Peggy crossed her arms in front of her ample chest.

  "¡Híjole!" Xochitl fumed. "Hanna! That pinche bitch! ¡Estoy hasta la madre!"

  "What does it matter, Xoch?" Lucy tried to keep her friend from escalating. "It's still us. People know us. They know we're The Werewolf Whisperer."

  The crew, the elf extras, Granny and the Hounds all stared at them with curiosity. Lucy caught sight of some of the PAs slyly fumbling for their smartphones. Noel, she noticed, had left the set. Embarrassed, Lucy wanted to crawl under Santa's overstuffed chair.

  "Hanna just wants to make the R'n'R top of mind for people with Were problems," Lucy continued quietly. "It's a win win. Isn't it?"

  "Fine, whatever," Xochi huffed and threw her hair over her shoulder. "But I don't like it."

  "Breakfast!" the bearded PA announced obliviously, breaking the tension. "Noel said we'd pick it up after everyone eats."

  "I'm not eating your hippie vegan burritos," Xochitl said, still in a dark mood. "I hate vegan crap!"

  "Don't worry, dear," Granny said kindly while shuffling along at a snail's pace. "I special ordered bacon and eggs." She snapped her fingers, and her four dogs scooted to her side. "My kids need good protein and good fat. Makes for shiny coats."

  "Why don't you walk with me?" Granny took Xochitl's arm. "I have a little something I want your help with anyway..."

  Lucy watched Granny and Xochi walk away. Granny shrugged her backpack off her stooped shoulders and handed it to Xochi. "Look inside the middle section. I think it's a beaut."

  "That's the Dirty Harry gun!" Lucy heard Xochitl shout on the way to the craft service table. "¡Jódame! That's my favorite Smith & Wesson!"

  Granny's packing? Xochi gets to have all the fun.

  "Could you hang on for just a sec." Michelle scurried up to Lucy, keeping her from following. "Noel wants to run the bit with the gifts."

  Gifts? There's gifts?

  "Hey, Lucy." Noel had returned to set as inconspicuously as he had left. "If you don't mind, let's just work through the last little bit of Santa giving out treats."

  "Treats?" Lucy felt hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. "Can we talk about that—"

  "I want to figure out the coverage." Noel peered through the pretend window made by his hands, sweeping them across the set in large airy arcs. "We don't need the dogs for that. Hounds are enough."

  "But—" Lucy tried again.

  Noel snapped his fingers. "Santa!"

  Lucy watched Santa scoot his extra large Santa rump into the upholstered wingback chair. He started to pass out Hound treats from a red bag the size of a potato sack.

  Lucy held her breath.

  Maybe it'll be okay. They're professionals.

  The eager Hounds happily took what was offered — rawhide bones, elk antlers, tennis balls and various hard chew toys.

  Santa thrust his gloved hand deep into the endless seeming sack of toys and pulled out a yellow plush duck. It gave a high-pitched squeak as he closed his fist around it.

  The likely Feral, Christmas Angel, who had one by one taken every toy away from the other Hounds, jerked forward.

  Lucy clenched her fists at her side, battling every instinct screaming at her to intervene.

  Santa raised the duck up high and gave it another good squeeze.

  "Squeak!" The irritating tone detonated again, cutting through Lucy's eardrums like hot stickpins through Crisco.

  Argh!

  Fired up by the duck's grating squeal, Christmas Angel lurched up aggressively and yanked the toy from Santa's black-gloved hand with his teeth. Before anyone could react, he'd wrapped both hands around the duck and squeaked it what seemed like a hundred times in seconds.

  Santa tilted his head to the side slowly. Lucy saw his eyes glint with amber lightning. Shocked, Noel backed away. "Oh, shit!"

  Santa launched himself from his big chair like a rocket and threw himself at Christmas Angel.

  Christmas Angel's true Feral nature cracked his pretend "good Hound" façade into a million pieces instantly. He snarled like a wild beast and went for Santa's throat. Santa threw both arms at the Feral's head; they connected like twin sledgehammers. Christmas Angel went down like a felled tree.

  The Hound pack whimpered and backpedaled in frenzied fear.

  Santa let out a deep guttural bray and slowly rose to his full height. Twice the size they'd been moments before, Santa's muscles bulged and ripped through the red velvet, exposing the thick, snow-white fur of his arms and calves. His head, no longer topped by the Santa cap, shifted from the round, double-chinned visage of Drew Olander to a squared-off, lupine-jawed predator skull layered with fur the color and texture of Santa's beard. Slowly he bent down and picked the squeaky duck out of Christmas Angel's slackened jaw. Santa raised his prize in the air.

  "Squeak!" the duck sounded its high, appall
ing cry once more. Then Santa lost interest. He dropped the plush toy to the ground like discarded garbage and brought his focus from the fallen Feral to the defenseless humans crowded around the camera.

  Having stood frozen for what seemed like a century, Lucy shook off her initial torpor and screamed at the advancing Santa Were. "OFF! OFF! OFF!"

  He didn't so much as flinch.

  Why isn't this working?

  He sniffed the air and bared his teeth.

  "Everyone, back away slowly," she addressed the crew but kept her eyes on Santa.

  The Santa Were quickened his step, ready to spring.

  "Look at me!" Lucy screamed. Santa Were ignored her and advanced on Noel and Peggy.

  Lucy, desperate for something to hit Santa with, launched herself at the fireplace tools tottering precariously next to the overturned armchair. She grabbed for the long iron poker with one hand and the ash shovel with the other.

  "Bad Santa! Bad Santa!" Lucy bellowed and bashed the shovel against Santa Were's furry head from behind. He spun faster than she'd been prepared for and came at her with razor-sharp claws and jagged teeth.

  "Run!" she yelled at the crew and rammed the poker at his gut. Santa Were deflected and drove her into the faux fireplace. She flailed and lost her grip on both makeshift weapons as she crashed down on the cheap electric hearth and burned her calf. Instinctually, Lucy drew her legs in, her hands finding the burn in a useless gesture.

  Santa Were rolled over her like a cloud of blood and synthetic fiber, his ear torn from the impact of the shovel. Moving fast, he fell on her for a fatal bite.

  "No!" Her scream was garbled. She kicked her tucked-in feet out at Santa Were's face. He swayed back momentarily, only startled — not hurt.

  This is how it ends.

  Several shots boomed through the empty space. In surreal slow motion, Santa Were's face contorted as if it were being sucked forward by a gigantic vacuum cleaner. The white fur parted in a crack of blood and bone. A drench of blood and brain matter splattered the walls and covered Lucy in sanguine carnage. She rolled to the side as Santa Were fell forward.

  Xochitl and Granny stood on the set behind toppled Santa Were's grisly remains, his bloody gore spreading on the hardwood laminate like gloppy strawberry jam covering burnt toast. Xochitl held Granny's Smith & Wesson with both hands. Her grip shook ever so slightly. Xochi lowered the gun.

  Lucy stood. She felt something wet running down her face.

  24 hours and about thirty-one lines of iambic pentameter later

  "…And Ceasar's spirit, ranging for revenge…" Imogen jumped to her feet, jolting Lucy back to the present.

  She touched her face and unconsciously wiped a drop of perspiration off her chin.

  "With Ate by his side come hot from hell, Shall in these confines with a monarch’s voice, Cry 'Havoc!' and let slip the dogs of war—"

  "Low…ri…der!" trumpeted from Lucy's pocket in Casio-phonic sound, cutting off Imogen's soliloquy.

  Lucy quickly dug her phone from her jacket and flipped it open. She read Xochitl's text.

  You done? Meet me outside.

  "Well," Imogen sounded breathless, "yes. Where was I?" She smoothed a hand over her blunt demi-bobbed hair and crumpled silk blouse in an effort to compose herself before sitting lady-like once more.

  "You were saying something about dogs of war," Lucy offered and texted back a short message.

  Yes.

  She shut the cell and pushed herself up off the couch.

  "So," Imogen looked over her notes.

  Lucy groaned and flopped back down in her seat.

  "How's work?"

  "Busy."

  "Really?" Imogen glanced up from her steno pad with muddy-colored Marty Feldman eyes. "Could you elaborate?"

  Lucy played with a few strands of her coppery red hair, concentrating on twisting them into a tight knot around her finger.

  "Oh, you know, here a wolf. There a wolf. Everywhere a werewolf." Lucy hummed E-I-E-I-O.

  Xoch'll like that one.

  She chuckled to herself.

  Imogen scowled. "You really shouldn't use that term, Lucy. It's offensive."

  "But I'm The Werewolf Whisperer." Lucy feigned distress.

  "That's different," Imogen replied. "Governor Hollis said we should—"

  "Yeah, yeah. Can I go now?"

  "You know, Holly, the governor that is, is a very good friend of the family. You should really listen to her. She is very wise."

  "Yeah, wise enough to spout her wisdom from where exactly?" Lucy leaned forward. "Oh, that's right." She mock-quoted with her fingers. "An 'undisclosed location.'"

  Lucy felt heat rise from her feet all the way to the tip of her head.

  Why am I still here? Xochi would've left by now. Shrink okay or no shrink okay.

  Imogen, a saccharine smile plastered on her face, scribbled furiously on her notepad. "Uses sarcasm for shield. Means of deflection." Imogen's pen scratched loudly against the paper like a steel wool Brillo scrubbing out a greasy stain as she underlined her last words.

  "Hey!" Lucy reached for the shrink's notes. "That's—"

  "Lucy," Imogen crooned as she shifted away from her patient's grasp, "you know I have to sign off or you'll be put on psychiatric hold. You wouldn't want me to call the authorities?"

  "But I need…" Lucy slumped, dejected.

  Shit. I'm gonna be fifty-one-fiftied.

  A polite but insistent knock interrupted Imogen's interrogation.

  "Dr. Friel?" A woman's voice filtered through a small crack in the pocket doors.

  Imogen ignored the woman, training her pseudo sympathetic stare on Lucy. "I feel like you are still holding on to a lot."

  I'm trapped by Dr. Dingbat and Mrs. Fried.

  "Dr. Friel!" This time, the woman banged on the door. "I know you in there! I hear you!" A harsh, grating squawk assaulted Lucy's ears.

  Imogen's face scrunched up. She fidgeted with her pen, tapping it on her knee.

  "Maybe you should get that," Lucy said.

  "Why don't we talk about your—"

  "DR. FRIEL!"

  The skittish shrink darted to the doors and slid them open only wide enough for her head to poke through.

  "Not, now," she hissed. "I'm with a patient."

  Hostage is more like it.

  "Yes, now!" With a mighty thrust, a tiny Asian woman burst through the French doors and past Imogen into the office. Dressed in a Pepto-pink smock and covered head-to-toe in fuzzy black fur, the woman had bloody scratches up and down her arms and a nasty gash across her cheek. "This last time! You understand? You want Furminator that thing? You do!"

  Lucy jumped to her feet. "You hired a dog groomer for the—"

  "Please!" Imogen shrieked at the groomer, her hands raised up. The shrink looked to Lucy. "There's just so much hair."

  Lucy shook her head in disbelief.

  "No more! I done!" The groomer displayed her clawed up limbs. "Done!"

  "But, I can't possibly…Oh, my." Imogen bit her thumbnail, suddenly fascinated. She reached out to touch the groomer's wounds.

  "Don't!" The groomer sucked in a breath and cradled her marred arms protectively.

  "Hey!" Lucy pulled the shrink away from the groomer.

  For a moment Imogen's eyes glazed over, and she stood frozen as if stuck in a time warp.

  "For crying out loud, Imogen!" Lucy slapped her hands together in front of the shrink's face.

  "Oh, oh my." Imogen's voice was breathy. Her eyes fluttered.

  "Just give the woman a little something already," Lucy said, matter-of-fact. "While you're at it, sign off on this." She uncrumpled her mental health evaluation form and handed it to her shrink.

  Imogen's head ping-ponged between Lucy and the wrinkled sheet of paper.

  "Or," Lucy threatened with a magnanimous smile, "I could call the authorities and tell them you stole a—"

  "Of cour
se!" Imogen hastily scratched her name on the form and handed it back to Lucy. "We've got to get The Werewolf Whisperer back on the road," she chirped.

  "Thanks, doc," Lucy said brightly, then leaned toward Imogen and whispered. "I don't want to hear from you for at least six months." She stepped toward the door and smiled glibly. "Well, then, I'm off. Don't forget to pay the lady, Imogen."

  "Yes, yes." Lucy's psychiatrist rushed to the mahogany desk and pulled out a large binder. "I was just about to do that." She mumbled to herself, "I'll make this right."

  Not sure you can, doc.

  "How much pay?" Lucy heard the groomer ask Imogen as she headed for the front door and her freedom.

  That's the capitalist spirit!

  Lucy strolled out of the Friels' Edwardian home and down the stairs, a lightness to her step. Even her calf didn't sting so much anymore. The hazy morning fog had burned off. She tilted her head to the sky and soaked in the warmth of the sun.

  "What a beautiful day!" She breathed in the salty seawater air and scented a hint of Fisherman's Wharf wafting from the bay. She opened her eyes and searched for El Gallo, thinking Xochi had parked across the street.

  Didn't she say to meet her outside?

  Lucy heard Xochi's quick double-tapped honk from down the steep hill. Flaring in the midday rays like a mammoth orange sunburst, El Gallo's nose poked out from around the corner.

  Xochi stuck her head out the passenger window. "¡Vámanos!" She gave Lucy a terse "hurry up" wave.

  Would it kill you to pick me up out front?

  Lucy groaned and jog-walked toward the Toronado, the steep incline of the last few feet nearly running her into El Gallo's door.

  "Thanks," she said, sliding in next to her friend. "My burned leg needed the exercise."

  "…outside Stockton. That makes the fourth animal shelter bombing in the past ten months and the closest to the state capital. Governor Hollis has characterized it as an act of domestic terrorism—"

  Xochitl shut off the radio. "Sorry, but from now on, it's only downhill for us." She handed Lucy a Venti-sized coffee. "Here."

  Lucy wrapped greedy hands around the drink and inhaled deeply. "Okay, you're forgiven."

  "So, how'd it go?" Xochi cocked a suspicious eyebrow.

  "Fine." Lucy sipped her steaming hot brew.