—Season 4, Episode 6: Out and About—
For those first couple of days of interviews in the hotel, the werewolves were in and out of my room all the time. I think they’d become attached to me. It turns out picking bullet bits out of someone is a bonding experience with werewolves. I stopped bothering to even lock the door after the first day. It’s not like I could complain, they’d kept me in recordings pretty much the whole time I wasn’t eating or sleeping.
By the third day, though, I think it’s fair to say they were getting a little stir-crazy. So much so in fact that they decided it was high time to take a walk. In public, and in Jude’s case, in werewolf form. Whether that was for community outreach or novelty value I’ll leave you to judge.
After a brief discussion on whether this was in fact a good idea, Ryan, our previous vampiric interviewee, declared he’d be joining us to keep an eye on things. This prompted much bustling from his girlfriend, who I then met for the first time. She was very keen that he not forget his sunscreen, hat, sunglasses, or the other little things to keep him from getting sunstroke… “Again”.
She did, however, decline to join us on the excursion. When I saw the crowds outside the hotel up close, I could very much see her point.
…
‘Wow, the crowd looks very different from ground level,’ Cadence said. ‘Usually I’d be over there. I should describe what we have here, before we actually head out.’
She took a deep breath and peered out of the lobby window.
‘The police presence has been here since day one, and if anything has only grown since then. They’ve got a perimeter set up around the hotel’s entrance, keeping some distance between us and the various other groups outside. If I’m being entirely fair to the cops, this got dropped on their heads almost as much as everyone else, and they’ve been on their best behaviour. There have been a few heated exchanges, and an attempt or two to get past the cordon, but so far they’ve kept a lid on it without going overboard.’
‘And then there’s the press. Everyone who didn’t get an invite to the big show, and who hasn’t been in the hotel for the last couple of days is out there with a camera crew. I’m told every bar, restaurant, hotel and motel in Manhattan is making bank right now. Good for them.’
‘Of course if it was just press and police we’d have more people willing to come and go from the hotel. The elephants in the room, well, out in the street in this case, are the protestors. There are church groups out there claiming that monsters are evil, and this is a sign of the apocalypse, and accusing people of being the antichrist… Not sure how I even feel about that concept, though, now that I’ve been assured by multiple people that I really did meet one of the Devil’s sons.’
‘Just for the record,’ Haley said, ‘to the best of my knowledge that’s an entirely unofficial title. And I’m told Azazel’s nice.’
‘Yeah, ermm, anyway, it’s not just religious groups out there. There are right wing campaign groups demanding monsters be recorded and monitored.’
‘Which is right the fuck out of comic books, and we aren’t having it. Not for a second,’ Ryan added.
‘Then there’s the won’t somebody think of the children brigade, a few cults, a lot of people who I will charitably call mentally unwell, and somewhat less comfortably there is also a pressure group forming of people who claim to have had negative experiences with monsters, most of whom have previously been dismissed in one way or another.’
‘I’m sure some of them are telling the truth. I mean, I’d know,’ said Haley. ‘It’s not like there aren’t monsters who are also criminals. We’re people after all.’
‘That’s not to say, though, that everything is entirely negative. For every angry person out there waving a banner load of slurs or screaming fire and brimstone there are many more counter-protestors out there to show their support. There are plenty of the nicer religious groups out in the streets preaching tolerance and brotherhood. All manner of general well-wishers. I can spot a few banners and shirts belonging to civil rights groups.’
‘And don’t forget the pride flags,’ Haley added. ‘I think we’ve been adopted.’
‘And the furries, they’re out in force, and I’m blaming you werewolves for that,’ Ryan joked.
‘Hey, we are the Platonic ideal furry. I mean look at Jude here. So cute.’
‘Anyway, back to the matter at hand,’ Cadence said, trying to get things back on track, ‘while there is a certain tension out there, things are largely under control. The police are keeping the two sides separate, and so far at least other than a couple of scuffles nothing has kicked off.’
‘Some of us expected worse,’ Ryan admitted. ‘Which is why the council made a point of talking to the authorities first and having the police prepared. Not specifically, you understand. They found out with everyone else. More briefing them that there would be an event, that there would be protests and counterprotests, and that they were to be light touch all around and just keep the peace. The last thing we needed was a police officer panicking and shooting someone.’
‘I suspect the surprise has helped, in a way,’ Cadence said. ‘There was no grand countermovement prepared, so the media has been covering the event itself. By the time there’s a focused anti-monster movement that isn’t some crackpots in the street, the news cycle will have moved on. I’ve seen some TV interviews with the usual suspects, and it’s pretty clear they don’t have their talking points and marching orders yet.’
‘You can say Republicans, you know,’ Haley suggested. ‘Honestly, I think they’re probably all busy trying to work out if any of them are monsters before they kick off.’
‘Well, quite. Still, right now at least, the media is focusing more on the event itself, monsters and their history, and what this all means… Well, the more respectable parts of it are, anyway. Now, let’s head out, shall we?’
…
There was the general hubbub you would expect from a large crowd and associated media and police presence. It fell silent as Jude stepped out of the hotel door. Briefly, at least. When he walked out into the cleared area behind the police cordon the friendlier parts of the crowd cheered. The more hostile part seemed to have lost some of their vigour at the sight of the seven-foot tall wolf monster.
When the crowd recognised Haley the cheering turned up a notch.
‘Sorry people, no show today, we’re just going for a nice walk,’ she joked.
Jude stalked over to the friendliest looking area of the crowd. They looked a little nervous, probably entirely fairly, until a kid asked if they could pet him, and he stooped down to let them scratch behind his ear. Once his tail started wagging he lost some of his intimidation factor. The police opened the way for them, and they started making their way to the street, which for Jude was an obstacle course of being petted and hugged.
Haley had it almost as bad, a surprising amount (to her at least) of the crowd wanting autographs. Some enterprising soul had clearly been selling poster prints of her, pre- and post-transformation side by side, and she ended up signing a great many of them as they made their way to the open street. To Cadence’s surprise, more than a few people recognised her, too, and wanted a selfie along the way.
The hotel’s entire block was closed off to traffic, so heavy were the crowds, so it took them a couple of minutes to make their way through the gauntlet and get to the open sidewalks.
‘That’s a lot,’ Ryan said, once they were clear of the crowds and able to walk normally down the street once again. ‘At least I look human enough that everyone was looking at the furball here.’
Jude made an amused huffing noise.
Walking down a Manhattan street in the company of one of, temporarily at least, the most famous women on Earth and a full-blown transformed werewolf was, to put it politely, attracting attention. All eyes were on the werewolf, and he was generating the kind of personal space bubble that no one else would get on a busy city sidewalk.
The werewolf was seemingly happy enough, walking along and sniffing at the occasional thing that caught his interest. He did, however, visibly wince when someone actually screamed in surprise when they turned a corner and came out right in front of him.
‘It’s okay, big guy,’ Haley said, patting him on the back. ‘They’re not going to be used to it yet, are they?’
…
It goes to show, really, just how quickly news spreads these days. This is the third day since the press conference, Jude’s walking down the street transformed, and the vast majority of people we’ve passed don’t even seem bothered. Wary, perhaps, which I think is an entirely fair reaction. Surprised, in more than a few cases. Hell, we’ve even been stopped more than once to ask if he’s real or some animatronic.
We’ve been stopped just as many times by people wanting a selfie. Another thing that’s hardly surprising. Also It turns out our Jude is weirdly good with kids. As soon as they come up to him, he’s all big puppy smile and lolling tongue, and they’re up on his shoulders or posing with him while the parents take their pictures.
…
‘Where’s he taking us anyway?’ Ryan asked.
Jude had clearly caught the scent of something he liked, and they’d been following him for a block and a half now.
‘I find it’s smartest to just follow along and hope for the best,’ Haley admitted. ‘The nose isn’t usually off.’
It didn’t take them much longer to find what he’d been tracking.
‘A chilli dog cart, really?’ said Haley.
Jude whined and pointed at the cart.
‘Fine, puppy, but you’re buying when we do this the other way around. You all want in? Yeah? Okay. Yo, buddy. Half a dozen, with everything please. What? One ain’t gonna fill him up in this shape.’
…
Since we were out on the street, it seemed like as good a time as any for that time-honoured news tradition of asking random people what they thought. While the wolves were distracted, which it turns out happens a lot, like seriously a lot, it’s like trying to walk a husky that’s three times your mass… What was I saying? Oh, yeah, whenever they got distracted, Ryan and I would go up to some randoms in the street and see what they thought about the whole thing. It’s not exactly highbrow journalism, but you never know who’ll have something interesting to say.
…
‘D’you know what I think? I don’t think any of this is real. It’s some viral marketing bullshit for a horror movie or somethin’. That’s just a guy in a suit, and that thing on the news the other day was pre-recorded. How else would they have done the special effects? It was just sponsored content. Anyways, it can’t be real. I saw this video on Facebook that debunked the whole thing. Showed all the little glitches in the effects, and the inconsistencies between the different camera angles. There’s no such thing as a werewolf, full stop. And tell him to stop looking at me like that.’
…
‘It’s got me thinking, what else is real? That we were told wasn’t, you know? If every damn fairy tail monster is real, what else is out there? Aliens? Atlantis? Pellucidar? And what does this change about what we do know? I’m talking biology, physics, basic laws of science and medicine. I mean think about it. That girl must have doubled in mass at least, and she walked off gunshots like it was nothing. How does that even work? And if the answer is magic, then that’s a whole new set of questions. However this goes, the answer’s got to be interesting, hasn’t it?’
…
‘This is all disgusting. Dangerous animals like that prowling the street? It should be locked away where it can’t hurt anyone. Vampires? Perverts preying on decent people. I don’t believe any of this story that they’re oh so nice and innocent. Someone needs to do something before it’s too late.’
…
‘My grandpa was a gravedigger. Well, that and a load of other stuff too, he worked for the county and basically ran a cemetery among other things. He used to tell this story that one night he was there late, doing some repairs, when he heard this noise. Just the most unholy screaming, from the way he described it. Usually it’s only animals fighting or screwing, but for some reason, that time, he went to check it out. He said he saw a scuffle over a fresh grave. For a moment he thought it was drunks fighting, so he was going to go and read them the riot act. And then one of them screams at the other one, and it was that animal noise again. It creeped him out, so he just watched from a distance.’
‘He said the more he watched, the less human they looked. The screaming thing was skinny, drawn, had an odd structure to it, and he was downright insistent he saw that it had wings. And the other thing, he said it was sort of human shaped but nothing human was that gangly, and it moved like its joints were wrong, like it was sort of loose.’
‘He didn’t know what to do, so he just sort of hid and watched. In the end the screaming thing ran the other thing off. And then he says the damnedest thing. It hung around and tidied the graves up. Put the flowers back where they’d been, neatened up where the ground had been kicked up, that sort of thing. Then it hobbled away. He said he wasn’t sure it had even been real, until he went over and found claw marks on the headstone, and blood on the grass.’
‘I can’t help but think that maybe he really did see something.’
…
‘The way I see it, what difference does it make to me? They leave me alone, I’ll leave them alone. And they’ve always left me alone so far. I mean if I didn’t know they existed, how could they be a problem?’
…
‘Hey, do you mind if I stop in here for a few minutes?’ Ryan asked, as they passed a chain coffee shop. ‘Light’s getting a bit much.’
‘You alright?’ Haley asked.
‘Yeah, yeah, just need five minutes. You get a bit wobbly out in the daylight sometimes. No harm done, and nothing much I can do about it. There’s a reason Mar and I moved out of LA. I’d have had to move down into the basement. Oh, glorious air conditioning, and some shade. Perfect,’ Ryan said, slumping into a seat.
Cadence and Haley sat down beside him. And then Jude stooped slightly to step inside, pulled a chair over, and carefully sat down eliciting a creak as the chair decided whether or not it was going to collapse. When it didn’t, the big doggy grin resumed.
‘Is he… allowed in here?’ asked one of the staff, somewhat hesitantly.
‘Well, generally he sort of just goes wherever he likes, honey, but you tell me?’ Haley said.
The server shrugged.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Something big and iced,’ Ryan said.
…
‘Do you think that’s going to be a problem?’ Cadence asked. ‘Going in places, getting served and all that while, you know, visibly a monster?’
‘Oh, I don’t doubt there’ll be places we aren’t welcome,’ Ryan said. ‘It’s not like there aren’t already places certain people know not to go into, or to leave sharpish if they do. It’s kind of in our favour, though, that we’re a bit harder to pick on than the sorts of people that usually get that kind of shit.’
‘And honestly, unless I’m spoiling for a fight I don’t want to be in that kind of place anyway,’ Cadence added. ‘Plenty of places around that want me and my money in there.’
‘Still, I’m not going to pretend this isn’t going to be a question at some point,’ Ryan said with a sigh. ‘We already know this is going to be in and out of the courts for a generation. We’ve taken bets already on how long it’ll be before some state tries to pass anti-monster laws.’
‘I know enough history to know it’s not worth asking if they can do that,’ Cadence said.
‘Yeah, this is not a new conversation in the council leadership. It’s less a question of if than it is what and when,’ Ryan continued. ‘I mean are they going to try and put monster species into the census, let people refuse service to us, keep us from voting. There’s no good faith reading of the constitution that excludes us, but it’s not like that’ll stop the bastards. Bless them, some of the council talked about trying to lobby for a constitutional amendment to make it explicit, but I had to say to them, guys, we haven’t managed to pass the damn ERA yet.’
‘Some of them are a little bit, how do I put it politely,’ Haley mused, ‘historically minded.’
‘Either way,’ said Ryan, ‘the counter plans are already in place. They’ve already reached out to some of the big civil rights organisations and law firms. The second they try that shit we’ll bury them in lawyers.’
‘What was it that president said, “we will not go quietly into the night, we will not vanish without a fight?”. Which one was that?’ Haley said. ‘Was that a Roosevelt?’
‘That was Bill Pullman in Independence Day, honey,’ Ryan said, shaking his head. Jude laughed as well as he could in that shape.
‘Well whoever said it, I’m fuckin’ living by it,’ Haley said. ‘Emmanuel, back at the speech, he wasn’t speaking idly. We aren’t going anywhere.’
…
They were on the verge of deciding to turn around and head back to the hotel when a little kid came running up to Jude. He looked like he was ten at most, and his mother was trying, and failing, to keep up with him as he ran through the crowd.
Just before the boy could administer some kind of combination hug and flying tackle, Jude snatched him up and spun him around to much laughter from the boy.
Haley leaned in beside Cadence and whispered the word “puppy” in her ear. Cadence looked back at her curiously and she winked.
‘Sorry, sorry,’ the boy’s mother said, when she’d managed to get through the crowds to them. ‘He… saw you and got excited.’
Haley’s smile widened.
‘Hey kid,’ she said, squatting down to the boy’s eye level.
He gasped.
‘We saw you on the TV!’ he said. ‘You were so cool. Mom made me look away when that man tried to shoot you, though.’
‘And quite right too,’ Haley agreed, ruffling his hair.
‘I’ve never seen a real werewolf on the TV before,’ he added. ‘Only the stupid made up ones that get it all wrong. Not like…’
The boy managed to stop himself before he said the thing they all knew he wasn’t allowed to say in public. If Haley hadn’t whispered to her, she wouldn’t have picked up on it. As it was, she watched the mother, and there was the tiniest telltale wince just as the boy cut himself off.
Ryan whispered something in the mother’s ear. There was a back and forth between Ryan and the mother, and a few pointed glances the boy’s way, while he was thoroughly distracted by the two werewolves. Eventually she nodded to the vampire.
‘Hi,’ Ryan said, getting the boy’s attention. ‘I’m Ryan. I’m a vampire. This is Jude, and you saw Haley here on the TV, right? And this is Cadence. She’s human, and she does a podcast about monsters. Your mom and I have been talking, and she says if there’s something you wanted to tell us, you can.’
The boy paused, thinking for a moment, before turning back to his mother and giving her a pleading look. She smiled and nodded.
‘I’m a werewolf too!’ the boy said excitedly.
‘I’d never have guessed,’ Cadence said, giving his mother a wink.
‘I smelled you all the way down the street and I wanted to say hi,’ he said. ‘I usually only see the other wolves from the pack, but we came here to see the museums, and there are so many monsters here!’
‘There are, aren’t there,’ Haley agreed. ‘But you know you mustn’t tell, right? Unless they say you can.’
‘I’m Julia,’ the boy’s mother said. ‘And this little terror is Ernesto. I’m human, so’s his father. It skipped a generation. That was one hell of a conversation with my father-in-law, I can tell you.’
‘Wow, that is rare,’ Haley said.
While Ernesto looked around at his mother and the others, Jude mock pounced on him, and they devolved laughing into some kind of tickle fight.
‘I can imagine,’ Cadence said. ‘Did you know… before?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Ernesto’s dad didn’t know either. My father-in-law told us when he first came to see him after the birth, smelled it on him, although we had a couple of years before it kicked in.’
‘Grandpa Thomas is fun,’ the boy said. ‘We go on nighttime runs when we can’t go see the pack.’
‘Anything to tire the boy out,’ Julia said, wearily. ‘He’s a good boy, but it’s like he’s made of energy.’
Ernesto ran back to his mother and tugged on her hand. She leaned down, and he whispered to her in that way kids have that’s not remotely discreet.
‘Mom, the park’s just over there, can I change and play with Jude? I never get to be a wolf in the day in normal places, and everyone knows now.’
‘I don’t know, it’s a bit early, still. We don’t know what people will do,’ she said.
‘We could keep an eye on them,’ Haley offered. ‘I don’t see anyone messing with Jude, and if they do, I doubt they’ll keep it up if I change too. And I’m sure our vampire friend here has some tricks, too.’
‘I can do the hypnosis thing,’ Ryan admitted, blushing, ‘but only one person at a time. I’m not very good at it.’
‘Mom, please,’ said Ernesto.
Cadence thought that if the boy was this good at doing puppy dog eyes in human shape, he’d be outright dangerous as a werewolf.
Julia thought for a moment, and then she sighed.
‘I suppose it was always going to happen eventually, and at least we’ve got some friendly faces here. Alright, would you all excuse us for just a moment?’
She looked around, and then slipped away into an alley with Ernesto.
A minute later she came back out with one of her shopping bags looking quite a bit more full, and was followed after a few seconds by a much smaller wolf monster sprinting out of the alleyway and attempting to tackle Jude.
…
I’ve spent more hours than I ever thought I would around werewolves at this point. They’re all muscle, fur, and shaggy hair; horror movie teeth and claws… If you don’t know them you could think they’re a little intimidating. Alright, more than a little intimidating if you’re on their bad side.
Werewolf puppies on the other hand, well, how do I put this? What came barrelling out of that alley was bigger than I expected, maybe teenager sized, he’d grown proportionately about as much as Jude and Haley do. He definitely bore a resemblance to my friends, but, well… He was fucking adorable. Where the adults are built and muscular, puppies are more, well, puppy like. He hadn’t quite grown into the werewolf build, and still had ears and hands and feet (or paws if you like) that were still too big for him, and his fur was all soft and fluffy.
When he pounced on Jude and they started roughhousing, I gave his mother a look, expecting her to be worried, but she had an expression which just said “boys will be boys”. It turns out werewolves play rough, or at least rough by human standards. But then when you look at wolves or dogs playing it can be much the same way I suppose.
We were only a street or two away from Central Park, so we headed over there to let the dogs off the lead in a manner of speaking. They bombed off immediately and started chasing and fighting with each other.
There was an odd subtlety to it, to watch. At a glance you might think they were trying to kill each other. Pay attention and you see all the signs of two dogs playing. Tails wagging, a wrestled back and forth between them. Whether it was natural or learned, though, Jude was oddly, well, gentle isn’t quite the right word. It seemed like he knew exactly how rough was rough enough to entertain the puppy without actually hurting him.
We found somewhere to sit and keep an eye on them, and we were far from the only people watching the show. At some point someone hoofed a soccer ball over and at that point they were lost for half an hour, playing some hybrid of fetch and soccer with the crowd.
…
‘I think I’m beginning to see what you mean about tiring him out,’ said Cadence.
‘He’s just a fluffy little battery,’ Julia said.
Cadence winced as Ernesto tried to tackle Jude to get the ball from him, and instead got lobbed twenty feet into a bush.
‘Sturdy, too,’ she added. ‘I wouldn’t worry about that. I’ve seen far worse when scuffles break out at pack meetings, it’s just the way they are.’
‘I have no idea how you’ve managed it,’ Cadence said, shaking her head. ‘I mean raising a kid is hard enough, but a werewolf? Especially when you’re not one.’
‘I’d have been even more of a little terror as a kid if I’d been a werewolf back then,’ admitted Haley.
‘It hasn’t always been easy. He’s a good boy, but every kid acts up from time to time, and that’s all the more challenging when he’s as strong as he is and he can wolf out whenever he wants. The pack’s helped a lot, it’s never been just me and my husband on our own. Thank heavens for that.’
‘There’s this whole extra layer of things you have to teach him. That he can’t just change whenever he’s bored and he wants to play. That he has to sit through school all day, and he can’t just do his own thing. The hardest one was teaching him how much stronger and tougher he is than everyone else.’
‘That’s a hard one for a kid to understand. He’s always been this strong, this is natural to him. It took a lot to teach him to dial down his own strength so he didn’t hurt his friends. It’s a lot to ask him. He has to let everyone win when they play games, so he doesn’t make people suspicious or hurt one of the other kids. God, he even had to turn the other cheek when the school bullies picked on him. He can never fight back in case, well, who knows what he could do.’
She broke into a smile.
‘Still, if he decides this is what he really wants, and he goes public, then they won’t dare raise a hand to him again.’
‘Do you think he will? I mean I’ll drop the names out of this if you like, and everyone’s too focused on the boys to have you in focus in any photos,’ said Cadence.
‘I’ll have a talk with his father, see what he thinks. If I give you my number, could you maybe hold the names until then?’
Cadence nodded.
‘As for the big decision, I think in light of what’s happened we’ll have to have something of a talk. Talk in bold letters with a capital b. I know he wants to go public, has since he’s understood how different he was from everyone else. I suspect it’ll be a question of when, more than if. The most I think I’ll be able to convince him is to pick his time carefully. To do it on his terms. He only gets to do it once, after all.’
‘There’s bound to be a big meet-up of the pack some time soon, too. Perhaps we’ll ask them all what they think, too. He trusts them, they’re basically family after all. It’ll be good for him to be able to talk it through with people that have been there, you know?’
‘He’ll be fine,’ Haley said, ‘he’s got you, he’s got the pack. All the advice he could need. And honestly, the best thing I’ve learned about being like this is that if people stop being your friend when they find out you’re a werewolf, they weren’t worth your time in the first place.’
‘Now that’s true,’ Julia agreed. ‘I think he’s picked his little friends well. I doubt he’ll be able to keep it from them for long now all this has happened.’
‘What about you?’ Ryan asked. ‘All this suddenly happening? It’s not like everyone in your position got advance warning.’
Julia shrugged.
‘If he’s happy, I’m happy, and we’ll deal with the rest later. There’ll be a few bumps on the road, I’m sure, but I’ll get him through it. It’s my job. Won’t stop me worrying, though. Every parent worries about their kids. It comes with the territory,’ said Julia. ‘I just have a different set of worries. Ernesto, well, I don’t need to worry about him getting hurt when he’s out playing with his friends or what might happen if he’s out of my sight for five minutes. He’s tough as an old boot, and if he does manage to hurt himself he just laughs it off and by the time it’s healed he’s forgotten all about it. If he roams off in the night he’s just chasing cats, and he’s never getting lost with that nose. I mean if someone tried to grab him I guarantee they’d come off worse.’
‘It’s other things. What if people find out, although I suppose that one’s out now. But what about when he tells his friends? Will he struggle with school or college or work because of what he is? Will he always have the pack, will he be lonely? The only difference now is that I’m throwing a whole new worry on top of that. Yeah, he can go public now, and I’m glad for him. But what about in five years, or ten, or twenty. What if some future government decides to go after monsters?’
‘That’s why we’ve all got to stick together, miss,’ Ryan said. ‘That’s why we’re monsters, and not fifty different subspecies. As long as we stick together, and an attack on one stays an attack on all, then we can keep each other safe. We’ve been watching for a long time. Humanity gave us all the lessons we needed.’
…
Eventually Ernesto was sufficiently played out that his mother could convince him to be led away to make the change back. He came back happy as anything, he’d had a great day after all. Trip out to the city, see some cool things, meet someone famous, get to be a werewolf in broad daylight.
I’m sure the videos were online before we even made it back to the hotel. Werewolves playing in Central Park. Lots of wagging tails and laughing bystanders. As outreach goes, I don’t think that was bad at all.
It makes me think, though, if all this goes well, his generation might be the last that ever has to face this quandary. The last one that had to live in the shadow. By the time the next generation is his age this will all be in the past. One way or another. Call me hopelessly naive, but I kind of like the idea of a future with great big fluffy werewolf puppies.
As for the rest of us we eventually made our way back to the hotel. Ryan to take a shower and, to quote him directly, crash the fuck out, and the werewolves to take full advantage of the open bar. Alright, fine, as soon as I’m done recording this I’ll be joining them.