Then again, I was glad they weren’t left to their own devices.…

I let them ride over to Day’s with us, but Brent was in one of his more sarcastic moods—driving both Ryan and Slade to the brink of punching him in the nose—so I insisted they wait outside while April and I went into the store.

April headed over to the deli to order a couple of sandwiches. I wandered down one of the aisles until I found a stash of PowerBars. Just what I needed to get through this day. I picked up three that sounded the least disgusting and grabbed a bottled iced tea from the refrigerated section.

Brunch of champions, I thought as I got in line at the cash registers with the realization that I’d forgotten to eat this morning. The emptiness in my stomach was so distracting I didn’t pay much attention to anything, until I heard Mr. Day ask the customer in front of me what he planned on doing about all that howling last night.

My head snapped up, and I realized that I was standing behind none other than Deputy Marsh. Pretty much my least-favorite person in town—and the last person I wanted doing something about Daniel’s howling.

“Few of the guys from the lodge are itching to get a hunting party together,” Marsh said as he handed a pastrami sandwich and a prepackaged protein shake over to Mr. Day to ring up. “That howling can’t mean anything good coming our way, not with this town’s history. And it looks like we already have a victim on our hands.”

“Who?” Mr. Day asked, with no incredulity evident in his voice. I could tell by the look on his face that he was thinking about his granddaughter Jessica, who had supposedly been a victim of one of this town’s infamous wild-dog attacks almost a year ago.

“Just got word that the doctors over at City Hospital are saying that Pete Bradshaw kid was attacked by an animal rather than a person, like we first thought. There are bite marks to prove it. The kid’s still unconscious, but he’s stable. I’m eager to find out what he knows.”

Part of me had wanted to sigh audibly after hearing that Daniel would no longer be a suspect in the Pete Bradshaw case—Deputy Marsh had jumped to the assumption that Daniel was gunning to take down Pete for what he did to me last December—but I almost dropped my grocery basket because of what Mr. Day did next.

“If you get a hunting party together, I’ll supply the ammunition,” Mr. Day said, and pulled a small box out from under the counter and set it in front of Marsh. I squinted at the writing on the box. Most of it looked like words written in a foreign language, but there was one line in English that said: handcrafted silver bullets. “Special ordered these from a guy in Romania.”

Deputy Marsh chuckled uneasily as he picked up the package. “Silver bullets? What kind of wolf do you think we’d be hunting?”

“You can never be too careful,” Mr. Day said, his tone dead serious. He’d been a believer in the Markham Street Monster ever since his granddaughter’s body had been discovered, mauled and mutilated, in the Dumpster behind his store. I should have known it wouldn’t take long for someone like him to put two and two together and realize that the monster had to be a werewolf.

“You’re a crazy old coot, Day, but I won’t go passing up an offer for free amo.”

I was about to protest when Michelle Evans, who was buying a five-pound bag of dog food from Stacey Canova at the next register, spoke up before me. “You can’t just go shooting wolves.” She gave Deputy Marsh the evil eye. “They may have been removed from the endangered species list, but you still need to apply for a permit.”

“We did, ma’am.” Deputy Marsh tipped his hat to her. “One more attack and Fish and Wildlife Services will expedite a permit—and then I’m going hunting.”

I watched with horror as Deputy Marsh tucked the box of silver bullets into his jacket pocket and sauntered away. It took Mr. Day asking three times before I realized I was next in line. “How’s Daniel feeling?” he asked as I stepped up to the counter.

“Still the same,” I mumbled. If only Mr. Day knew his favorite employee was the one he was endangering with those silver bullets. But Deputy Marsh had always hated Daniel, so the truth would probably put Daniel even more at risk.

“We sure do miss him around here.”

“Me, too,” I said.

April was still waiting at the deli counter, so I paid for my stuff and went out in front of the store before anyone could notice just how badly my hands shook.

Silver bullets. Hunters after Daniel was bad enough, but ones equipped with weapons that could actually kill him…

The boys were gathered near a tree at the far end of the parking lot. Ryan and Brent were engaged in some sort of wrestling match, with Zach egging them on. Slade held a cigarette to his lips and took a deep drag. I watched as Deputy Marsh veered from heading to his patrol truck and started to make a beeline toward them. No doubt thinking he was going to bust a gang of truant kids from the public school in Oak Park. “No loitering,” he shouted.

“They’re my cousins,” I said as I passed him. “Visiting from … Michigan. They’re on fall break. I’ll tell them to go somewhere else.”

Marsh looked at me with narrowed eyes. “Whatever. I’m on my lunch break,” he said, and headed back toward his car.

“Put it out,” I said to Slade as I came up to the guys. Brent dropped his sleeper hold on Ryan when he saw me.

Slade gave me a snide look.

“I said put it out!”

I grabbed the cigarette from his lips and flung it to the ground, then stomped it out with my foot. Slade growled as if he wanted to lunge at me, but the other three boys stepped in between us.

“We’ve got more important things to do than for you guys to be hanging around getting hassled by the police. That very deputy is looking to get a wolf-hunting party together—with silver bullets! That means all of you are in danger, and Daniel, too. Which means I need all of you to head over to the warehouse to help my dad look for a moonstone. Now!” I should have told Dad to take all of them in the first place, not just Marcos. But if they went quickly, they’d get there in time to help out. Dad said he and Talbot wouldn’t be able to go out there until lunchtime.

Slade gave me an indignant sneer, but Zach and Ryan bowed their heads to acknowledge the order. Brent grabbed my arm.

“The Shadow Kings’ warehouse? We can’t go back there!” he said, his voice sounding more urgent than I’d ever heard it. Not a hint of humor.