Grampire stops walking at the edge the pond. Frogs croak and bugs hum at her feet, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She tucks the dirty cushion under her arm like a sword and turns to me. “I have a challenge for you.”

  “Okay…” my voice is wary. Grampire is such a wild card. I’m low key terrified of what she has planned.

  Grampire grins, which makes me feel a little worse. “I need you to find something for me.”

  My ears perk up. That doesn’t sound too hard. Not to brag, but my nose is excellent. “Like what?”

  “I’ll describe it for you. It’s a box, and it has a surprise in it.”

  “What kind of surprise?”

  Grampire just looks at me reproachfully. Right, okay, a literal surprise then.

  “What’s the box made of?”

  “Wood.”

  “And did you have it recently?”

  Grampire nods. “Had it just an hour ago.”

  Okay…! I lift my snout into the air. I take a deep breath, breathing in everything around me. My brain floods with information—water, plants, mud, Grampire next to me, summer air, waterfowl, eggs, insects…and the faintest whiff of wood. I zero in on that smell, and my nose pinpoints several pieces of wood nearby. Wood paired with metal, rotten wood, living wood on trees. I keep searching, nose twitching, until I find wood paired with a distinctive sickly-sweet smell of death. Grampire’s scent.

  I get to my feet and trot in the direction of the smell. It’s fairly far away, back toward the house. No wonder she brought me all the way out here.

  “You on the trail?” Grampire asks. She’s right behind me, keeping pace.

  “Of course I am. My nose is really good, like best in the family.”

  “Oh, good.” Grampire moves suddenly; she passes me and steps in my path. I stop, uncertain.

  “What’re you doing?”

  “Getting in your way,” Grampire says casually.

  I don’t move. That bad feeling is back in full force.

  Grampire, however, seems delighted. She puts one hand on her hip, red eyes glowing bright in the dark. “The path to getting rid of that death mark won’t be easy. Lots of people, monsters, things we ain’t even thought of will try to stop you from reaching your objective.”

  “But not you, right?” I say hopefully.

  “No. But I’m pretendin’ to be an enemy.” Grampire smiles smugly at me. “Imagine I’m a wild boar. What do you do first?”

  “Run away, because wild boar are very dangerous.” One chased Lacey for almost a mile because she wasn’t paying attention and got close to its babies. She has a nasty scar on her flank even today.

  Grampire narrows her eyes. “Wrong.” And she slams her cushion down on my head.

  I scream before it makes impact, but it doesn’t hurt. She’s holding way back. But I gape at her, the wet, muddy cushion lying limply on my head. “What’d you do that for?! Now I’m all gross, ugh. And I’m not wrong! You shouldn’t fight wild boar, they’ll gore you!”

  Grampire doesn’t seem sympathetic. In fact, she looks bored. “We just went over what you should do. Eyes, throat, belly, genitals. Every time you wimp out, I’m gonna whack you.”

  This is the second worst day of my life. I grit my teeth and resume the scent trail, trying to contain my frustration. Grampire follows me easily. To my horror, she keeps talking.

  “Let’s say we pissed off a troll. What do you do?”

  “Answer his riddles to the best of my ability?”

  Whack.

  “A firebird’s coming after ya. What now?”

  “Duck and cover?”

  Whack.

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  “A hostile werewolf?”

  “Determine which pack they’re from and begin friendly negotiations—”

  Whack.

  “What about a regular human? No magic abilities, but they do have a knife.”

  I press my muddy ears to my head. This is the worst of them all. Attacking a human is like playing Russian roulette, but all the bullet chambers are full. They’re the ultimate pack hunters, the rulers of this world. The only reason supernatural creatures are alive is because we’ve either made a deal with their leaders or they don’t know we exist. Werewolves are in the latter category, so attacking a human and risking exposing my pack would be the worst decision in the world. Plus, I like them on an individual level. I go to human school here, so I wouldn’t want to accidentally hurt someone related to my friends.

  “I would pretend to be a lost dog. Humans love dogs.”

  Grampire considers this. She scratches her chin absently. “Actually, yeah, good plan. But then he attacks you and stabs you clean through the heart while you’re groveling. Wrong.”

  Whack.

  I narrow my eyes, tamping down the festering rage building in my chest. It’s a foreign feeling, but my lip raises a few centimeters on my right side. I’ve never wanted to bite someone as much as I do right now.

  I arrive at the back porch again, covered in mud and disgusting grime. The smell of the wooden box mixed with Grampire’s scent is strongest here. I lift my head and follow the scent to a nondescript silver trash can sitting on the edge of the porch, hugging the house.

  “If I get your stupid box, can this be over?”

  Grampire grins, exposing her sharp fangs. “Sure. If you can get it.”

  The hair lining my spine stands at attention. I do not like that sentence. “What do you mean if I can—”

  The can rattles ominously, cutting me off. Slowly, the lid of the can lifts, revealing two close-set gleaming eyes. It raises further to reveal a small pointed snout and a mouth open to reveal razor sharp little teeth.

  Grampire gestures at the can. “The box is at the bottom of the trash can. But this little gremlin won’t like you poking around in its territory.”

  The lid slams to the ground and a massive raccoon scurries out of it and to the ground. It arches its back like a cat and hisses at me. I back up, but suddenly Grampire is right behind me, blocking the way. She smiles down at me as I look up in horror.

  “Knock ‘em dead, kid.”

  I don’t get to reply, because the raccoon launches itself at me and buries its sharp little fangs into my left foreleg.

  “Aaaahhh!!!” Adrenaline pours into my system as I writhe in pain and panic. I flail my leg, the needle-teeth making my eyes water.

  “Eyes!” Grampire calls. “Go for the eyes first!”

  The raccoon acts like it can understand Grampire because it goes for my eyes, its sharp claws raking over my left one. I howl, half blind, and roll on the ground to get it off my leg. My body crushes it into the dirt, but not for long—it scrambles out from under me and launches itself at my side.

  “Defense!” Grampire bellows. “Protect your vitals!”

  I roll to shield my stomach, but the raccoon manages to chomp its horrible little teeth into my side instead. I let out an awful noise, somewhere between a groan and a scream.

  “Little shit’s doing better than you,” Grampire mutters.

  I start to beg Grampire to stop this horrible experiment, but the raccoon isn’t giving up. It changes direction and scrambles up my back. Its disgusting little hands grabs my neck. The raccoon chomps down, right over the spot where Uncle Alder bit me. All at once, I’m transported back to that night, his teeth squeezing me, shaking me to death.

  I don’t know what happens. I’m screaming and writhing and running as fast as I can. I have to get away, I have to get away, I have to—

  My head collides with something hard and solid. I’m thrown backward from the force, and I stagger until I’m on my back, staring at the night sky through a haze of blood in one eye. The raccoon chitters at me and flees, disappearing up the wall of the bed and breakfast and onto the roof. Oh. I think I ran into the side of the house.

  Grampire’s face appears in my field of vision. She shakes her head slowly.

  “Well. That was pathetic.”

  I blink angry tears from my eyes. The panic is gone and I’m just humiliated. She hits me with a filthy cushion, she sends me on a wild goose chase, and then she sics her attack raccoon on me! I get to my feet, sniffling, but finally mad.

  “This isn’t fair! This training sucks, and you never even asked me if I wanted to fight!” I feel my fur bristling, my lungs expanding, a rage building in my chest. “You just sleep all day and night while I’m trying to help you clean your yard, and this is what I get?” My ears fly back and something strange is going on with my body…it’s like parts go numb. My paws feel strange, tingling and lifting a few centimeters off the porch. My nose scrunches from the discomfort, but I can’t focus on it. All the pain from the raccoon’s claws disappears and turns to hot anger. “And after all that, after I play your games, you call me pathetic?!” A terrible noise rumbles close to my ears, loud and low. It takes me a full three seconds to recognize it.

  Growling.

  It’s coming from me.

  Grampire drops to my eye level, her forearms resting on her knees. Her expression is calm, but her red eyes gleam brightly in the inky dark. “You growling at me, little girl?”

  All the fight winks out of me. I gasp in horror—I am growling at Grampire. I’m so stupid for showing aggression to someone so much stronger than me, but I’m also acting like a horrible little brat. After all she’s done for me, protecting me from Uncle Alder and the Wizard, letting me sleep on her rug for free, and I’m disrespecting her? I was humiliated, but now shame threatens to drown me. Even the smallest puppy knows better than to growl at its mother. And I’ve showed my teeth to a vampire nicknamed the Bonecrusher.

  She’s right. I need a lot more training.

  I lower myself to my belly and avert my eyes. My ears remain pressed to my skull, but it’s in shame instead of anger. “Oh goddess, I’m so sorry, Grampire. I don’t know what came over me.”

  “It’s fine—”

  “No, it isn’t!” It’s hard to see Grampire through the misty tears. I cover my eyes with my paws. “I’m so ashamed. You’re only trying to help me and I growled at you! You’re right, I am pathetic.”

  “I never said—”

  I can’t stand to listen to one more sentence. I can’t be here anymore. I slink to my feet and take off, shouting apologies over my shoulder. Grampire calls to me, but I flee, trying my best not to let Grampire see me cry.