Wendy pondered the possibilities. She hadn’t filed any reports that could be considered unusual, other than the request for time off. She had been fastidious in covering her tracks, so there should be no reason for her boss to be suspicious. All the same though….
What am I doing, she asked herself?
Was she an FBI agent or a werewolf first?
Wendy shrugged. Well, her FBI career could end with a change in administration; she would always be a werewolf – her mind reeled giddily with that thought. And since she had taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States, which protected the rights of US citizens, she would use her wits to support her sisters.
“All right girls. Let’s play a little spy game, shall we? Let’s assume that I’m being followed.
Over two sizable bowls of rocky road ice cream, Dita and Heather pondered their futures. “So Dita, if this turns out to be true, I guess you can’t have much of a military career, can you?”
Dita nodded. The thought had occurred to her as she was heading up to her room to bawl her eyes out, “I’ll ask around,” she said, “but I doubt that the Air Force could accommodate me being absent around every full moon. Still, I’d hate to throw away all the work that Senator Lugar did in nominating me. What about you?”
Heather considered this. She didn’t have any earth shattering plans like Dita did, mostly wanting to get into the best college she could and going on to law school. “I guess my plans wouldn’t change all that much, but…Dita, it’s not that my plans are going to change…it’s the possibility that -I- might have to. Doesn’t that freak you out too, that we might possibly become WOILDLOIF?” She said the last word in an exaggerated but fairly accurate Australian accent.
Dita picked up on this. “Tha’s all righ’, yer still me best mate Heath,” she reverted back to her usual Midwestern twang. “It scares the hell out of me Heather,” Dita said, her pupils dilating slightly. Realization made her glance up. “It’s gonna HURT, isn’t it?” Heather winced, “Mom told me that it ‘wasn’t really painful,’ just ‘intense.’” Dita laughed humorlessly. “RIGHT…and when you go to the dentist, they never say it’s PAIN, just ‘pressure.’”
They sat silently, digesting this thought.
Dita smiled, “you know, until you mentioned it, I never even thought that we’d have to outlive all our friends. Should we make a list of people to bite?” Heather was appalled. “Dita, we can’t IMPOSE this on anyone!!”
Dita nodded. “You’re right, I was kidding…but I shouldn’t have. Want to walk to the video store?”
“Sure, but lets tell our moms.”
Debra rested in Lisa’s arms, her head on her shoulder. “Sooooo, where do you think would be a good place to go for our little girls’ big event?”
Debra considered this. Money was no object, not for this. “Well, is Wendy going to be there?” Lisa shook her head. “Wendy wanted to go back home to be with her parents and her baby brother. She wanted to be with us, but since she wanted to keep her cover with the FBI, she had to be with her parents.”
This shocked Debra. “Eff Bee Eye,” she asked in amazement.
Lisa giggled. “Yep, they are continuing to keep an eye on our little group. They had Wendy apply to the gym. I hired her and saw that she was a fighter. No bull, she was a weapons officer in the Navy before she joined the Feds. Anyway, I took her to lunch with Heather and Dita, took her home, showed her what we were all about, and she officially accepted the gift this morning. She’ll let us know what the FBI is planning as much as possible.”
An idea occurred to Debra. “Lisa…what is the jurisdiction of the FBI?”
“…The United States, why?”
“You wanted to know where we should go. The FBI can’t really keep an eye on us if we decided to take a weeks vacation to…oh, maybe EUROPE , now could they?”
Lisa’s eyes brightened. “Ah ye olde traditional werewolf experience for our girls then, is it? Got your passport?”
Debra scoffed. “My family is in Canada, and I DO like to see them from time to time. Of COURSE I have a passport. And you and the Deet went to Mexico last year, right?”
Lisa nodded. “I think we’re getting a plan together.”
There was a knock on the door.
“Come in!”
Dita came in smiling. “Mom, Heather and I are going to walk over to the video store.”
“Sure honey. Tell you what,” she pulled two twenty-dollar bills out of her purse. “Get some Europe travel videos while you’re there.”
“Dita, how IS my daughter?”
Dita smiled. “It’s amazing what a bowl of ice cream does for your mood. We’re both okay but I think we’re suffering from mild shock. Mom…I forgot to ask you something.”
“Yes dear?”
“Mom…does it hurt?”
Lisa stroked her daughter’s forearm. “Dita, it’s an experience that words can’t do justice, but I could never call the sensations ‘pain’.”
This satisfied Dita somewhat. Well, at least she probably wouldn’t be screaming in agony. “Okay, so other than Europe, can we get you anything else?”
“Just you two be careful, honey.” “Sure Mom, see ya!”
Dan drove his car to Beaumont Park, a lightly forested area on the north side of town. Dan checked the Desert Eagle he carried, eight rounds of silver .357 Magnum ammunition. The bolt clicked home with a satisfying clack as the first round was chambered. Stuffing the pistol under his jacket, he picked up Wendy’s gift and walked over to the picnic tables.
At 2326, Dan saw the lights of Wendy’s Mustang pull up and park. Wendy smiled in greeting to him.
“Dan, good to see you again, Chief, what’s going on?”
“Miss Patel, I just needed to go over some things with you in person and in private. Look, you’ve been doing a great job so far, but I wanted to make sure that you’re getting everything you need. Did you have anything you wanted to add to your last reports?”
Wendy frowned, shaking her head. “Dan, I think I covered everything. Oh, I went to lunch with our subject on Thursday. We picked up her daughter and Heather Peters.”
“Did you discuss anything unusual?”
Wendy answered, “No, just the typical conversation between a mother and her daughters. They were both pretty interested in me.”
Dan raised his eyebrows. “Any possibility that you blew your cover.”
Oh shit, thought Wendy. She wasn’t about to lie to her boss asking a direct question. “Chief, I think there might be some suspicions, but as far as I can tell they otherwise accept me.”
Dan nodded, approvingly. “That’s a good answer, you can never be sure that somebody hasn’t been watching you. You’ve been with the Agency for how long now?”
“Two years.”
“And you’re twenty-eight?” Wendy nodded affirmatively. Where was this going?
“Well Wendy, I wanted to be the one to give you the FBI’s little token of appreciation. It’s not much, just a wristwatch, but I had hoped it might be significant to you. I’ve grown to appreciate your service, Agent Patel.”
Wendy beamed. She accepted the gift box, opening it. She lifted up the watch, a small woman’s analog wristwatch. “Dan, are these diamonds in the face,” she asked as she snapped the silver elastic band around her wrist. Her wrist began to feel extremely warm, uncomfortably so.
“Ow!” exclaimed Wendy, feeling a distinct burning sensation.
Pretending to pay her no mind, Dan answered. “I think they night be zirconium, but you…Wendy are you all right,” he asked, grabbing her forearm. He could barely make out a slight burn mark against her mocha skin.
“Dan, I think there might have been some residual acid on that watch!” Dan shrugged. “That could be a possibility, but I think the fact that it is 92% silver has more to do with it. Siddown Patel!” Dan whipped out his pistol pointing it at his fellow agent
Wendy did just that, her heart pounding.
“Wendy, did I ever tell you about my wife?” She shook her head. “I was working my first lycanthrope case. New Mexico, they called me in about some rogue werewolf…’skinwalker’ the Navajo called it out there. Well, to keep things short, before that case was over, I lost three agents to that rogue, and I saw that monster rip the throat out of my wife right in front of me. Now stand your ass up.”
She obeyed.
Dan laughed mirthlessly. “Funny isn’t it? The first werewolf I meet is an Indian. So is the first one I’ll kill.” He aimed the pistol at Wendy’s chest, center mass as trained.
He disengaged the safety. “DAN!!!” Wendy screamed.
Dan fired, five times, each bullet slamming into Wendy’s chest, her body flying back from the force of the blows, then falling back, trembling slightly then going motionless.
Dan failed to notice the lights of the Vanderburgh County Sheriff's car come on behind him.
“But I did tell you so, you schmuck.”
Lisa giggled. She’d forgotten how good this movie was, as she watched it with her daughter, her friend, and HER daughter. She of course pointed out the errors made by the producers, and ensured the girls that they would not be suffering as they changed, besides it would take them at least five minutes, not a minute thirty.
The phone rang. Lisa reached behind her to pick it up. “Hello?” she asked.
“Hey Solange, yeah we got the girls here.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh my God…”