Chapter 2 - Arcana and Augury

The next morning came too quickly, as it always did. Julian groaned, lifting his head at the sound of his phone buzzing angrily. He rolled over groggily across the bed, his hand reaching out to grab the offending device and lifting the screen up so he could see.

Julian tossed his phone beside him onto the bed, groaning and rubbing his hands across his face. Sunlight streamed through the crack of his curtains, illuminating the bedroom of his apartment. It wasn't the nicest in the world, but Julian had seen far shittier in this city. It had more than one room, at least.

He sat up, swung his legs out of bed, and padded into the bathroom wearing only his boxers. He glanced at himself in the mirror and sighed at how bedraggled and exhausted he looked. His dark brown hair was well past stylishly messy and over the line into just plain messy, and he hadn't shaved in a few too many days. Not to mention the various scars that dotted his torso, most of them reminders of how sharp werewolf claws could be. He turned on the water in the shower and exhaled, rolling his shoulders as he waited for the water to heat up.

A quick shower later, Julian ran a comb through his hair, pulled on a button up blue shirt, a pair of black pants, and the brown leather jacket he wore all the time. Abigail teased him about it constantly, but he'd had the thing for years and didn't plan on stopping wearing it any time soon. Julian stuffed his phone in his pocket, tucked his gun into the back of his pants, and made his way down the staircase of his apartment building. It was a bit of a dated building, but all the important stuff worked fine and Julian didn't spend much time sitting at home anyway.

He nodded at the old lady who was sitting outside her door on the second story landing, then kept headed down and made his way out of the building and onto the street. As for his car... he loved his car, a whole lot more than he loved his apartment. It was a gift from his dad, basically the only thing he had from his dad, actually. Werewolves, especially the kind of werewolf his dad had been, didn't tend to live long, happy lives. His dad had died when he was 12, but he'd made sure that his 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass had made his way to him when he turned 16. He'd been a nervous wreck the first couple times he'd driven it, worried he'd crash the only gift he had from his father, but now he and the Cutlass had been through some shit together. She was a beautiful hunter green color, and Julian loved cruising around the city in her.

He opened the driver door and slid down onto the bench seat, closing the door as he stuffed the key in the ignition and twisted it. The Cutlass thrummed to life, and Julian fished into his pocket for his phone, typing in the address he'd gotten from Colin last night. The GPS found it right away, and Julian was surprised to see it was a palm reading and mysticism shop. The kind of ketchy place that real supernaturals usually stayed far away from. No wonder Julian didn't know the Scott couple if they worked in a place like that. He tossed his phone into the cupholder and glanced in the side mirror before pulling out into the street.

The Scotts' place was north, up in the trendier areas of the city, and Julian imagined they ensnared quite a few tourists who didn't expect to come face to face with real magic. Of course, they could be doing something completely innocuous with their mysticism shop, but... Julian tended to assume the worst. The traffic was pretty bad, like always, but he managed to get to the shop without too much difficulty. He pulled over to the side of the road and climbed out, looking reflexively up and down the street. It was bustling at this time, almost eleven in the morning, and Julian swung the Cutlass' door shut as he laid eyes on the Scotts' shop.

Arcana Augurum, a needlessly hard name to pronounce, was a shop with big window displays of... he didn't even know what half of that shit was. There were big antiquated books in the window displays, some stacked, others with items like crystals or charms displayed on little stands resting on the cover of the books. A huge cauldron bubbled out steam lit up by LEDs, and a mannequin was displaying some strange witch-like attire. Julian resisted the urge to roll his eyes, but only just barely. He walked in the door and a little bell jangled as he cast his gaze around the inside of the shop. One wall was lined with a bunch of books, most of them elaborate tomes. Another wall had a shelf of little vials and baggies filled with various herbs and stones and whatever else passed as magical these days.

Circular tables dotted the main area of the store, and those were piled high with a bunch of vaguely mystical things. Maybe the plan was to put so many random items together that nobody looked too hard at the individual junk being peddled. Julian looked down at one table and saw a display of tarot cards laid out, with a bunch of boxed up sets piled around the display. He brushed past the tarot cards and another table with chalices laid out alongside jewelry and candles, then squeezed past a couple of teenagers poring over some kind of Wiccan texts, and he approached the front desk.

"How can we help you today at the Arcana Augurum?" the girl at the front desk purred, holding up her hands loftily. She was 24 or so, a gorgeous Middle Eastern woman with glossy black hair. Her skin was the color of cinnamon and glitter flecked her cheeks. She wore kohl eyeliner, probably to complete the whole look she had going on, which was... interesting, to say the least. She wore a very strappy black leather crop top that had no troubles accentuating her impressive breasts. Her flawless toned stomach was fully displayed, the crop top only coming down to maybe halfway down her ribcage, and her navel glittered with a blue jewel. On her lower half she wore thigh high fishnet stockings and a black miniskirt with red stitching along the hem.

"I'm looking for Romero Scott." Julian said, making a conscious effort to not glance down at her absolutely insane cleavage. Despite not looking directly at it though, he could tell she'd dusted some of her purple glitter along the slopes of her cinnamon breasts.

"Oh, the boss is in the back. What do you need him for?" the girl asked, eyes narrowing.

"Uh... Colin sent me. He's a friend of Mr. Scott's, I think." Julian said uncertainly. Thankfully, the girl seemed to recognize the name.

"It's daytime." she noted, her golden-flecked brown eyes flicking towards the window.

"We're not that close." Julian shrugged, making the girl smirk.

"Fair enough. Hey, Mero!" she called over her shoulder, and just a few moments later, a man poked his head through some purple velvet curtains that Julian had thought were just covering up a wall.

"Something wrong?" the man asked, and the girl pointed at Julian with her thumb over her shoulder.

"Colin's friend is here, apparently." she shrugged.

"A friend of Colin's?" Romero Scott's brow furrowed. "Come on back."

The Middle Eastern girl waved Julian through, and he muttered a thanks as he walked past her and through the velvet curtains. The curtains led into an absolute mess of a workshop, a couple of long tables covered with books and jars and bottles and gemstones and all sorts of weird shit. A little wooden staircase led up and away in the corner of the room, and a huge ornate armoire dominated the far wall, but it was closed.

Romero Scott was stood there waiting for him, and Julian took in the man's appearance. He had a slightly eccentric look to him, wearing a button up vest that had a pattern not unlike some rugs that Julian had seen in bargain bins. Beneath the vest he wore a white shirt with a high ruffled collar and voluminous sleeves. His pants were brown and thankfully pretty normal, albeit quite tight, and they were tucked into a pair of boots. He had frizzy graying brown hair, and looked to be in his late forties or so. He looked not unlike someone's idea of a 1800s poet, and he definitely didn't scream powerful supernatural to Julian, but he knew all too well that appearances could be deceiving in this world.

"So, what can I help you with?" Romero asked, his fingers idly lacing and unlacing. He had a British accent, but it was flavored here and there with American influence, like he'd been here a long time.

"Colin and I are looking for his sister, Corinne." Julian explained, pulling out his badge. "I'm Detective Julian Anderson, and we're worried that Corinne's disappearance might have something to do with a case I'm working on."

"The murders, I trust?" Romero asked, raising his eyebrows.

"You know about those?" Julian asked in surprise as Romero bustled over to one of his cluttered tables. He scooched some books aside and came up with a handful of printed out crime scene photos.

"I take interest in the supernatural denizens of Los Angeles, and when they start showing up murdered, I especially take notice of that." Romero frowned, looking over the photos again. "Do the LAPD know that they are working alongside a werewolf?"

"No, they do not." Julian said, looking at the man with renewed interest. Werewolves were one of the tougher supernaturals to identify by sight, unless they were sporting some lupine features at the time, of course.

"And have you learned anything?" Romero asked, arching an eyebrow. Julian pulled out his paper, and once again unfolded it.

"Not much. There's these runes on the palms of all the victims, runes that human eyes and cameras don't pick up." Julian said, nodding his head towards the photos in Romero's hand. Romero let them fall to the ground thoughtlessly as he snatched the paper from Julian's hand.

"You have been unable to identify the runes, I presume?" Romero said, his attention solely focused on them, his mouth working noiselessly once he finished talking.

"I've brought it to all the witches and warlocks I know." Julian shrugged. "None of them knew anything about them."

"Well, Detective, you should have brought them right to me." Romero said, looking up at Julian.

"You know what they are?" Julian exclaimed, stunned.

Romero opened his mouth to respond, but the front desk girl came stalking through the curtain, putting her hands on her curvaceous hips.

"Alright, what's the deal with the werewolf?" she demanded, and it took Julian a second to recognize her accent had changed, becoming much more Arabic than she had been at the desk. It wasn't thick enough to be hard to understand her or anything, but the difference was noticeable.

"I'm here investigating murders." Julian explained. "Detective Julian Anderson."

The girl looked at him skeptically, then nodded slowly. "I'm Inara."

"And like I was saying before my assistant's interruption, yes, I do know what these symbols are." Romero said loudly, clearing his throat. "They're a very very old language that was once believed to be the native tongue of demons."

"Demons?" Julian asked disbelievingly.

"Yes, well, they were wrong, of course. This made-up language was called Abysstongue, and several occultists since have been trying to use it in their rituals. It's a false language though, it doesn't do anything." Romero explained.

"But it's obviously magical somehow if humans and camera lenses can't pick up on it." Julian pointed out.

"Well, that could be as simple as what the runes were written with." Romero shrugged. "Invisible ink, enchanted blood, any number of things."

"Do the runes at least mean something?" Julian sighed.

"Yes, they do. Well, they mean something in a made-up language, at least." Romero chuckled. "This one here, the one that's got all these sharp angles, I think it's supposed to represent 'harvest.' There's some extra bits tacked onto the symbol, but I recognize the central shape."

"Harvest..." Julian mused, looking at the rune that Romero had indicated, the left palm rune.

"And the other?" Inara asked, scooting in to look at the paper in Romero's hand. She smelled like some kind of herb or flower, Julian thought, but Romero responded and he turned his attention away from her.

"This one's much trickier. It might be... gift? No, no, that part there is almost certainly the symbol for repayment." Romero muttered to himself.

"How does this language work, exactly?" Julian muttered.

"Abysstongue starts off with a strong central shape, and then you sort of... add on bits." Romero said, waving his hands about.

"Very helpful, thank you." Julian muttered.

"It is a made up language, after all." Inara pointed out. "It's no wonder it makes no sense."

"And what's your deal, exactly?" Julian asked, looking towards the buxom Arabic girl.

She shrugged. "I work the front desk."

"But also know all about this stuff?" Julian waved a hand.

"Well, I do work here, you know." she said with a raised eyebrow.

"Inara is a djinn." Romero interceded. "She's been my wife and I's assistant for... two decades now?"

"Something like that." Inara agreed.

"Wait, you're a genie?" Julian asked in surprise.

"Did he say I'm a fucking genie?" Inara demanded. "No, I'm a djinn. I don't live in a little fucking lamp, and no, I don't grant wishes if you rub me the right way. I hate that damn song."

"OK, well, pretend I know nothing about djinn then." Julian said.

Inara rolled her eyes. "Djinn specialize in dream magic. That's where the granting wishes myths come from, the good dreams we provide. Or bad dreams, if you piss us off."

She wiggled her fingers pointedly at Julian, her rings clinking together.

"Djinn are also very long-lived, which means she has wealths of magical knowledge to draw upon, much like myself." Romero explained.

"Yeah, and what are you exactly? Warlock?" Julian guessed.

"No, no, I'm an enchanter." Romero waved his hand. "I enchant and my wife is a seer."

"Enchanter?" Julian frowned. "I've never heard of those before."

"Not exactly breaking news for you to not know something, is it?" Inara snarked, folding her arms beneath her tits.

"Enchanters can't wave their hands and do magic like warlocks or witches can." Romero explained like Inara hadn't said anything. "We imbue objects with magical properties, which is a time consuming process, but it means that with preparation, enchanters can be quite fearsome."

"That's what you did for Colin and Corinne." Julian realized. "You gave them some kind of enchanted charm."

"Correct." Romero nodded. "Another benefit of your coming here, one you might not even have known about-"

"He definitely didn't." Inara piped up, but Romero continued without pause.

"-is that I have a sort of link with my charms, meaning that if Corinne is still wearing hers, then-"

"You can find her!" Julian exclaimed.

"Perhaps." Romero smiled. "I can help you locate her charm, but there is always the chance it is just sitting on her nightstand or the like."

"It's better than nothing." Julian said, shaking his head. "Can you do this now?"

"No, I'm afraid not. I am in the middle of an enchantment, and this is not one you can simply cut off." Romero apologized.

"You're actively enchanting something?" Julian asked in surprise, and Romero nodded.

"Yes, my lair is full of enchanting properties so that I can move about my workshop freely without disturbing the enchanting. I just have to keep close to it and keep part of my focus on it." Romero explained. "But come back around dinner time, and I will be able to help you."

"Dinner time for him is like 4 o'clock." Inara smirked. "He's like 600 years old."

Julian's mouth fell open, and Romero gave a sheepish shrug. "Enchantments for avoiding aging are not very difficult."

"Al...right then." Julian said, blinking a couple times. "I'll be back at, what, 4:30 then?"

"Sounds perfect. Inara, I'll need you to prepare some of my charms for me." Romero said, and Inara nodded.

"Thank you for the help. I'll see you in a few hours." Julian said gratefully, and hurried out of the workshop. The trip here to this ridiculous little shop had paid off, big time. Colin was a damn lifesaver.

Speaking of... Julian had promised to text with updates.

Julian didn't even make it two steps before the typing bubble appeared.

———

"Must have been quite the lead." Abigail greeted him as he walked up to their desk. They sat opposite each other, though their computer monitors blocked most of the view. His tall blonde desk-buddy was leaned against his desk as he walked up, wearing a snug button up white blouse unbuttoned just enough to show a hint of cleavage from her perky, medium sized breasts.

"I also got lunch." Julian pointed out, hefting his takeout bag of a burger and fries, though at this point, the burger had mysteriously and tragically vanished.

"Any news on your lead?" Abigail asked, standing up straight as Julian dropped into his office chair, setting the takeout bag down on the desk.

"Yeah, it's seeming pretty promising." Julian said truthfully. "I'm gonna find out later today if it's worth anything or just some red herring."

"You know, most detectives I know like to keep people updated with their investigations. You just go all silent and broody for a while and then pull an answer out of your ass." Abigail pointed out. "As for me, well, let me tell you about my investigation, since I'm not a weirdo secretive outcast."

"Yeah, good morning to you too, Abby." Julian chuckled.

"It's past noon." she pointed out with a smile as she grabbed a manila folder off her desk. "I've been looking into our thief Miguel Ortiz, and I can't find a single thing about him prior to last week. No fingerprints in our system, no birth certificate, no friends, no family, all we've got is a single fake ID and a guy who seems to have spontaneously appeared last week."

"Alien?" Julian suggested, and Abigail rolled her eyes in exasperation.

"I just don't get it. They must just be people the killer has access to, Miguel Ortiz totally breaks the 'average person' trend that's been happening with the last four victims."

Nothing about the victims was average, though Abigail of course had no idea about any of that. He'd thought several times about telling her, but it was hard to figure out how to tell people what kind of things lurked in the dark. Supernaturals may be the ones on the chopping block this time, but Julian had investigated plenty of cases where supernaturals were the killer. He didn't know how to bring Abigail into that world safely, and so for now, he figured it was better to leave her in the dark. Maybe one day he'd have no choice but to tell her, but that day wasn't today.

"What about missing people?" Julian suggested like the thought had just occurred to him. "Would there be any way to tell if they were part of this or something unrelated?"

Abigail frowned thoughtfully, but after a minute, she shook her head. "Maybe if there was some kind of pattern we could try and look into it, but I have no clue what the pattern is here."

He'd expected as much, but he figured he'd make sure to plant the idea in her head, in case she ran into any strange missing persons reports. He nodded in sympathy, and realized he was bouncing his leg impatiently. He knew why, he wanted to be out finding Corinne, having to wait until 4 was going to be absolute hell. Julian (and the wolf within him) were impulsive, they wanted to be on their feet doing something. Sitting around waiting to do something was not particularly interesting.

"Julian!" a voice cut through his bored thoughts, and he jolted in surprise to find Abigail glaring. "Why are you always zoning out?"

"Just... a lot on my mind." Julian shook his head.

"Are you doing alright?" she asked worriedly. "A string of five murders would weigh on anybody."

"I'm fine." Julian waved her off. "I just want to make sure there's not a sixth."

"Same." Abigail sighed. "I'm at a loss though, Jules. We have practically nothing to go on. Whoever this guy is, he's fucking good. I hate it."

"What about the time between attacks?" Julian suggested. "Any pattern there?"

"Not one distinguishable from five datapoints." Abigail shook her head. "The time between finding the bodies was completely random, but forensics said they'd all only been dead a couple hours by time the body was found."

"Right... oh, by the way, you have a CCTV guy, right?" Julian raised his eyebrows.

"I know a guy." Abigail said slyly. "But if I help you, you need to tell me what your lead is."

"I'll tell you, but you can't ask me any questions. Deal?" Julian asked, extending his hand.

"Not a single one?" Abigail asked with a pout.

"Nope. Do we have a deal?" Julian said, waggling his hand.

"Fine." Abigail huffed, and she shook his hand.

"Great. I have a missing person who I think could be the next victim." Julian replied.

"What?!" Abigail exclaimed, standing up. "We just said that there's no way to know, how do you possibly have a guess at who it might be?"

"Hey, remember our deal?" Julian asked, and Abigail glowered at him, but she nodded slowly.

"Fine. What footage do you need?"

"I'm trying to see if any camera picked up what happened to her." Julian explained. "It'd be two nights ago, near the Orpheum Theater down on South Broadway."

"Alright, let me make a call. What's the missing person's name?"

"Corinne Parker." Julian told her readily. That part wasn't a secret.

Abigail stepped away to make her call, then came right back to her desk and sat down at her desk. Knowing her, she was determined to figure out how Julian knew Corinne could be the next victim. Unless Corinne had vampire written down somewhere on her Instagram page, he thought that was pretty unlikely.

Julian got to work of his own, though his research was largely centered on Abysstongue. There wasn't a whole lot about it, but everything Romero had told him seemed to be accurate. It had originated a couple hundred years back, around the time of the Black Plague, apparently. It popped up a couple times throughout history, and one appearance Julian thought was quite interesting was Abysstongue symbols appearing in Salem, Massachusetts that damned several women to death for consorting with the devil. Of course, the information on the Internet all had the quite incorrect assumption that the supernatural was fiction, so it didn't have any information about the kind of things Julian really wanted to know.

The runes being fake had thrown a lot of his theories into disarray. His prevailing theory had been someone doing some kind of ritual, but if the runes weren't doing anything, what was the point of them? Were they calling cards? Abysstongue translations seemed to be pretty vague, like it could have multiple meanings. Maybe the killer used those particular symbols as some kind of alias. Harvest and gift, huh? Or repayment, the right hand rune might be. That was another thing, the runes were apparently modified some by the killer, lending some credence to the calling card theory.

"Hey, Julian." Abigail said suddenly after about an hour, and he looked up. "They might have something on CCTV."

Julian's eyebrows rose, and he jumped to his feet. Abigail got up swiftly too, and she led the way over to the tech center of the precinct, which did a lot of work with police bodycams, cybercrimes, and of course, CCTV.

"Hey, Abby." said the tall, pale guy who greeted them.

"Hey, Daniel." she replied with a smile. "What do you have for us?"

"Well, we have Corinne Parker's picture, and she looks pretty different, but I think we got her on the camera." Daniel explained.

Julian and Abigail leaned forwards as Daniel cued up the footage on his curved computer monitor. Sure enough, emerging from the Orpheum Theater's side door while looking deathly pale was Corinne Parker. Julian fished out his phone and snapped a photo of the screen as Corinne headed out of the alley and took a right, headed down the sidewalk.

"Do you have more?" Abigail pressed, and Daniel nodded.

"Oh yeah, we have her on two more cameras." Daniel explained, and he toggled over to the next one as Corinne began walking down the sidewalk. She was moving quickly, but not vampirically swiftly. Just normal human walking speed as she moved down the mostly empty sidewalk. It had been late at night, and compared to the heights of the day, the streets were quite empty. There were a couple of stragglers still walking, including one person in a thick jacket with a hood who was following her.

"Who's that?" Julian asked, pointing at the figure who seemed to be following Corinne. They were the only person on the screen whose face never showed, also an oddity.

"Hmm. I hadn't noticed that guy." Daniel frowned. "We didn't actually get on the cameras what happened to her, but she definitely walked down this sidewalk at that time of night. So we have a where, and now... maybe a who."

"Run through what you have of Corinne real quick, then see if you can track where that guy came from." Julian said urgently, and Daniel did as he was instructed. Sure enough, he had another camera angle of Corinne walking down the sidewalk before she turned at the next street and was lost to the cameras.

Julian began to pace restlessly while Daniel worked on tracking the hooded guy backwards through the cameras.

"I see him on a few of the cameras, but I don't ever see his face, which is insane." Daniel complained.

"Could he know where the cameras are?" Abigail suggested.

"I guess it's possible." Daniel mused. "That's a lot to remember though. We don't even get a partial look at his face, it's always turned away or looking down."

"Did you find a car he got out of, maybe? Or a building?" Julian inquired, but Daniel shook his head.

"CCTV doesn't cover absolutely every angle of everything, this isn't a police state. Some public infrastructure has cameras, some businesses put up cameras and opt in to us being able to monitor them, there's no mandate to have a camera covering every inch of the city." Daniel said apologetically. "I'm sorry I couldn't be more help."

"The previous victims. We didn't have any camera footage of them either, did we?" Julian said suddenly.

"No, all of the bodies were dropped in CCTV dead zones." Abigail shook her head. "That's not crazy on its' own, there's plenty of spots in the city without cameras, but the way he dodged these ones plus the fact we've never gotten any footage of the victims being dropped... he definitely knows a lot about CCTV locations. Or he studies intensely before doing anything."

"So he's smart or he's in the know." Julian mused.

"Could be." Abigail agreed. "Alright, thanks, Daniel. We appreciate it."

She gave his shoulder a squeeze as they walked out, and Julian glanced at her on the way back to their desks.

"Are you stringing the IT guy along?" he joked, and she glared at him.

"No! Daniel and I are just friends, don't be ridiculous." she scoffed.

"Does he know that?" Julian grinned, and Abigail elbowed him.

"Better question, what kind of psychic are you? How do you always find these leads that seem to have no actual logic behind them?" Abigail complained. "All those times you run off to wherever you go, are you just going and consulting your crystal ball?"

"You caught me." Julian rolled his eyes. "I'm actually a prophet, I just think real hard and the answers to murder cases appear in my head."

Abigail studied him like she was actually considering it, and, well, he couldn't blame her for that one. The supernatural world offered a great many advantages, and being able to consult people who could do actual magic did make things easier sometimes. However, it made it vastly more complicated when that magic was used against Julian during investigations. Actually, Julian had seen warlocks who could make CCTV cameras go haywire with a wave of their hand, so maybe that meant the killer wasn't a warlock.

"I don't think you're a prophet, but you're something." Abigail said after a moment's pause. "It's why you never let me ride along on your little errands."

"I just prefer to be alone." Julian protested, but Abigail shook her head.

"Don't try that with me, Jules. I know it's something, and I'm going to figure out what, you mark my words." Abigail said firmly. Unfortunately, Julian didn't doubt her. Very rarely was she unable to figure things out. She was borderline obsessive sometimes, but it was part of what made her such a great detective.

As the pair of detectives returned to their desk, one of the police sergeants came walking briskly up to them. "Detectives, we found a body."

"Another one from our serial killer?" Abigail asked at once, and the sergeant, Liam Rhodes, shook his head.

"Nope. Gunshot wound, it looks like."

"You want this one, Julian?" Abigail raised an eyebrow.

"All you." Julian said with a wave of his hand towards Sergeant Rhodes. "I've got other things going on today."

"Alright, then. Lead the way, Rhodes." Abigail said, and the sergeant nodded and led her off.

Julian exhaled, looking over his shoulder at Abigail's retreating form, his eyes admittedly landing on her generous backside. He quickly looked away though, shaking his head. She was too focused on figuring out what Julian's secret was, and he was going to have to do better about keeping it under wraps. He couldn't let her find out the truth, it would ruin her life. Julian had grown up knowing about the supernatural world and what he was, he couldn't fathom finding out about it in your adult life out of the blue.

Sure, puberty had been a little weird for him when he started getting hairy on full moons, but he'd known to expect it, and he also knew all about what the world held. His mother had driven him out to Angeles National Forest, where he'd spent the full moons with other werewolves, learning to control his abilities and nowadays, he could even stave off full moon transformations with a little effort. Having all of that sprung on him... jeez. That was the case for some werewolves, the ones who were bitten, but Julian was a born werewolf, so he'd not needed to be bitten to turn. He'd been bitten plenty during scraps growing up, but he'd always been a werewolf.

Julian's phone buzzed suddenly, interrupting his thoughts, and he lifted it off the table to check the screen.

Julian put his phone down, smiling, and looked back at his computer monitor. Ellen was one of his oldest friends, he'd known her since he first started getting involved with other werewolves. She'd been about the same age as him, also learning to control the wolf side of her. They'd dated for like two months as teenagers before agreeing they were better off friends. She was pretty much the only werewolf friend Julian had left, and she'd always stuck by his side even while he was feuding with the pack. Julian had never done well there, he was too much of a... well, of a lone wolf.

He had Ellen, he had Abigail, but that was basically it in terms of close friends. And he wasn't sure Abigail even counted considering how much he was hiding from her. Ellen being out and about in the city tonight made Julian nervous, though. If Corinne wasn't the next victim and this all had nothing to do with the serial killer, the killer might still be trying to find his next victim, meaning the supernaturals of the city were all in danger. Julian decided he needed to get Ellen a charm, something from Romero that could be tracked if needed.

Julian picked his phone back up and sent Ellen another text.

Julian let out a breath. He needed to catch the son of a bitch who was doing this to the supernatural people of his city. Five were dead already, he couldn't let this continue. Hopefully, Romero's magic would be the edge he needed to bring this bastard down. Or at the very least, save Corinne Parker from being number six.