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In this latest chapter David, in order to be found worthy to be accepted into the Bone Shadows has been tasked with severing the last remaining tether to his human past. Will David be able to bring himself to do it, or will he fall victim to and be consumed by the rage that's tormented him ever since that fateful day sixteen years ago?

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They woke him up very early in the morning in a whirlwind of orders and tossing of clothes at him/ They didn't even give him a chance to gather himself and think. The Bone Shadow elders herded him out of the warehouse's office area and into its storage area where he had most of his lessons.

There was a gathering of all the elders who had been teaching him over the past two weeks since he was spirited away from the asylum after his First Change. They were all gathered around the oldest of the Bone Shadow elders, the one with clouded eyes that could somehow follow David and made him want to tuck tail and cower.

Despite the nerves and fear the tribe's wise woman instilled in David, he couldn't help but feel like an excited puppy. The day had finally come for him to be initiated into the Bone Shadows.

He looked around the gathering of Elders. He couldn't see Colin. Not even near Howls-For-Lost-Skies whom he always followed around as her assistant.

She saw him looking for the redhead and pointed to a corner of the warehouse where Colin stood by himself with a huge, beaming smile who excitedly waved and gave David two thumbs up.

David gave a small, nervous wave in return and turned back to the gathered elders. The cloudy eyed elder beckoned Davd over to a pedestal that held a large silver bowl.

“Your hand, Pup," ordered the wise woman in a croaking voice when David stood in front of the pedestal and bowl.

David nervously offered it and the wise woman snatched it in a vice-like grip and twisted it to expose his wrist. David tried to pull it away but the old woman was far stronger than she looked and he couldn't move his arm an inch.

He snarled when the elder slashed his wrist with a knife and a stream of blood fell into the silver bowl, only stopping after the slit in his wrist healed. The elder released her grip and David quickly pulled his arm away. He licked his lips as he suppressed the urge to lick away the blood still on his wrist.

The elder extended her arm over the bowl and slit her own wrist. Her own blood fell into the bowl and, to David's surprise, started to bubble. She pulled her wrist away, licked away the remnants of blood still on her wrist. and dipped a finger in the bubbling mixed blood.

She extended the bloody finger to David's face and traced on his forehead a picture of a wolf's skull, and then framed it with a crescent. The symbol of the Bone Shadows, and David's auspice.

“Congratulations, Pup. You are almost one of us." croaked the old woman. David felt a great deal of pride swell in his chest when the elder told him that. She continued, “There is but one more task before you're accepted into our tribe with open arms. Our tribe's patron spirit, Kamduis-Ur, Death Wolf, will require you to perform one final task before she sees you fit to join Hirfathra Hissu, the Bone Shadows."

David jumped back in surprise as the bowl of bubbling blood erupted in smoke and flame. The fire faded but the smoke lingered, thick and black. The elder waved her hands through it, and the smoked curled and coiled along her arms like serpents. David leant in close, he could almost make out images in the smoke.

He knew he wasn't imaging it either, as the cloudy eyed elder gazed into the writhing smoke as well while chanting in the First Tongue.

“Your first Kuruth attracted too much attention. To be allowed into the tribe, you must prevent The Herd from snooping into matters that don't concern them. Bring destruction to the most recent tether to your past. The Herd Must Not Know…"

As the final word left the elder's mouth the thick smoke dispersed, with only faint wisps that remained faintly echoing into David's ears in the First Tongue “Nu Bath Githul" The Herd Must Not Know.

The gathered elders dispersed and David's heart sank. He had to return to the asylum. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

“Don't feel down," Colin said softly. “Pups always have a final task appointed by Kamduis-Ur before they can fully join the tribe. Every tribe has some task they have pups do. Be glad we aren't the Blood Talons."

Colin then shuddered at the knowledge of whatever the Blood Talons' task was. Who the Blood Talons were, David didn't know.

David turned to Colin and asked glumly, “What did you have to do?"

Colin shook his head, “I haven't had the First Change yet. Only Uratha are fully inducted into the tribe."

“You're not a Bone Shadow?" asked David, surprised.

Colin shook his head again, “Not technically, no. But I come from a long line of Bone Shadows. A very long line. One of the original families to actually seek Kamduis-Ur out after Gauntlet was created in fact. It's in my blood. There's no other tribe I'll ever think of joining when I have the First Change."

“When was the Gauntlet created?" asked David,

“Around six thousand years ago," said Colin.

David's eyes widened in shock, “Jesus Christ. Howls wasn't kidding when she said your bloodline was valuable."

“Howls-For-Lost-Skies," corrected Colin. “Use her full deed-name. Don't shorten it. It's rude."

“What's a deed-name?" asked David.

“Some Uratha take a name for use among The People. It usually refers to some great deed they did or a character trait," explained Colin. “And before you ask, I don't have one. Kinda hard to get one when all you do is errands like tending to the den and buying groceries."

“I don't get to choose what mine would be if I get one?" asked David.

Colin shook his head with a smirk, “Not really. No."

The redhead put a hand on his chest, “Now it's my turn to ask questions. How are you gonna stop The Herd from investigating the asylum?"

David clenched his jaw and fists. He really didn't want to go back there. He didn't want to see in person what he did, and he didn't want to be reminded of everything he went through while in asylums. His fists trembled and he felt a burning sting in his chest from the rage at the memories of the abuse he endured from doctors and orderlies.

Through clenched teeth he spat, “Can't investigate a pile of ash."

***

David waited until nightfall before leaving the warehouse that had been his home for the past two weeks. He didn't want to be seen by any humans on the way there, so he ran to the asylum in Urhan. His wolf form let him traverse large distances quickly and its solid black fur let him blend into the night. The only thing about him that stood out were his golden eyes, but he was already gone by the time anyone who saw them double checked, assuming that they were imaging things.

He dodged traffic, almost getting hit by cars and trucks several times. He weaved through unfriendly parts of town, scaring drug dealers and interrupting their deals as he navigated his way back to the asylum.

As the beige coloured building came within view and he loped onto the asylum's parking lot and took in the size of the building, he couldn't help but realise he let his anger get the best of him on how to deal with preventing the investigation. He didn't have the slightest clue on how to burn down an entire mental asylum.

He slowed down to a gentle trot, he approached where the front doors were supposed to be. Instead of the automatic sliding glass doors that were supposed to be there, there was a mangled mess of bent aluminium, shattered glass, and police tape lining the now open doorway.

He nosed a loose piece of aluminium. Had he done this? He shook his head. No, the security footage showed him that he was knocked out in the reception area before he could leave. It had to be the three who got him out. The ones Colin claimed were fated to be his pack. David snorted at the wolf-blood's insistence on its existence.

A loud bang caught the black wolf's attention and his head snapped towards the sound. It was just a large coyote that had knocked over a bin and was digging around the inside of it. A weirdly large coyote. But then David realised that his wolf form was much smaller than his human form, so the coyote just seemed larger than it probably actually was.

He turned his attention away from the coyote as it found whatever it was looking for in the bin and started eating it. David's ears folded back in shame, reminded of how often he was forced to eat out of bins whenever he lived on the streets. He slunk underneath the police tape and entered the wrecked asylum.

Once he entered, he was shocked at the feeling of utter indifference. He had always been so angry and afraid whenever he entered asylums. Afraid of the abusive, lying doctors and cell-like rooms. Afraid of the twisted spirits he knew that he'd see. But he didn't feel that now.

He passed by the shattered remains of the reception area's desk. They were no longer the scariest thing in the building.

He was.

He licked his chops. He could taste their fear. He could smell it.

He paused and raised his nose into the air and sniffed. He tilted his head in confusion. He could smell fear. The building is abandoned. Why could he smell people's fear? It wasn't residual from his slaughter. It was fresh.

Cautiously, he followed the trail, stalking down the wrecked, bloodstained hallways until he came to one of the staff rooms. One of the psychologists, Doctor Richard Foley. He remembered him. He was the senior psychologist.

The door was closed. He grimaced, he knew he couldn't open the door in his wolf form. He had to change forms.

He whined and mentally braced himself to change. But no amount of preparation was enough for the pain that wracked his mind, body, and soul. He dropped to his side with a sharp yelp as he felt hips snap back into a bipedal orientation. He scratched all over his body with increasingly mobile arms as his fur pulled back inside his skin, burning all the way. He let out a gargled growl as his snout crunched back into his skull.

He laid on the ground, naked and shivering in human form well after the pain of transformation passed. He just wanted to lie there, on the ground and wallow in his own misery. But he knew he didn't have that luxury, so he slowly picked himself up.

He leaned against the wall and heaved a hand up onto the door knob. He opened it and stumbled inside.

The office was small and fairly plain. Generic medical awards decorated one of the four walls and in front of that wall sat a cheap wooden desk with a filing cabinet next to it. The desk faced a small couch, and it was the couch that drew David's attention. It looked plain, but it reeked of fear, hatred, confusion, and worst of all, which made David's mouth dry up and heart leap into his throat, it smelled of sex. The couch resonated with smells and emotions. It hung heavy in the air. It reminded him of the punch clock in the office Howls-For-Lost-Skies took him to.

It was a locus.

He slowly approached the couch. He remembered how the office looked in the Spirit World. How the employees saw their workplace.

He sat down on it and his skin crawled, stinging with pain and fear it radiated. He had to know what the doctor's office looked like. To confirm his fears.

But how to use it?

For the punch clock he used it like an employee would. So he laid down on the couch.

But how to draw essence?

He remembered during his many times in asylums. How some of the patients had nervous ticks where they'd habitually chew at their fingernails. How the worst of them permanently damaged their fingers. He put a tip of his finger in his mouth and bit down.

His stomach flipped and David threw himself off the couch clutching his stomach. He grimaced on the floor, fighting the urge to throw up his dinner. He felt it rise in his throat but managed to force it back down with a shudder.

He pushed himself off the floor, putting a hand on the couch to support himself. He wrenched his hand away when he saw how it looked in the Spirit World and felt his dinner fight to try and come back up again.

The couch had two pairs of manacles, a pair on either end of the couch, and the fabric was stained with blood and semen.

He turned away and saw the doctor's desk. It was large, the size of a minivan and was lined with a series of bloodied medical equipment. What disturbed him most out of the equipment that lined the desk was a gag that was a mix of an electro-shock therapy gag and a fetish gag.

David stared at the desk with a growing fury. He hoped, no he prayed that the doctor was one of the many the people he had killed during his First Change. Perhaps Colin was right. Perhaps fate is real and he was fated to put an end to the doctor's depraved reign of terror.

His fury kept growing. It burned in his chest, burned so much that it hurt to breathe. He clutched his chest and groaned. He remembered that his anger only hurt this bad one other time in his life. It was one of the last things he remembered before his First Change.

With a deep, feral snarl he rapidly shifted to Dalu, his wolf-man form, and spun around to grab the cloud of smoke and embers that have been following him ever since he returned to Las Vegas. The smoke and embers coalesced into a humanoid shape, with David's clawed hand gripping its neck.

David slammed it against the door, the impact rattling the room.

A sound came out of the spirit, like a crackling fire. It was laughing.

“Oh, what a violent little puppy you are," came a chuckling voice from the mouthless humanoid cloud of smoke and embers.

David snarled and squeezed the spirit's neck even tighter, making it laugh even harder.

“Yes, harder!" moaned the spirit. “Harder like the doctor did."

David's face contorted in rage and, with a roar, he threw the spirit at the desk. How dare it compare him to the doctor. He'll tear it apart for that!

The spirit crashed against the minivan sized desk and fell to the floor. But instead of moaning in pain from the abuse, it moaned in pleasure.

It cackled, “Oh, you new puppies are so much fun."

David clutched his head with a snarl. He felt the burning pain of transformation starting again, spurred on by his burning rage. He felt his claws and proto-muzzle start to painfully extend. The smell of the fear, sex, and pain from the chair, the sight of how the patients perceived the doctor, and the mockery of the spirit. The smells, sights, and sounds of it all were too much. It was too much. Like the sensory torture room the elders put him in.

The realisation hit him like a bucket of ice water. Like the sensory torture room.

He dropped to his knees and closed his eyes. He focused on his breathing. In through his nose. Hold. Out through his mouth.

“What? No!" groaned the spirit as it saw David kneel down and start meditating. “No! That's not how to play!"

David did his best to ignore the spirit's needling verbal jabs. Did his best to temper his burning rage.

He drew in a shuddering breath through his nose. PIN IT DOWN!

He held it. TEAR IT APART!

He shakily breathed out his mouth. DEVOUR ITS ESSENCE!

He drew another shaking breath in through his nose. PIN IT DOWN!

He held it. TEAR IT APART!

He breathed out his mouth with a slight tremble. DEVOUR ITS ESSENCE!

He breathed in through his nose with a slight tremble. PIN IT DOWN!

He held it. TEAR IT APART!

He let out a steady breath. DEVOUR ITS ESSENCE!

He continued the breathing exercises until the rage was nothing more than a flickering ember in his chest. He ignored the spirit's petulant whines.

“If you won't play, I won't give you a Gift to complete your task," said the spirit as its whining gained a desperate edge.

A gift to complete his task? He mentally shook his head, no. He couldn't let his focus slip. He couldn't lose control of his rage again. He came way too close to losing complete control of it again. So he continued to ignore the fire spirit and meditated.

He must have let his interest slip though, as the spirit flittered up to David excitedly.

“Yes, I can give you a Gift." it said with desperate excitement. It conjured a roiling ball of fire in its hands and held it in front of David's face. “I can give you this. All you have to do is play."

David opened his eyes and gazed into the flames, it looked like regular flames but as he gazed into it he saw rage. An unyielding fury that promised him the ability to easily burn down the asylum and beyond. All he had to do was surrender himself to the rage inside him that he could feel building inside him once again.

David's clawed hand twitched upwards, the spirit eagerly proffered the flame to the wolf-man, and David slapped the hand away. The ball of flame sputtered out and David stood up and laid down on the couch. He bit his finger and slipped through the Gauntlet back into the Mundane.

He sat up from the couch, clutching his stomach as it flipped in on itself. He grimaced and breathed through clenched teeth as he fought to settle his stomach back down. After it had settled he looked up and saw on the other side of the Gauntlet the fire spirit. It was furious. Motes of flame erupted within its humanoid form, seeming to threaten to blast apart the embers and smoke that made up its body.

David stared it down with a look of cold indifference which infuriated the spirit all the more. After his encounters with the spirit in the obstacle course and his first trip into the Spirit World he understood the spirit in front of him now.

The spirit in the obstacle course was a spirit of violence and blood. The spirit in the office's spirit reflection was a spirit of misery and drudgery. Spirits weren't just restricted to one aspect. What stood before him was not just a spirit of fire, but a spirit of fire and rage.

He saw it raging on the other side of Gauntlet as it tried desperately to stoke the young werewolf's rage, but now that he was aware of its nature he could temper the fire of his ever present rage. Barring the spirit from influencing it.

It offered him a way to burn down the asylum but he wasn't going to accept such a Faustian bargain. Not when the spirit held all the cards. He saw the security footage, even if the doctor was among the slaughtered, he didn't want to willingly fall to it like that ever again.

Colin told him that the Spirit World was a realm of emotion and concepts where logic was an alien concept. Howls-For-Lost-Skies told him that it was such foreign concept that it would shatter the human mind. Surely that would mean the opposite was true. That logical thinking would throw off a spirit.

He let his emotions rule his decision to burn down the asylum and found he had no idea how to do so when faced with the actual task ahead of him. So ruled by them that he almost fell to his rage again and became victim to the spirit of fire and rage. Howls-For-Lost-Skies wasn't here to protect him from the spirit like she did the spirit of misery and drudgery in the office building. He was on his own.

He walked up to the raging spirit and walked through it dismissively and out of the predatory doctor's office. His lip twitched as a brief spark of rage lit through his mind when he passed through the spirit. He stalked down the destroyed hallways thinking to himself. What was the logical way to burn down an entire mental asylum?

He wracked his brain for a solution. He paused as he saw a room with its door missing. The remnants of it scattered inside the room. He looked at the sprays of blood that coated the floor, walls, ceiling, and what sparse furniture that the patient had in their room. The blood long since dried a rusty brown.

He didn't really remember the patient that the room used to belong to, but he knew the man didn't deserve to be killed like he did. He remembered the spirits that followed him though. Spirits of depression and alcoholism followed him everywhere. The alcoholism spirit was the strongest of the pair. Whether the man's alcoholism was spurred on by the spirit or attracted the spirit, he didn't know. But the staff had to keep a close eye on the man to make sure he didn't try to steal and drink the rubbing alcohol.

David's face lit up. Isopropyl alcohol. It was almost pure alcohol.

Alcohol was flammable.

He left the bloodied room and quickly made his way to every storage room he could. Raiding it for all the rubbing alcohol they contained. He brought bottle after bottle to various patient rooms and staff areas. He soaked bed sheets, and papers and files until most of the ward was a veritable tinderbox. Now all he needed was a spark.

He made his way to the nurse's station and, with his much stronger Dalu form, easily broke down the door blocking off the area that contained all the confiscated belongings and looked through various zip-locked bags of patients' belongings. Laced shoes and clothes, jewellery, electronics, books (he never did understand why they confiscated books), and finally found something he could use. A zippo lighter. Mental asylums were chock full of addicts. There were bound to be multiple lighters that had been confiscated.

He smirked when he peeled off the name sticker the nurses put on it that also kept its lid from opening and saw the design etched into the metal. An ace of clubs. How fitting for Las Vegas.

He flicked it open, spun the flint wheel and ignited a small, steady flame. His eyes flicked from the flame to the spirit that followed him from the psychologist's office, berating him all the while, and stared it down. The spirit finally broke and dropped to its knees to grovel.

David looked down at the grovelling spirit at his feet and snapped the lighter closed, extinguishing the flame. He was an Uratha now, he held the cards. Not that pitiful cloud of smoke and embers.

He grabbed a bottle of rubbing alcohol, it was a glass bottle so it would serve his next actions nicely. He stuffed some cloth gauze into the bottle to create a molotov cocktail.

He left the nurse's station and stalked his way across the ward to where the destruction was the worst. A hallway where the entirety of the walls floor and ceiling were covered in dried blood. Holes and slashes pockmarked the walls. And a door was smashed to pieces. It was different from the rest of the smashed doors in the hallway. It was the only door that was smashed outwards.

David stood in front of the doorway. Despite the hallway, it wasn't covered in blood but it was still completely trashed. Claw slashes scarred the walls. The bed laid in front of the doorway in a mangled mess of metal, fabric, and foam.

He looked away from his old room and to the fire and rage spirit still grovelling at his feet. It was almost hard to believe that such a pitiful thing was able to torment him for so long.

The Bone Shadows' sacred vow echoed in his mind. Su a sar-hith sa. Pay Each Spirit In Kind. He looked at the molotov in his hand and his old room. He closed his eyes. Pay Each Spirit In Kind. He opened them and looked at the bottle in his hand. He didn't see a molotov. He saw his rage contained in a fragile container. Ready to break out and wreak havoc from the slightest impact.

He looked at the room in front of him. It wasn't his old room. It was a cell. All the cells he has ever been in throughout his life. The physical cells in police stations where he'd been detained before being admitted into asylums. The mental cell of his own mind from being driven mad from what he had experienced as a child so long ago.

He flicked open the lighter and lit it, ignited the gauze sticking out of the molotov and threw it into the room with a roar. The glass shattered against the far wall of the room and the alcohol ignited with a loud “woomf". David covered his face with his arm to protect it from the sudden blast of heat.

He gazed at the fire as it quickly took hold in the room. It would burn down this part of the ward, that much he was sure. But he needed to ensure all the other spots he prepared would burn. As well as make sure that there was enough fire that the fire suppression system wouldn't be able to put it out.

He quickly ran to each of the other places in the ward he prepared and lit as many as he could. It was only when the growing smoke got too thick to stand that he stopped. He knew he could regenerate from drastic injuries now but he didn't want to test its limits.

He coughed from the smoke. He spent too much time lighting additional fires. How could he get out in time? He needed to get out. He started to panic. There was too much smoke and fire between him and the exits. How was he going to get out?

He ran going where his panic led him, but was faced with inferno after inferno. He kept running aimlessly and found himself back in front of Doctor Foley's office room door. He at some point stopped following his own panic and started following the fear and panic exuded from the locus inside.

He took no time to open the door normally, he smashed through and leapt for the couch. He collided with it, and kept going. He sailed through the couch and into the office's reflection in the Spirit World. He crashed against the giant desk, rattling the bloodied medical equipment on it, and he fell to the ground.

David groaned from the impact then grunted when he felt a rib he didn't know that he broke pop back into place. It was much cooler there and easier to breathe in the asylum's spiritual reflection, the fire had not yet taken hold. He looked up from the ground and at the couch, it was starting to smoke. The fire had reached the office in the Mundane and had started to consume the locus.

He picked himself up from the ground. He should get out quickly, he didn't know how long it would take for the asylum's reflection to catch fire and he didn't want to risk being inside when it did.

He looked around for the lighter but couldn't find it. He must've dropped it in his panic to escape the inferno.

“Damn," he grumbled to himself. “That was a nice lighter."

Not wanting to linger in the office's spiritual reflection he left, and wandered the asylum's reflection. It was an illogical place, even by the standards of the Spirit World he was told about by Colin and Howls-For-Lost-Skies. It housed insane people after all and their emotions reflected that in the asylum's spiritual reflection. Doors that led to nowhere, hallways where the ceiling was the floor and the floor the ceiling, doorways that changed their location each time he blinked, hallways that led to new areas despite how the hallways turned in on themselves meant that, logically, he should have ended up back at where he started.

But despite all that, he never got lost. He found that he could easily navigate the madness of the asylum reflection's layout. Because of course the way to the next room was to walk backwards through the door he had just come through. Because of course the door leading outside didn't actually lead outside, it was clearly the door to the supply closet. He had spent sixteen years of his life in and out of asylums. He knew them. He understood them.

As he exited the asylum's front doors through a window, he saw the fire and rage spirit again. It was moaning and rubbing up against the outside wall. If David didn't know any better, he would have thought it was masturbating. But it was just feeding on the boat load of essence that was created from the fire he had started. He poured a lot of his rage into that molotov and toss into his old room after all. It would be feeding off it for a long while.

He scrunched his nose in disgust and spoke up, interrupting the moaning spirit's revelry, “Payment in kind."

The spirit rubbed itself harder against the wall, and small embers started to spark out of the wall and flitted around the spirit. It moaned, “Just give me a few minutes."

“Now," ordered David.

“Ugh," groaned the spirit and it peeled itself off the wall to face the impatient werewolf. “Fine."

It plunged its fist into David's chest, forcing the breath out of his chest in a gasp. It was a flaming steel gauntlet of pain that speared not only through David's heart, but also his very soul.

The spirit tore its hand out of David's chest and promptly returned to the feast of Fire and Rage Essence that flooded from the asylum.

David couldn't get a breath in nor out. He clutched his chest but felt no gaping hole. What he felt was a messy, ropey scar that writhed under his hand. It crawled as it oriented itself into a runic pattern. A fist sized circle with a second shape above it, a shape that coiled sharply and ended in a point. The runes then ignited with a silver light and David could finally draw in a wheezing breath.

“You fucking bastard," wheezed David, still clutching his chest. Silver light spilling out through his fingers.

The spirit didn't respond, too consumed it was with gorging itself on the Asylum's burning Essence.

David pulled his hand away and looked at the glowing, runic scar. It looked like a stylised flame. A Shadow Gift, he realised. Like the ones he saw on Howls-For-Lost-Skies' arms.

It hurt to breathe, each one he took burnt. He coughed and the air expelled by the cough shimmered with heat. Despite the pain, he dragged himself away and put himself through the torturous shifting of forms and changed into Urhan. He didn't want to stay there anymore than he already had to.

He ran off into the night.

It was a much shorter trip back through the Spirit World than it was in the Mundane, since he had no traffic to dodge or people to avoid. So he beelined for the only other locus he knew. The abandoned office.

But he had forgotten another thing Howls-For-Lost-Skies told him during his first trip into the Spirit World. That the Spirit World was a dangerous place even for Uratha. He remembered that too late as a mottled grey and white furred mass collided into his side.

He snarled as he tumbled to the ground and tried to snap at his attacker. He only got a mouthful of fur before David was quickly pinned to the ground and he felt teeth dig into his neck at the base of his skull.

He was going to die.

Colin was so excited to see David be initiated into the Bone Shadows, and David had let him down.

He let out a loud baying, whine and he struggled in the grip of the jaws that held him down. He didn't want to die.

“STOP!" yelled a voice. “HE'S NOT A PURE SPY! HE HAS AN AUSPICE!"

The jaws let David go and he scrambled back to his feet, hackles raised and growled at his attacker.

His attacker was a large grey and white American Gray Wolf who was snarling at David in return. It was a hand taller at the shoulder than David and had a spattering of glowing silver runes on its forelegs, with a large glowing silver disk in the middle of its chest.

A man dressed like a biker, with a sleeveless leather jacket came running up behind the snarling gray wolf. His right arm was covered in similar glowing runes, with his left bare except glowing silver rune of a half filled circle on the shoulder.

“Stand down, Rick," said the man to the grey wolf snarling at David.

The wolf took a few steps away from David but kept snarling at him.

“Trespasser!" it snarled in the First Tongue.

“We don't know that for certain yet," replied the biker.

The biker slowly approached David who backed away with a growl. The biker's eyes narrowed when something on David's forehead caught his attention.

“Wailing in sorrow and agony as the two points of the crescent moon pierce his skull," the Biker said to himself. He sounded like he was quoting something before he nodded and wagged a finger at David. “You're the Nuzusul that those pups from the Iron Masters broke out of the madhouse."

He then shook his head and laughed, “I heard you gave them quite the headache trying to restrain you."

He stopped laughing and his face became serious, “What are you doing here? This isn't Iron Masters territory."

“Initiation," David answered in the First Tongue.

“Initiation? This isn't where the Iron Masters conduct theirs," said the biker before his face lit up in realisation and a wide smile spread across his face. “You've decided to join us in the Bone Shadows tribe."

After the biker said that, the gray wolf that spent the entire exchange snarling at David stopped and started excitedly jumping around David, startling the black wolf with his sudden change of attitude.

“You going to your task or coming from it?" asked the biker.

“From," answered David. “To Office Locus."

“Oh good," said the biker. “Us three are heading there now. We'll escort you."

“Three?" asked David? He only saw two there with him. The wolf and the biker.

The biker pointed behind David and David jumped back with a surprised snarl when he saw standing behind him with crossed arms a woman in Dalu form wearing a sleeveless leather jacket that matched the biker's. Half of her hairy left arm was covered in glowing runes and had a glowing silver ring on the back of her hand.

David felt a cold, wet nose sniff at his rear. He let out an undignified yelp and jumped away with his tail tucked before he spun around to snap at the wolf who was looking at him with a smile and wagging his tail.

“Steady on, pup," warned the Biker. “He was just saying hello."

David lips twitched in a growl and kept his distance from the excited wolf.

“Lead the way, Suzie," said the Biker and, without a word or sound from her movement, the female Dalu walked off.

As they made their way to the abandoned office's locus, David trotted up to the biker and asked the older werewolf, “Pierce his skull?"

The biker looked down at the black wolf and told him, “Mother Luna gave one of the Iron Masters' pups a vision of you. So the Council's Elodoths decided that because they had it, that you should join their pack instead of ours."

“Your pack?" asked David. Why would he join a biker gang?

The biker nodded, “The madhouse is in MY pack's territory. You should've joined us. Would've been nice to finally have an Ithaeur in the pack. But at least you gave the Iron masters a massive headache over it and joined our tribe instead of theirs."

David then heard the biker mutter under his breath, “We also wouldn't have let the place get trashed either."

That was why Colin told David he was fated to join Lucas' pack? Cause one of them had a vision of him?

But that didn't answer his original question, so he asked the biker again. “Pierce his skull?"

The biker looked down at David confused, “You just asked-OH!. You haven't seen what your Auspice looks like in The Shadow yet, have you?"

David shook his head.

The biker reached into a pocket on his jacket and pulled out his phone. He turned the front camera on and showed the screen to David.

David was first distracted by the ephemeral mess of circuitry that covered the phone. His eyes followed the illogical trails of copper and silicon before they grazed over the phone's screen and saw himself reflected in it.

He looked like an ordinary black wolf. He had a thick ruff of fur around his neck and golden eyes. His slouch carried over in this form as well. What didn't look ordinary was the glowing silver crescent on his forehead, its points facing downwards and digging into his temples.

He thanked the biker and they continued onwards to the abandoned office. When they arrived and passed through row after row of pristine cell-like cubicles on their way to the locus, David couldn't help but wonder about them. The office building had been abandoned since the Eighties and was a ruin in the Mundane. But there, in the Spirit World, the office was in pristine condition. He wondered how long the asylum would be intact in the Spirit World after it had burnt down in the Mundane, and wondered how long the fire would burn when it eventually caught on fire in the Spirit World as well. He suspected that the fire and rage spirit was going to be feasting on that fire for a very long time.

The group passed through the locus and back into the Mundane. The Dalu, Suzie, and Urhan, Rick, shifted back into their human forms, with David surprised at Rick's human form. He was a large well-built man, bald and had a short brown beard. He had sleeves of tattoos that matched the runes that shone in the Spirit World. He was also very much clothed, also being dressed as a biker with a matching sleeveless jacket to the other two Uratha.

The bald biker, Rick, noticed David's confusion and asked with a smile, “You okay there, pup? You look a bit confused."

“You have clothes," David said with a tilted head.

Rick grimaced, “Ohhh, you still tearing your clothes each time you shift?"

David nodded. He didn't know that he was able to not destroy his clothes whenever he shifted.

Rick walked up to him and aggressively rubbed David's head, making the black wolf's ears loudly flap. David pulled his head away from the hand on his head and bared his teeth in a silent snarl up at the bald biker who said, “Don't worry. Tether yourself a bit more to the Spirit and you'll be able to stop having to constantly buy new clothes every week."

David parted ways with them after they exited the decrepit office building, the three biker werewolves mounted two Harleys they had parked outside. Suzie climbed onto the back with the original biker that called Rick off of David. Both he and Rick gave David a wave and the trio roared off into the night. David sat and watched them go until the sound of their engines faded into the sound of traffic.

***

When David got back to the warehouse, he saw Colin animatedly talking with Howls-For-Lost-Skies. He was clearly worried about something, but Howls-For-Lost-Skies seemed unfazed. She was clearly not worried about whatever Colin was.

When he saw David trot into sight he let out a heavy sigh of relief.

“I told you he'd be fine," Howls-For-Lost-Skies told Colin.

The elder turned her attention to David, pointed towards David's room and ordered, “Go shift forms, get changed, and get back here ASAP. We want you inducted while the moon is still in the sky."

David quickly did as he was told and when he limped back, aching from the painful transformation from Urhan to Hishu, he saw all the elders that mentored him the past two weeks gathered once again. He passed by a beaming Colin, who gave David two enthusiastic thumbs up.

He stepped up to the cloudy eyed elder who stood behind the same pedestal that held the silver bowl they had bled into earlier in the morning. A morning that felt so long ago to David.

A silver light suddenly shone through the fabric of his shirt where the fire and rage spirit plunged its fist into David's chest. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and looked at his shirt in shock and confusion. How was it shining in the Mundane? The cloudy eyed elder Bone Shadows elder spoke up with a croak.

“Ah," she said in approval. “I see you made a deal with a spirit and got a Shadow Gift. Very good."

She then waved her hand and the shining of the Shadow Gift faded.

David let go of his shirt collar and saw the elder holding out her hand. He gave her his hand, wrist up, and braced himself for the slash to it he knew was coming. He hissed and fought the instinct to try and yank his hand away as he felt the cold bite of the blade across his wrist. He kept arm held out over the silver bowl as his slit wrist dripped a slowing stream of blood into the container. He couldn't help but lick his lips at the sight.

The elder then added her own blood into the bowl. As before, the moment her blood touched his, it started to bubble. But it didn't stop at her. One by one, the other elders present came up to the pedestal to add their own blood to the bowl. Each addition of blood made the concoction of mixed blood bubble more.

Once the last elder added their blood to the bowl, leaving the concoction frothing and threatening to spill over the lip of the bowl. The cloudy eyed elder dipped a finger into frothing blood and, once again, traced the symbol of the Bone Shadows tribe and David's auspice onto his forehead. A wolf skull in side profile and the crescent moon. Each stroke of blood across David's skin made a swarm of butterflies take flight in his stomach.

Once she was done she told David in the First Tongue, “Swear to Mother Luna the Oath of the Moon. The most sacred vow of The People that we all take under Mother Luna's fateful gaze. The silver chain that binds our Beast within, and drives us to be better than we are. Then our Tribal vow that we take to honor Kamduis-Ur's wisdom which saved our tribe's ancestors from being hunted to extinction by both Flesh and Spirit alike after the murder of Father Wolf."

David's mouth was dry, and his hands trembled. The Oath of the Moon was among the first things taught to him. Words he thought forgotten. He was terrified that he would stumble over the final hurdle. But words came to him unbidden, from the depths of his now hybrid soul. They flowed from his mouth in fluent First Tongue, something that should have been impossible for his human form. Each part of the Oath uttered branded itself within David's mind, ensuring it would never be forgotten.

Urum Da Takus. The Wolf Must Hunt.

Imru Nu Fir Imru. The People Do Not Murder The People.

Sih Sehe Mak; Mak Ne Sih. The Low Honor the High; the High Respect the Low

Ni Daha. Respect Your Prey

Uratha Safal Thil Lu'u. The Uratha Shall Cleave to the Human

Nu Hu Uzu Eren. Do Not Eat the Flesh of Human or Wolf

Nu Bath Githul. The Herd Must Not Know.

David clutched his throat. The strain of speaking fluent First Tongue in his human form was tearing at his throat. He tasted the metallic tang of blood in his mouth. But there was still one final vow to swear. The tribal vow of the Bone Shadows.

Su A Sar-Hith Sa. Pay Each Spirit In Kind.

With that final vow, the violently frothing bowl of blood erupted into a thick pillar of black smoke. It coiled in on itself, creating impossible shapes and images until it coalesced into the form of a great wolf's head. It gazed down at David, who was struck frozen in fear and awe, a lump in his throat. Kamduis-Ur. Death Wolf herself. She looked not just at David, but gazed into his very soul.

Approving of what she saw, Kamduis-Ur threw her head back and howled. Her howl was a beautifully melancholic dirge that compelled, one by one, the elders present to join in. Each elder that joined the howling song raised the growing lump in David's throat until, after the final elder joined the song, the lump erupted from his lips as an enthusiastic howl that harmonised with the choir of howls that rang out into the night under the gaze of the moon.