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David yawned and stared out the window of the SUV as he sat bored in the speed trap set up on the side of the US95. Halfway between Caliente and Pioche. Morrison had started stopping him from sleeping in the car while working saying that he needed to put in some actual effort as a Deputy. But David suspected the elder was just making him suffer. He wasn’t even allowed to use his phone for anything that wasn’t work or pack related while on the clock.

He leant his head against the passenger door window with a huff. He thought that the elder would be more lenient today, given that he seemed to be in a good mood. After the pack was told by Kaiden that he had a vision of Mrs Conner’s fate. The Cahalith’s first vision of the future.

Morrison quickly got to work contacting a local lawyer, Laura Barrow, to set up a trust using some of the drug money they had recovered the previous night to look after Mrs Conners. She also had no living relatives, so she fell into the custody of the state, with the Sheriff’s Department acting as her legal guardian. Since they were her legal guardians, they got to work and put her old house up for sale to help pay for the luxury nursing home in Summerlin.

Something that Lucas was happy to hear about, knowing that he’d get to keep more of the money, with him upset that they ‘only’ got to keep seventy-two thousand after what was spent on Mrs Morrison. David didn’t understand Lucas’ obsession with keeping as much of the money as possible.

A blue sedan driving past them towards Pioche broke David out of his thoughts.

“Sixty-eight miles per hour,” said Morrison, quickly putting down the speed radar.

“Again,” complained David before he registered the actual speed Morrison said. He sat up, excited, and said, “Wait what?”

“Yep, cherries and berries,” said Morrison.

David quickly turned on the SUV’s police lights. Morrison made it David’s job to do that even though Morrison was more than capable of doing it himself and did before David joined the department as a Deputy. It was his first time he got to use the lights outside of when he was first shown how to turn them on.

It wasn’t much of a chase, as the sedan pulled over after only a minute of being pursued by the SUV.

“Who the fuck is stupid enough to drive an electric car this far out into the desert?” asked David when he noticed that the blue sedan was a Tesla Model S.

Morrison and David scowled in disgust as they noticed at the same time the Tesla’s plates.

Californian.

“Your turn to ticket them,” said Morrison.

“You just don’t want to deal with the Californian,” said David.

“Just fucking do it,” Morrison growled back.

David growled to himself and got out of the SUV, walking over to the Tesla’s driver side window. He knocked on the window and said, after it rolled down, “You have any idea how fast you were driving, ma'am?"

“I wasn’t driving,” said the woman in a grating valley girl accent. “I was travelling.”

“What?” asked David, taken off guard by the stupid comment.

“I. Was, Travelling,” said the woman, spacing out her words as if David was mentally challenged. “And I don’t answer questions. What's your name?”

“My name’s Deputy Lupo,” said David. “Show me your licence and registration.”

“Am I being detained?” asked the woman in an infuriating tone.

“What?” asked David, confused by the woman’s comments.

He looked over to Morrison who was sitting in the SUV who had a strange look on his face. His mouth was in a harsh thin line, and his face was starting to turn a slight shade of red. It took a moment for David to recognise it, because of how rarely he saw that expression on the Old Man. He was holding in laughter.

“Am. I. Being. Detained.” said the woman, spacing her words out again.

“You’re being stopped for a traffic violation, yes,” said David.

“Am I free to go?” asked the woman, rolling up her window as if she was.

David put a hand on the window, using his strength to stop it, “No, you’re not.”

The woman looked at the window, surprised, and stopped trying to roll it up. She stuttered, off put by David stopping the window, “Then you are, uh, trying to put me under arrest. This is, uh, false arrest.”

“I stopped you because you were going well over ten miles over the legal speed limit,” said David.

The woman stammered, all her confidence at the start of the traffic stop gone, “Deputy Lupo, I do not condone this stop and I exercise my, uh, fifth amendment right to remain silent. Uh. To not say anything further without presence of an attorney and counsel.”

David looked back over to Morrison in the SUV who could no longer hold in his laughter.

“Just so you know,” said David as he started forcing the window back down. The woman watched, unnerved, as David did so. After it was forced down fully, he leant into the window, “It is a crime to fail to carry and present. So if you do not have your licence and registration then I will be forced to have to detain you until I can identify who you are.”

He leaned in further to the car, getting uncomfortably close to the woman and growled, “So I will ask, one final time, licence and registration.”

He glared at the woman who shook in her seat but didn’t do anything. He narrowed his eyes and the woman finally moved, grabbing her purse from the footwell of the front passenger seat.

She took out her licence and shakily presented it to David.

Now compliant, the woman let David run the traffic stop as normal. He wrote her a ticket and when he gave it to her, he said, “Do not let me catch you speeding in my county again. Got it?”

The woman nodded and said, “Yes.”

David glared at her which made her add with a stammer, “Yes, sir.”

David returned to the SUV where Morrison, who had composed himself and stopped laughing.

“You fucking knew,” scowled David.

“I didn’t actually,” said Morrison, the ghost of a smile in his voice.

He then gave David a wolfish grin and grabbed the radio. David tried to snatch it off the elder but was stopped with a swift punch to the ribs that left David winded.

“Hey, everyone,” Morrison said into the radio. “Guess who just got his first sovereign citizen.”

David groaned as a long series of jeers came from the radio in reply from other deputies on duty, dispatch, and even from Sheriff Paxton himself. The mocking lasted for several minutes, with what seemed like the entire department getting a shot in at David’s expense. It lasted until Morrison got a text from Matt Dane.

“Oh good,” said Morrison, looking at his phone, “He has our package ready.”

Morrison drove to Alamo and met with Matt next to the same diner they had met with him a few days before. This time, his daughter wasn’t in the truck. It was just Matt by himself.

“A fetish in record time. Like promised,” said Matt and he pulled a bullseye lamp from the back of his truck. He handed it to Morrison, who handed it to David.

The two older werewolves then started having a conversation, but David didn’t pay attention to it. He was too busy admiring the lamp he was holding.

To anyone else, the lamp would have looked old and beat up but to David it was gorgeous. An antique. The kind of lamps used by Victorian era police. It had a handle on top to be held, and two hooks on the back so it could be hooked onto a belt. Holding it, David felt as if he could track down anything he wanted. The fish eye lens was contained with a cone that worked to both protect the lens and also focus the light that came through. There wasn’t any light coming out at the moment.

He tilted his head as he heard faint, extremely faint whispers coming from the lamp fetish. He couldn’t make out exactly what they were saying, but he could glean their intent. It wanted to emit light. To reveal to David his prey’s tracks.

He grasped the chimney vent on the very top, underneath the handle, and slowly twisted it.

An odd, violet light beamed out of the lens that lit up the door of Matt’s truck. It revealed a series of overlapping handprints on the door’s handle. The handprints had a strange, phantasmal shimmer to them. Some of the handprints barely shimmered, while others shimmered strongly.

Curious, he reached out a hand and pressed it against the door. When he took it away, it showed his own handprint, and it shimmered the brightest out of them all.

Matt cleared his throat. He and Morrison had stopped talking and were looking at David. Morrison with a look of annoyance, and Matt with intrigue.

David quickly stepped away from Matt’s truck. He turned the lamp off and sheepishly looked at the other two werewolves.

“Sorry about him,” said Morrison. “You know how pups get when they get their paws on a fetish for the first time.”

Matt chuckled, “No worries. I don’t mind.”

Matt looked at David’s hands, where he noticed before when David touched his truck, faint traces of paint stained his fingertips. He asked, “You’re an artist?”

David nodded shyly.

“I’m an artist too,” said Dane. He pointed at the lamp David was clutching to his chest protectively. “You’re familiar with my work. I’d like to see yours someday”

“What are you getting at, Dane?” asked Morrison.

“He’s your student,” said Matt, turning away from David and towards Morrison. “So, with your permission, I’d like to take him on as an apprentice.”

“It doesn’t matter to me,” said Morrison with a half hearted wave of his hand. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with his duties with his territory and the Department. But, ultimately, it’s his decision.”

Matt turned back to David and asked, “How about it? Want to become a fetish crafter?”

David sheepishly nodded.

“Use your words, pup,” growled Morrison.

David nodded again and said softly, “Yes.”

***

“You’re gonna be a fetish crafter?” asked Colin excitedly.

David nodded as he jabbed at his dinner of steak and potatoes. The entire pack had pestered him about it ever since he came home from work.

“It will still be a long while before he becomes one,” said Morrison. “He still has to prove himself to Dane. The rite to create fetishes is extremely valuable. It’s not something that’s just given out.”

“It also gives Matt an excuse to use David as his errand boy for as long as possible,” said Lucas from the other side of the table from David, which made David growl at him.

“That too,” Morrison said with a nod.

David ignored any further questions from the pack for the rest of the dinner. He only paid attention again when he heard Morrison say, “I think it’s time you lot petition the Lunes. Tonight after dinner would be a good time.”

David’s head snapped up to the elder. Lunes were spirits of the moon, envoys of Mother Luna herself. He asked, “Why the hell would we do that?”

“So you lot can become more renowned in Mother Luna’s eyes,” said Morrison. “Like being renowned for purity for sparing the Pure when we retrieved Kaiden, and honor for caring for Mrs Conners.”

He pointed at Kaiden, “We’d need you to be there since you had a vision of her dying in comfort this morning.”

David kept quiet, he didn’t understand how doing the right thing and putting Mrs Conners into a good home was anything to brag about.

Lucas spoke up, “But we didn’t spare the Pure. They ran away before we could finish them off.”

Morrison said with a hushed tone, “They don’t need to know that part.”

“Don’t our visions come from Luna herself?” asked Kaiden. “Why would we need to tell them about my vision?”

“Because Lunes are insane, even by spirit standards,” explained Morrison. “Mother Luna is-”

“The first Lunatic,” groaned everyone else. Annoyed at being told that fact over and over by their respective mentors when they all got their training after their respective First Changes.

“We could’ve gotten more for honor if someone didn’t burn the money in the other bike,” grumbled Lucas.

“Would you stop bitching about the damn money!” snapped David.

“Don’t fucking start,” growled Morrison.

“No, I won’t!” Lucas snapped back. “I wanted the money to invest in the town. Improve the town by investing in some of the local businesses. You saw the state of the place in the Shadow. Over half the town is a rotted ruin. Investing in it would make it better in both the Mundane and the Spirit.”

“Then why didn’t you say so?” snapped David.

“I was fucking trying!” yelled Lucas. He jabbed an accusatory finger at David. “But _you _kept cutting me off.”

“What did you think I meant by invest it? Spend it on bitcoin or stocks?” asked Lucas. He then threw his hands up like he was under arrest, adding mockingly, “Yes, I was totally planning on spending it all on dogecoin, you got me."

David snarled at him. He didn’t like the other Ithaeur forcing him to see how badly he was neglecting his territory.

Lucas towards town, “Just look at the Gem Theater’s renovation. That’s been on and off for the past ten years because it doesn’t have any money.”

“I didn’t know that,” snapped David.

“You would if you paid attention to the people in town. If you're going to be a police officer, you need to listen to the local gossip,” said Lucas. He got up from his chair and leaned over the table. “I know Death Wolf isn't big on talking with the living humans in a territory, but all Uratha need to know as much as they can about their territory. Not just the packs Iron Masters. Maybe we can have another bar night, have you meet some of the people you'll be serving and protecting instead of just tagging along as Howlmore’s shadow all the time."

David leaped over the table and tackled Lucas out of his chair.

Jesse watched David brawl yet again with Lucas and he leaned over and asked Colin, “Honestly, what do you even see in him?”

Morrison had joined the brawl, making the two Ithaeur yelp in pain as the elder both verbally and physically reprimanded them for getting into yet another fight. Colin resumed eating his dinner with a resigned sigh, “Have you ever seen him smile? I mean an actual, genuine smile. Not just a smirk when he sees Lucas get in trouble or to someone else's detriment. He never does, even when he does something he likes doing.”

“You going to answer my question or just talk around it like a politician?” asked Jesse.

Colin grumbled, annoyed at being caught out by the Irraka. His father would do the exact same thing when he was younger when he tried to talk his way out of trouble. It never did work with him, unlike everyone else.

“He’s talented,” said Colin. “With his understanding of spirits, he has it in him to be one of the best. Especially now that he’s gonna learn to be a fetish crafter. The only person I knew that had a better innate understanding of spirits when starting out was my mother.”

“So you like him for what he could be, not for who he is?” asked Jesse disapprovingly.

“What? No, nonono,” said Colin. “He’s a generous person.”

Jesse scoffed.

“He is,” said Colin. “He spent so long living on the streets-”

“Something he never fails to bring up,” grumbled Jesse.

Colin gave Jesse an annoyed look and continued, “So finding food was hard, and what he got he would always keep for himself and never share. But whenever we go on hunts in Urhan, he always tries to share some of it with me.”

He smiled to himself, “And he feels the same way about me. You can see it in his paintings. I know you’ve snuck looks at them like I have. Everyone has. So I know you’ve seen the painting of me he did.”

“Then why don’t you just tell him if you know both of you feel the same way?” asked Jesse.

“Cause he’s the Uratha,” said Colin. “He should be the one to-”

“You’re teasing him until he jumps you and ruts you within an inch of your life,” said Jesse with an accusatory look.

“Don’t be crass,” said Colin, slapping Jesse on the shoulder. He blushed when Jesse's accusatory look gained an amused smirk.

Jesse laughed, “Careful you don’t tease him so much that he decides to tie the knot.”

“I know what I’m doing,” said Colin.

“I’m sure you do,” Jesse said coyly. “I’m sure you do.”

He then looked at David and Lucas as they picked themselves up from the floor, Morrison having finally broken up their fight. Their faces were covered in deep slashes from the elder’s claws. He said with a sigh, “I just wish they liked each other.”

“They do,” said Colin in between bites of his steak. “They love each other like brothers.”

Jesse looked at him confused. Colin saw his look and scoffed, “You’ve clearly never had a brother then. My brother and I fought like that all the time, and so did David and his.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” said Jesse, not believing him.

Morrison sat in his chair, upset. He growled at the two moping Ithaeur that sat back down in their own chairs. “You’re not coming to petition the lunes with us. I’m not having you two start a fight and embarrassing your packmates in front of one of Mother Luna’s envoys.”

David and Lucas tried to complain but were silenced with a snarl from the elder. Morrison growled, “When we cross the Gauntlet into the Hisil tonight, you two are gonna go off into the wild outside of the territory by yourselves together. Force you two to look out for and protect each other. Like packmates should.”

He shook his head, “You either come back with a better bond and stop fucking fighting so often, or you die. Either way, I won’t have to put up with your bullshit anymore.”

David and Lucas growled to themselves for the rest of dinner. Morrison snarled at them each time they started directing their growls at each other.

While Lucas stabbed at his steak, Colin spoke up, “Maybe you two could turn it into a hunt. You said you wanted to set up some wards like the Pure have. Hunt down a spirit and make it give you a Shadow Gift that lets you do that.”

“Even though you already had one, you could make it a Siskur-dah,” added Colin.

“How would choosing what kind of Lunacy a human suffers from help in the Spirit World?” asked David.

Everyone was silent after David’s question. They all looked at him in disbelief. Colin slowly put his hand his hand to his face, and Jesse groaned, “You are such a fucking idiot.”

“Jesse!” snapped Colin.

“Well it’s true!” said Jesse.

Colin turned back to David and said, “I was referring to the Bone Shadows’ Siskur-dah. It’d help you two in tracking down and restraining a spirit.”

David perked up. He could finally conduct a Siskur-dah instead of Lucas for once. But there was just one small problem, he realised. He had no idea how to conduct it. The ways Lucas had done it made sense. Using meth to hunt meth cooks. Money and gunpowder to hunt gun traffickers. But he had absolutely no idea how to conduct the rite to hunt a warding spirit.

Lucas and Colin noticed David’s expression fall when he realised that. Lucas went to speak but was quickly cut off when Colin did a ‘cut it out’ gesture.

Colin spoke up in Lucas’ stead, “Iron Masters’ Siskur-dah has always been stupidly easy to do-”

Lucas glared at the wolf-blood with annoyance.

“-But with spirits, who are solidly rooted in the Hisil, it’d be a lot more of an involved, ritualistic process than just making a joint.”

“You going somewhere with this or are you just taking this as an opportunity to shit on my tribe?” asked Lucas, more annoyed with Colin.

“I am,” assured Colin, giving Lucas a glare for his language.

“Having a point or the shit talking?” asked Jesse.

Colin ignored him and stood up, “Come on. The library’s closet will have components that’ll work well for the Bone Shadows’ Siskur-dah.”

Colin walked off toward the library, with David close behind and Lucas following.

David asked as they entered the library, “But what could even be used for that? What would even symbolise warding? A face mask? Bullet proof vest?”

Colin shook his head as he started storting through assorted wooden boxes, jars, and bags that were stored in the library closet. “You’re thinking far too narrowly. You’ll be helping Lucas find a spirit that can teach him to set up wards on territorial borders. So using components from territorial animals will work.”

“Ohhh, these’ll do nicely,” said Colin as he found a small jewellery box of feathers, and a zip-lock bag of fur. He tossed the bag to David and asked, “That coyote fur? Looks like it.”

David opened the bag and gave the fur a sniff. He nodded and tossed the bag back to Colin. “Yeah, it’s all coyote fur.”

“Keep it. You’re gonna be the one conducting the rite,” said Colin and tossed the bag back to David along with the box of feathers. He started looking around the closet again, opening and closing lids, drawers, and bags. He hummed in frustration before saying, “You need something to center the rite around. But I can’t find anything or think of anything to use.”

David grimaced as he suggested, “Why not smoke them like we did last time.”

Colin shook his head as he started looking through places he already did, “That only worked as well as it did the last time because that hunt was tied to drugs. This is completely unrelated, so it’d be a bad way of conducting it.”

“We could-” Lucas suggested before David cut him with a growl.

Colin warned with a stern tone, “Let him speak.”

Lucas said, “He could scratch up a plank of wood like how a mountain lion scratches up trees to mark its territory. Burn the fur and feathers around that.”

David growled to himself. It felt more like they were telling him exactly what to do instead of helping him conduct the rite. They went outside the house, retrieving a plank from the partially refurbished cabin. He planted it into the ground in between the garage and house.

After David put the coyote fur around the plank a thought came to him as he pulled two hawk feathers from the box of feathers. A hawk wouldn’t be able to protect and patrol its territory from the ground, so it wouldn’t make sense to burn the feathers alongside the fur. Without thinking further into it, he put one of the feathers behind an ear and passed the other feather to Lucas who did the same.

While chanting in the First Tongue, David lit the coyote fur on fire. He stood up, with the rank smell of burning fur following him in thin, coiling trails of smoke.

He shifted to Dalu and raised a hand to the board sticking out of the ground. The smoke spiraled around his arm. As he dragged his claws down, carving deep grooves into the wood, the smoke leapt from his furry arm and into his black semi-canine nose.

He swore in both English and the First Tongue as the sulphurous smell of burning fur stabbed his sinuses. The smell to a regular human was bad enough, but to an Uratha’s senses, especially one as inexperienced as David, it was putrid.

Lucas rolled his eyes as his packmate dry heaved from the smell. He scoffed, “God, you’re such a lightweight.”

He shifted his hand and clawed the wood. The smoke speared straight into his nose. He covered his nose and fought to keep his composure, to keep from having the same reaction as his packmate. He could feel his dinner trying to resurface.

David's stomach settled, and he groaned as the effects of the sacred hunt finally kicked in. The fur on his arms puffed up as he got goosebumps. His golden, lupine eyes dilated and nostrils flared as his senses kicked into overdrive.

He shook his head like a dog and shifted back to Hishu. He rubbed his arms to try and get rid of the goosebumps. He both loved and hated the feeling of the Siskur-dah. It was just so intense.

They left with the others to graveyard and crossed over at its locus. Keeper-of-Boots kept the area of the Spirit World in his territory under a tight lock and key, so Morrison decided to have the pack summon the Lunes there.

After the last of the pack crossed over Morrison aggressively waved off David and Lucas, “Go on, get! Go make nice in the desert.”

Lucas rolled his eyes and walked off, gesturing for David to follow.

That made David growl, he was supposed to be leading the hunt but Lucas was acting like he was. He stormed off after his packmate and shoulder checked him as he passed.

Lucas rubbed his shoulder and glared at David.

Once the graveyard was out of sight, he asked David, “What form do you think’s best for hunting down this spirit?”

“I prefer Urshal for dangerous hunts,” said David before shifting to his hellhound form. He put his boxy snout to the ground and started sniffing around for a suitable scent. Lucas noticed that the hawk feather David had behind his ear was still there after shifting to Urshal, and that his fur had wrapped tightly around the feather’s quill.

Lucas nodded, “Urshal’s a good in between for both hunting and combat. Good tracking but better at fighting than Urhan. We’ll also need the ability to speak full sentences when we find the spirit.”

He shifted to Urshal himself and followed David. Both of them wandered southwards.

Time passed, and they realised they had wandered outside of their territory and were heading towards Panaca.

David paused. Or were they outside their territory now? He turned to Lucas and asked in the First Tongue, “Is Panaca our territory now? We went there to claim the money. Wouldn’t that have extended our territory?”

Lucas paused at David’s side. He drummed the fingers of a handpaw as he thought for a moment. “I’m pretty sure it’s still unclaimed. But there’s nothing stopping us from claiming it now. We’d just have to set up territory markers and have someone patrol it.”

“I already patrol it with Morrison while at work,” said David.

Lucas nodded, “Okay. So that just leaves boundary markers. Good thing I’m getting that warding gift. Since Panaca is right next door to Caliente.”

David put his nose back to the ground and started searching for a suitable scent. He told Lucas, “Find something that smells protective.”

He was utterly clueless as to what would constitute a ‘protective’ smell. Lucas could tell that he was as well. He replied, reminding David of what Colin told him but in a way to avoid antagonising him, “Territorial animals are pretty protective of their territories. So a scent of one of those animals will do.”

They searched for a time for a scent that fit the description. Eventually Lucas found something. Paw prints.

“These aren’t ours,” he said, putting a hand paw next to one of the prints and pulling it back to show the significantly larger size of his pawprint and its different hand-like shape.

David gave the smaller paw print a sniff and noted, “Coyote.”

Lucas nodded, “Coyote spirits will be able to teach a warding gift, and most are allied to Sagrim-Ur. They will try and trick us though.”

They started following the trail, spending half an hour following the small paw prints, and tufts of fur stuck in branches of desert bushes and the gaps between rocks. They found the source of the trail, a coyote spirit crouched low to the ground and stalking a rabbit spirit.

Lucas crouched low to the ground and turned to ask David what they should do, but found that the other Urshal had disappeared. He looked around and found the black hellhound slowly and silently sneaking behind the coyote, eyes zeroed in on his unaware prey.

Lucas crouched low to do the same, but as he stepped forward the wind blew behind him and towards the coyote spirit.

The coyote spirit’s nose twitched as Lucas’ scent caught his attention. It quickly bolted to flee the danger, but was sideswiped by David and tackled to the ground.

David slammed a handpaw on the coyote spirit’s neck and snarled savagely in their face.

With the spirit subdued, Lucas forgoed stealth and approached the coyote spirit. He told the spirit, “We don’t want to have to rip you apart. But we will if we need to. I can’t speak for my pack mate here-”

He gestured to David who was still snarling and now had the base of the coyote spirit’s skull in his maw.

“-but *I* would like to be civil about this if I can, Cousin.”

The coyote spirit barked, “Alright, alright, alright. I submit. You Uratha won. Father Wolf’s strength has always been greater than Coyote’s.”

Lucas raised an eyebrow at David, who rolled his eyes and begrudgingly let the spirit go.

The coyote immediately tried to bolt. But David, already warned about the coyote trying to trick them, grabbed the spirit’s tail with his mouth making it yelp in shock and pain.

Lucas slammed a handpaw on top of the coyote’s head, pinning it back to the ground.

“No tricks, Cousin,” warned Lucas with a mocking tone. “We’ll rip you apart if we need to.”

“Alright, fine. You win,” admitted the coyote from underneath Lucas’ handpaw.

Lucas took his foot off the coyote. It looked up to the black furred Urshal and nervously stammered, “I take it, uh, you wolf children are here to exert your claim over this territory.”

Lucas nodded, “Yes, that, but-David?”

“What?” asked David, his voice muffled by the tail in his mouth.

“Let him go,” ordered Lucas. David growled, but acquiesced, letting the tail fall out of his mouth but stayed close so that it wouldn’t try to run again.

Lucas returned his attention to the coyote spirit who picked itself up from the ground and sat down, “We’re here for that too, yes. But also receive power from the citizens of our new territory.”

He lowered his large, boxy head down to the coyote’s level and asked, “You’re a spirit that can teach a gift of warding, yes?”

The coyote cocked its ears and said, “I can teach you to protect the territory, yes. But it’s customary to provide a tithe to this humble one.”

Lucas raised his head back up and said, “You would prefer a tithe instead of your life? We can just rip the essence from your body right after.”

David leaned close behind the coyote and growled into its ear, “You’re really not in a good bargaining position.”

“Remember, Cousin,” said Lucas, “Sagrim-Ur knows the trickery of Coyote. You’ll find that you’ll meet your match with his children.”

At Lucas’s mention of Red Wolf, his tribe’s patron spirit, the coyote spirit quickly took a submissive demeanor. It said, “For our mutual lord, then. I will be cooperative.”

The spirit got up, wary of David’s eyes drilling into it, and walked to a patch of bare sand. It said to Lucas, “I will teach you to unlock power already in your soul. To defend your territory is already part of us canids.”

It began showing Lucas how to draw sigils in the sand with its paw that were needed to seal the perimeter of a claimed territory. It gestured to the drawn sigils with its snout and said, “You place these marks on the very borders of your territory and imbue them with your essence.”

The way the spirit imbued the sigils made David grimace. It hiked a leg up and marked the sigils like a dog would mark its territory.

The coyote then said, “This arrangement will allow you to know the presence of any intruder that crosses the border line. Be it mortal, spirit, Uratha, or other things.”

Lucas then practised making a small warded area with the coyote spirit. David sat off to the side, completely bored out of his mind. The coyote didn’t teach Lucas any actual magic. It was more just starting the process that unlocked some intrinsic knowledge that Lucas had. That all Uratha have.

Once Lucas had created his first successful ward, the coyote nodded, “Very good. I believe we have finished here. If you would mind, I would like to catch that spirit I lost out on earlier.”

Lucas looked down at the coyote, his eyes glowed briefly before he said, “Thank you for your cooperation. Your name is Howling-Joy, yes?”

The coyote perked up and gleefully howled, “Yes, a faithful servant of Red Wolf.”

“Okay, Howling-Joy, for the interrupting of your meal,” said Lucas before waving a paw in the air. Pure Essence flowed from the Ithaeur’s handpaw and hung in the air. The ephemeral substance coiled around in the air before it coalesced into the form of a dead rabbit.

It dropped onto the ground and the coyote pounced on it and started happily eating it.

As the coyote ate its meal, Lucas said, “I hope we can have a successful relationship going forward. Perhaps you will be able to help us with tasks in the future. We can assist you in other ways too.”

Howling-Joy nodded, “Yes, I think we can have a partnership of sorts. It’s beneficial to have some Uratha to protect my own claim.”

The spirit then took a submissive posture before Lucas, “As long, of course, you allow me to stake such a claim in your territory.”

Lucas nodded, “Of course. It would be against nature to deny you a claim within our domain. We hope to see you again sometime soon, Cousin.”

With a flick of its ears, Howling-Joy said, “Very well, I’m off to find that rabbit.”

It then trotted off, slowing to a crawl as he got near to David. It warily walked past him. The other Ithaeur smiled menacingly at the small spirit before snapping at the coyote’s ear. The coyote spirit yipped in fear and ran off.

“Knock it off,” growled Lucas. “We got it to agree to be a good vassal for us. It’s especially important to have good relationships with coyotes. They’re the least likely to hate Uratha. We’re also lucky to already have one that’s subordinate to Red Wolf.”

The entire time Lucas was admonishing his packmate, David was mocking him behind his back by bouncing his head from side to side and miming what Lucas was saying. He did that the entire walk back to Pioche as Lucas admonished him the entire walk back.

He only stopped when he noticed a strange looking spirit. A tortoise with what seemed to be a terrarium on its back. He wouldn’t have noticed it, having just assumed it was a rock with shrubbery on it, if it wasn’t for the fact that it was rapidly switching between desert seasons. Switching from the dry season where the shrubbery and ground on its shell was dry and dead with bone dry river beds, to the wet season where the shrubbery was green and lively, with engorged rushing rivers pouring off its back.

Lucas noticed David staring at it and noted, “A nature spirit. One of the seasons it looks like.”

David tilted his head as he noticed the sheer power of the rushing rivers on the tortoise’s back and the speed at which they refill after they dry up. He said, “One that’s specifically attuned to flash floods.”

One thing about the spirit confused him though, “Flash floods are quick. So why the fuck is it a turtle?”

“It’s a tortoise, you dunce,” said Lucas, looking at his packmate with surprised disappointment. “I thought you grew up here. You never heard of Mojave Max?”

“I haven’t lived in Vegas since I was fucking ten,” snapped David. “So get off my fucking ass and stop fucking correcting me all the damn time.”

“What the hell is your problem with me?” demanded Lucas. “I can’t be because of the needle I used on you. You get pissy every time I do something. Even when I try to help you.”

“Cause you’re fucking insufferable!” snapped David. “You’re always going around like you know everything. The confident black wolf who thinks he has a solution to every little fucking problem. Who acts like his shit don’t stink and the best Uratha in the pack.”

“Oh my god,” said Lucas, realising something as he looked at the other black furred werewolf. Noting the differences between them, but more importantly, noted for the first time the similarities between them.

“WHAT?!” roared David.

“You’re jealous of me,” said Lucas.

“I am fucking not,” David snarled defensively.

“Yes, you are,” said Lucas. “It explains why get so fucking pissy when I lead a Siskur-dah. Why you always butt heads with me when I prove you wrong.”

“It’s because we’re both Ithaeur, retard,” snarled David.

“No it’s not,” countered Lucas. “There are plenty of Uratha of the same auspice that get along. Just look at Kaiden and Morrison!”

The two argued for several minutes, their fight getting more and more animated to the point they were about to come to blows. They were only stopped from savaging each other by the nature spirit who, during their entire argument, was ponderously walking up to the pair.

When the tortoise finally reached the fighting werewolves it asked in a slow, plodding drawl, “Why must you be so loud, Wolf-things? Always howling. Always barking away. Do you need something from this one? Because if not, please leave.”

The two Ithaeur stopped their fighting to look down at the tortoise. David asked, “Aren’t turtles supposed to be wise?”

“Tortoise,” corrected Lucas.

“Oh shut the fuck up,” snarled David. He returned his attention back to the tortoise. “Can’t you make my packmate see my point of view?”

The tortoise focused its attention entirely on David. It squinted its eyes as it looked him over. Its nostrils flared slightly as it took in David’s scent. It said, “You reek of death more than the typical Uratha, Loud One. Do you, perchance, happen to be a follower of Kamduis-Ur?”

David nodded.

The tortoise said, “I can’t help your Iron Master packmate see like you do. But I can teach you to see through the eyes of the dead, if you’re desiring that.”

“What’s the catch?” asked David.

“You don’t catch anything,” said the tortoise, making both David and Lucas jerk their heads back in confusion. The Tortoise continued, “I just request a donation of two weeks worth of essence.”

“Two weeks?!” David asked, aghast. That much essence was far beyond what he was capable of paying. He’d barely be able to pay ten days, with that leaving him completely drained of essence afterwards.

David gave the nature spirit a closer look over. He surmised, as he noted once again the sheer force of the water flowing in the rivers on the spirit’s back, that because it was stronger in its flash flood aspect that it would have purview over death, and be able to consume death essence. There hadn’t been any major deaths in Pioche for a long while. The most recent ones being the bikers they killed last night, and the meth cooks around a month before. But they were quite a distance from where the slow walking spirit was currently. It was even longer since a major flood in the area.

The spirit was starving, he realised.

He loomed over the tortoise and growled, “You’re not in a spot to make that large of a claim when you’re starving. You’d be lucky if I gave you a day’s worth.”

“Okay,” slowly relented the spirit, “I can teach you the same skill for merely ten days of essence.”

David really didn’t want to completely drain himself of essence. They still had a ways to go to make it to the Boothill locus and he may need that essence for a possible fight. He begrudgingly looked to Lucas for help.

Lucas helped immediately, saying to the spirit, “You’re still within our territory. So making unreasonable demands of my packmate will be a good way to ensure that you won’t see the next rainy season.”

The tortoise bowed its head and relented, “A single week will suffice. I’ll even allow you to pay after the lesson.”

Lucas looked to David, silently asking if that was enough. David grumbled, “Fine.”

The tortoise then nodded and gestured with its head to a disturbed part of the ground several feet away.

David walked over to the patch of ground, and looked over to the tortoise just to see that it was still turning around and hadn’t even started walking towards the patch of dirt. David groaned in impatience.

“Finally,” he growled after it took ten minutes for the spirit to make it to where David was.

When it arrived it started slowly digging at the patch. Impatient, David started digging as well. Quickly shoveling large clods of sand and dirt away until he revealed the rotting corpse of a wild donkey. Its head still had eyes, but they were glazed over and milky.

“Good,” said the spirit, “The eyes are still in good enough condition. I will teach you to see through the eyes of the dead.”

The tortoise put its head to the side of David’s muzzle and nudged it around to guide David to look directly in the dead donkey spirit’s eyes.

David remembered the lesson that Lucas just had with Howling-Joy just before. He realised that the tortoise won’t be teaching him something completely foreign to him, but something that’s intrinsic to his hybrid flesh and spirit soul. He was being taught how to see through the eyes of the dead, and he was a Bone Shadow. One of Death Wolf’s brood. Death was a fundamental part of who he was, even more than the average Uratha. Death surrounded him even before he had his First Change. If anyone in his pack understood Death and its aspects, it would be him.

After what felt like several minutes of the tortoise’s guidance and David’s own understanding, a glimmer of understanding sparked at the back of David’s mind. Like a loose thread hanging from the seam holding two pieces of fabric together. He tilted his head and pulled that metaphorical thread, undoing the seam and separating the veil blocking him from that intrinsic knowledge as he gazed into the corpse’s eyes.

He tilted his head, he suddenly knew how to look through its eyes. He couldn’t describe how he knew. Just that he did. Something that was natural to him, like breathing.

His vision changed. The corpse and everything else he saw fell away. He was still in the desert where the corpse and the other originally were. His vision was fuzzy in the middle, but his sight was further to the side, a wider range of view that a herbivore had.

It was the donkey’s perspective, David realised. Seeing the very last moments of its life. He couldn’t move around and see other things. Just a passenger seeing exactly what the donkey last saw.

Its head was bent down, eating tufts of tough desert grass when it seemed to hear something. David couldn’t hear what it heard, only capable of seeing visually. The donkey tilted its head to see a mountain lion spirit claw into the donkey’s rear leg, crippling it and preventing it from being able to kick the carnivorous spirit away. Its eyes locked onto the mountain lion spirit as the lion started eating it while it was still alive.

The vision faded as the donkey’s life force was finally severed and David’s perception returned to the present, staring directly into the donkey’s decaying eyes. He broke off eye contact and shook his head in an attempt to remove the macabre vision that still lingered, clear as day, when he closed his eyes.

The tortoise spirit said, “Kamduis-Ur’s brood really do have a talent for Death. That was quite a short lesson.”

Lucas was lying on the ground several feet away, bored out of his mind like David was during his own lesson with Howling-Joy. He growled, “You’ve been staring at the burro’s corpse for over two hours.”

The tortoise looked expectantly at David, “You’ve learnt everything I have to teach you.”

David thought, at first, to bleed himself in order to expend the Essence the spirit asked for. But tortoises were herbivores. That wouldn’t be right or natural. So, without really knowing what he was doing but still somehow understanding, he waved his paw like Lucas did with Howling-Joy.

Essence exuded from his form, converting from a pure ephemeral substance, to a massive head of lettuce. It hung in the air for a brief moment before landing onto the ground with a dull thud.

The tortoise dove onto the lettuce with such a rapid fervor that it shocked and surprised David. Before he knew it, it was completely devoured and the nature spirit was ponderously walking away.

David looked back and forth from where the lettuce used to be and the slowly leaving tortoise. He roared, “Why couldn’t you have been that fast before?!”

A series of chuffing growls caught his attention and he turned to see that it was Lucas laughing on the ground.

“You made him lettuce?” he said with a laugh. He rolled to his feet and started waking away, chuckling, “Come on, let’s go.”

After a time, they returned to Boothill Cemetery. At the edge of the cemetery were Jesse and Tsu’mara practising blowing up various manmade objects, causing great harm to the area.

Jesse saw the two Urshal approaching and excitedly called out, “Hey! Look at the new gifts we got from the Lunes.”

He then slapped the top of a blender and it completely disassembled down to its constituent parts. Every screw, blade, and wire separating from the device’s whole.

David looked at the pile of now random parts and asked, “Where the hell did you get a blender?”

Lucas answered, “Haven’t you ever looked inside a house in the Shadow? Houses are fully stocked, they’re just made of ephemera.”

Jesse nodded, “You can even find food in fridges. Don’t eat it though. Tsu’mara did one time. Got horrible diarrhoea.”

Tsu’mara shoved Jesse, “Don't share TMI stuff, dude.”

Jesse rubbed his shoulder but laughed.