Once they passed through the great moon point, the path circled back to the front to let them in. At first one might think this poor pathway design, but in reality, a number of wealthy construction unions had insisted on making the route into and out of the castle longer, which had resulted in circuitous loops, a lot of bribes, and wealth that got lost by the third generation. The river that could be turned off might also have a slight impact on the route, not that any of them would have heard of though.

  As they went around into the more heavily trafficked area, tour guides flooded out with trolls, many species of canines, and ever present humans. The various groups clogged the way. A few wore strange long tunics marking them as some form of cult, because wearing matching white clothing can only mean one thing. Certainly not that they’d coordinated for photographs.

  “Why don’t they call it Booty Castle?” Bodi thought he was very clever.

  “Nobody’s calling it because that’s advertising the wrong thing.” Spoon explained curtly.

  Their large party had difficulty going through without getting lost in the see of tan, brown, and white robes. Evil Katholics might live here too. This would require extra care unless Day already had contacts in town. Like werewolves and vampires, Katholics and necromancers never seemed to get along. Probably because of burial rites, and rights.

  After crawling along passed lunch and into the already breached walls, they got into the castle proper. It was a large place although not so massive as one might be without tourism season. Like Adville, Mooning Castle boasted safety from off worlders and this attracted everyone who got tired of their life being interrupted. Everywhere wooden stalls with cheaper lemonade than any seller outside, squashes, meat on a stick, and bread rolls, can’t be without bread rolls and meat on a stick in a market, sold their goods. As they traveled the main road further inside the walls, they saw it even had a Wares outlet.

  They were considering stopping to ask for directions to an inn or a healers establishment, when a fight broke out.

  A huge pack of weredogs plowed into the side of the market, chasing after, naturally a werecat. The werecat threw herself over the market leaping through complex routes to throw off the weredogs. The whole pack though split up, half dog faced, they coordinated with yipping bays.

  Their forceful entrance stopped all the horses and all progress forward. Everything humanoid that didn’t want to be involved fled, making little space to maneuver horses and a cart. The flash mob controlled them now and as the werecat hoped so did the merchants trying to escape with their most prized valuables.

  Since they were stuck anyway, Bodi goggled. “Are those werewolves?”

  “Don’t be silly. Those died ages ago. Those are human-wolves or wolf humans. Possibly weredogs. It’s impossible to tell one apart without knowing your scent profiles extremely well.” Day explained.

  “More story time?” Bodi sighed. “Info dump character or just unlucky? I supposed I can’t move anyway.”

  “Human-wolves are a simple story. Once a wolf pack fell into a clever trap laid by a housewife who’d lost all her children and her husband, to rabid wolves. All the wolves became humans and every time they meet a wolf who is not fast enough or clever enough to scent them or perhaps is just too aggressive, a new wolf turns into a human. Their changes are anywhere from fully human, stuck in the middle, or sporadically turning human. All very uncomfortable for them. Some go on to be more useful members of society, but by and large, you leave the packs alone. If they see you as prey, they go into a feeding frenzy. Their human nature makes them ultra aggressive.”

  “Never run around them, and don’t even think about eating nearby one. They’re all very grabby about their food. Just think of them as a feral six-year-old humans with wolfish tendencies and you’d get what they are.”

  “A wolf in human sheep you say?” Laural frowned. “Not sure I’m alright with how your insulting animals.”

  “You should be more annoyed by the extinction of wolves. Even Yellowstone can’t save them.”

  Bosi sighed. “And that happened because?”

  “Simple, too many werewolf bandits attacked people in wolf form on the road. I mean the average wolf has no interest in attacking humans. Feral dogs definitely do. Dire wolves need to because they’re starving. But the whole wolves attacking groups or strangers on the road is entirely mistaken. A wolf doesn’t really do that. Feral weredogs on the other hand attack humans at a crazed rate. It’s a simple misidentification issue.”

  “Weredogs cooperatively hunted, got in less fights with vampires, and never became the hallmark of attacking you on the road because all the weredog attacks killed everyone leaving no survivors.”

  “Then how do you know it happened?” Laural pressed.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Day winked. “I am what I am. I just asked a none survivor.”

  They’d gotten through the initial crush and now were stuck by people trying to fully teardown their stalls and take all their merchandise with them. Ah to be on foot instead of in a huge roadblocking party. Essentially, they were the choke point.

  The werecat got circled and she had no place to go. The pack of weredogs surrounded her, making a huge amount of noise. The baying of a hunting hound, the yapping of a tiny hairless chihuahua, deep chested barks of a Burmese mountain dog, and the howl of a husky mixed together. It thoroughly drowned out any of the merchants’ curses.

  A huge man with the face of a Golden Retriever and flowing mane down his back stepped forward. His shirt a tad too tight for his muscles. He grabbed the woman snapping his jaws at her. The werecat hissed but then reached into her shirt front and reluctantly handed back a bone necklace.

  “I outta rip you to shreds,” the tall Golden Retriever snarled in common tongue.

  Day grumbled, “His bark is worse than his bite and that dog won’t hunt.”

  She got off the cart. Inexplicably, she could walk through the crowd and stepped out in the open area, by the fountain the cat had been trapped at. Once she got free of the fleeing crowds, everyone stared in confusion at her.

  Her golden hair matched his and she wore today a brown dress made over with a thousand impractical ruffles. She commanded everyone’s attention for one second, breaking the focus upon the fight. Then she finished walking into the crowd of now silent weredogs, and Day reached up and very, very carefully itched behind Golden Retriever’s ear. The man immediately broke off from his staring contest with the cat. He titled his head into her scratching.

  “The feels amazing, do you do tummy rubs?” Straight from let loose the dogs of war to a dog with two tails.

  “Of course,” she told him and too everyone’s flabbergasted surprise.

  He literally tore off his shirt, then he paused staring at her. “Sorry, that was weird. And a waste of another good shirt.”

  She gave a tinkling laugh that discharged the tense atmosphere. “I often wished to do with at with some of my own clothes. Have you looked into giant spider silk shits? Expensive but very robust and not very itchy for anyone with,” she glanced at his harry chest, “sensitive skin.”

  He tilted his head. “Giant poison spider silk shirts? I don’t know of any makers. You can scratch now.”

  Like a cat with a scratching posts, she became rather aggressively and not at all prettily clawing at him. It looked more like trying to tear her way out of a dirt prison that petting a dog. For everyone else in the roadway, it became instantly awkward and a tad cringy. The merchants grew uncomfortable since now their cowardice or greed to grab all their stuff, and loot others stalls, could easily be seen without the chaos.

  A few perverts swigged their drinks quicker and rubbed their hands together, enjoying the show of Day.

  The dogman grunted like a stuck dying pig. “Just right there, those shirts are so bad. Under the collar is such a bother.”

  A younger man and woman weredog said together, “Can we have a turn next? We won’t rip our shirts, we promise. We are very good dogs!”

  “I offer scritch sessions for anyone interested. I’m not able to perform perfect messages,” she gave a saucy wink, “unless you’re a fair folk. I can book you in for thirty minutes to ninety minutes.”

  It was along running joke that fair folk were ticklish and you need only rub their toes together to make them jump and do all sorts of strange enchanting things. First you had to catch them under a rainbow though.

  The woman slightly bared her teeth. “But he’s getting a free one,” she pointed at the large man. “I want his turn.”

  “He’s getting a free tummy rub because he was keeping you all from holding up my friend indefinitely. Besides, how else was I supposed to show you my abilities without a demonstration of my services. However, I can arrange tummy scritches and ear or head pats for a reduced fee if you can help me.”

  “Like what?” They all eagerly wanted to know. They were actually asking what, “Like what like what like,” and tumbling all over each other together happy like everyone spewing out words together at the same time was normal and even. Just a pile of human puppies.

  Spoon realized with a shock. Day has been accepted into their pack already. One action. Not because an alpha, everyone knew alpha werewolf theory was a myth potentiated by the “higher” species of vampires who wanted to remove human wolf-from the native original land. At least Spoon knew alpha theory was a myth. The original study’s author redacted it. Not that all blood suckers like himself were bad, but they had a long bloody history of using their trances to spread propaganda about their enemies. Werewolves being their natural enemies because of crepuscular, twilight, hunting grounds that started their original conflict.

  They’d tried to cause internal fighting an external hunting by claiming the largest male and female in the packs were actually their leaders. In fact, wolf-humans had loose oligarchies usually based on the lines of who turned who. Being of the original cursed pack made you the loose oligarchy if you were still alive or the closest to the original curse. Anyone who turned a wolf human then had to monitor their transition from wolf to human. It had a shocking similarity to bitten vampires except weredogs couldn’t be born. They had to be bitten by a feral weredog.

  Of course, the bloodlines really only applied to the curse strength of which there wea a great debate by many scholars who had more or less curse. Power structure within the packs were very fluid and confusing to an outsider. The order to eat, walk through doors, sit in chairs, pick toys, pick plunder and even who spoke to humans first or got to yell the loudest were all sorted out within the group and it sometimes changed when everyone in the pack knew but outsiders could not say.

  When Spoon asked his elders what their most common correlation there had been some strange comment about how the moon phase meant something. Winter wolves and summer wolves turned to humans were not to be confused with humans first born under the happy star, or in the year of the Buckwheat versus a dog human birthed during the ascending comet and turned human in Barley year.

  “I need help finding a cross species healer.” Day reached out her other hand and now had two weredogs enraptured.

  “We love you! We want to help! This is great! Follow us! New pack. New pack!”

  Kriti gave her reins to Bodi and drove the cart following the dog pack. Hopefully, they wouldn’t end up in a dog house tonight.