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Pack and nest were already working, loosely, wolves in one cluster near the porch and vampires in another by the eastern fence line. Nobody had told them to separate. They’d done it on their own.

Marcus set his kit on a tree stump and opened it. He pulled out gauze, antiseptic, the suture pack he kept sealed in wax paper. A wolf with a gash on his forearm sat on the ground nearby. The wound edges were black. It hadn’t closed in two days.

“Let me see,” Marcus said.

The wolf extended his arm. The gash ran from wrist to elbow. The blackness had a texture to it that no infection would have produced. This was magic.

“Hold still.” Marcus poured antiseptic over it. The wolf didn’t flinch. His jaw was tight. “How’d you get it?”

“Touched one of the glass pieces. Didn’t know what it was.”

Marcus nodded. He cleaned the wound and wrapped it. The antiseptic wouldn’t touch the black edges. He knew that. He did it anyway.

A voice cut through the yard.

“Lucien. Fence line. The runes are thickest there.”

Marcus looked up.

Galen, eighteen and broad-shouldered, stood in the center of the yard. The old scar ran pale across his left cheek. His voice stayed level, and the noise in the yard dropped by half.

“Two wolves, half-shift. Dig up that thing by the woodpile. The one making the noise.” Galen pointed. Two wolves shifted their hands. Claws came out. They moved toward the woodpile without comment.

Galen turned. His eyes found the vampire standing near Marcus.

“You. The shifter with the arm. Go look at it.”

The vampire crossed the yard. He knelt beside the wolf Marcus had just bandaged and pulled the gauze off. His hands moved over the black-edged gash without hesitation.

Marcus watched. The vampire’s palms pressed flat against the wound. The blackness receded in stages, the outer edges first, then the center. The tissue underneath was pink and healthy. The vampire kept his hands there until the last of the black was gone.

“Thanks,” the wolf said.

The vampire nodded and stood.

At the fence line, Lucien worked methodically. Each rune cluster required a different approach. Some he scraped away with his thumbnail. Others he pressed his palm against until the red pulse died. One cluster flared when he touched it. The light jumped from dull red to bright. Lucien didn’t pull back. He held his hand there. His jaw set. The light built and kept building, then collapsed, and the rune went dark.

“Thanks, Lucien,” Galen called across the yard. “Good timing.”

Lucien nodded and moved to the next cluster.

Near the woodpile, the two wolves dug. Their clawed hands moved fast. Dark earth churned. One of them hit something metal. He pulled. A bound artifact came free from the dirt. It was small and made of iron, with runes covering its surface. The wolf held it at arm’s length. His partner backed up a step.

“Don’t break the binding,” Galen said. “Just get it to the fire pit.”

They carried it between them. The artifact made a low humming sound. Neither wolf dropped it.

Marcus moved through the yard. A vampire had burned his palm on the cursed glass. Marcus cleaned it and wrapped it. The vampire didn’t thank him. He went back to work. A wolf had a splinter of glass embedded in her calf. Marcus tweezed it out and disinfected the puncture. The glass shard hissed on the ground after he dropped it, went dark, and became ordinary glass.

“Did it get blood?” Marcus asked.

The wolf shook her head.

“Good.” He taped a bandage over the puncture and moved on.

He watched Galen between patients. The kid moved like Gabriel, though the gait wasn’t the same. It was something in the posture, shoulders back, weight on both feet. Each order came flat and declarative, without hesitation or softening. The wolves responded. So did the vampires. Neither group seemed surprised by it.

Gabriel stood at the edge of the yard.