I had the chain half-twisted around my wrist, boots braced against the metal deck, when the man jumped. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen latecomers do a desperate dash, but never after the gap had opened so wide—a black sliver of Puget Sound yawning below, deck swaying with the surge, fluorescent glare flickering off the water. The man landed wrong, staggered into my shoulder, and nearly dragged us both down. I caught my balance. He caught the chain, fingers white-knuckled.
His coat was expensive, better suited for downtown than this graveyard shift. A ragged tear exposed the fine wool and the barest hint of a shoulder wound—ribboned red, soaking through. Blood shone at his collar. Before I could bark at him—about safety, or trespassing—he leaned in close. “Don’t radio the bridge,” he whispered. His breath smelled of copper and brine. “There’s a werewolf on this boat, and the blood moon rises in twenty minutes.”
My hand hovered over the chain’s clasp, tension strung between us. The ferry’s horn wailed, engines throttling into a roar. I caught a glimpse of the captain in the wheelhouse above: Marion Lusk, a silhouette against orange instrument lights. Instead of throttling back, she was pushing the old boat faster. The deck under my boots vibrated with the strain.
I didn’t let my voice shake. “And you are?”
He kept his dark eyes on me, sharp, too steady for someone bleeding. “The one who’s been tracking it.”
His words echoed all the way back to the open car bay—don’t radio, werewolf, blood moon. I didn’t believe him. But I wasn’t about to let him out of my sight, either.
That’s when the car-deck lights started dying. First, the ones nearest the ramp flickered out, followed in sequence by every overhead lamp along both sides of the deck. Each went with a click and the faintest crackle. The last one above us faltered, buzzed, then surrendered the car deck to shadow. The only light left was city-glow reflected off the windshield of a battered sedan, and the bloody globe of the rising moon snagged halfway behind a cloud.
A hush settled. Engines throbbed below, metal creaked as the hull flexed. I caught the sound next—a slow, deliberate scraping, claws dragging across the roof of a parked Toyota, deep in the maze of cars just ahead. Not a raccoon. Not any animal I’d ever heard this close. The man’s hand stayed on the chain, his other drifting to something under his coat—a weapon, maybe. His eyes flicked toward the darkness. I didn’t need werewolf stories to feel the threat boil up between the cars.
I swallowed and looked up at the bridge. The captain was watching me through the glass, face unreadable. The stranger’s grip tightened. He whispered, low enough only I could hear: “If you radio, you’ll only panic them. Trust me.”
Somewhere out there, something moved between the cars, closer now. My radio was heavy on my hip. I could bolt for the stairwell, or stand my ground, or call for help. The chain in my hand felt like the only thing tethering me to this moment—and the ferry was already halfway to darkness.
The scraping stopped. Silence deepened. I couldn’t see what lurked between the cars—only the smear of blood on the man’s collar, his too-calm voice, and the wild pulse hammering beneath my own skin.
Above us, the blood moon broke free, staining the Sound red. The engines howled.
And a low growl echoed out into the dark.