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mythical Norse god-wolf.

    We drove east by northeast, getting
occasionally good views of the breaking dawn. Just outside
Milwaukee we pulled into an industrial park, following the street
signs and the GPS till we found a non-descript building that could
have housed a manufacturing company, a small warehouse or a cluster
of corporate offices. A human employee, male, middle-aged, met us
at the front of the building and directed me to drive around to the
array of overhead doors that lined one side of the building. He
raised the closest door and we drove into a vast space that held
ten vehicles in its center. Shelving units, dimly visible in the
back, were laden with supplies of unknown type and origin.
    The attendant, who was about five foot, eight
with a balding head, compact build and the beginnings of a paunch,
pointed at an empty parking slot between a dark blue, new model
Camaro and a large white Tahoe. As I got out of the Suburban, he
handed me the keys to the Tahoe and held out his hand for my keys,
all without saying a word.
    “Morning,” I said, trying to catch his eye,
but he just nodded and looked down. Tanya got out and stretched
lithely, causing the reticent caretaker to about burst an eyeball.
His eyes got even wider when I opened the back and a giant wolf
form jumped lightly to the ground. He still never said a word, just
took down a tablet computer and started checking in the Suburban
like this was Avis or something.
    It took less than five minutes to transfer
our stuff and then we were rolling back out into the new day, all
without ever saying a word to the facility’s caretaker.
    “Is that normal?” I asked Tanya.
    “Hmm?” she replied, sleepy.
    “That facility or warehouse…does the Coven
keep many places like that?” I clarified.
    “Yes, hundreds, at least in this country,
thousands all over the world,” she answered.
    “Are they always manned by a creepy silent
guy?” I asked.
    “They all have a well paid staff that keeps
the vehicles maintained and the supplies current. Such people are
specifically selected to be…how should we say it? Lacking
curiosity?” she said, opening one gorgeous blue eye to meet my gaze
in the rearview mirror. “They’re manned twenty-four, seven,
three-sixty-five. He would have received a fax or email, sometimes
a phone call informing him of our arrival and needs.”
    “And if we needed weapons?” I asked.
    She closed her eye and snorted. Of course
there would be pre-stockpiled weapons, silly me!
    “ He probably has a military
background,” I commented.
    “We recruit retiring military logistic and
supply personnel. They’re really well paid for a job that’s easier
than the one they held in the military. Each facility has enough
personnel that no one is overworked.”
    “What about shrinkage?” I asked, referring to
theft.
    “Everything is computer inventoried with
regular audits. The people we hire have to have squeaky clean
backgrounds, not a hint of trouble. Occasionally, one of the audits
will include a mindreader type.”
    “Have there ever been any problems?” I
asked.
    “Of course. People are people,” she
replied.
    “What happened?” I asked.
    “The problems went away,” she said,
sleepily.
    I sometimes forget that the love of my life
is a vampire, a pure predator. She’s not really a cruel sort, but
she has killer instinct by the gallon, it’s part and parcel of who
she is. She doesn’t like vampires to kill humans with wanton
disregard, but when the situation merits it, she is not
squeamish.
    Time to change the subject.
    “Do you ever get tired of older vampires not
taking us seriously?” I asked, thinking of how much trouble could
have been avoided if Langsford hadn’t been so blinded by Tanya’s
age.
    “You have no idea!” she replied, her voice no
longer sounding tired. “What none of them realize is that I was in
my mother’s womb, unchanging for over two hundred years. Every
experience and situation Galina went through,