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werewolf pack—body shy I was not. But bright red was still really, really shocking next to all that green.
    â€œYup,” I said, trying to sound nonchalant because it wouldn’t do to run around screaming in front of a group of police people I was trying to impress for the good of the pack. Ever since the werewolves had admitted to their existence, they’d had to fight for the goodwill of the communities they lived in. Goodwill made it safer for everyone. “It’s a troll.”
    Somehow, a troll hadn’t seemed as scary when I was reading about it in Ariana’s book. The drawing had been about four inches high by two inches wide. The real creature was terrifying, evenhalf a mile away—elephant-sized or a hair bigger, judging by a rough comparison to the cars nearest him.
    I couldn’t see any of the wolves—not even Adam or Joel. The bridge was slightly angled from where I stood, and the center barricade between the opposite lanes blocked what line of sight was left with the battered cars littering the roadway, but from the agitation of the troll, I expected that they were there.
    Having evidently gotten as far up as it intended, the troll swung for a moment from both arms, which were overly long for his body, longer than his legs. That accounted for the instant association with gorillas—though his features and coloring were nothing like one. His mouth was horribly humanesque despite the eye placement, until he smiled and displayed teeth, sharp and wedge-shaped, in double rows like a shark’s.
    He opened his four-fingered, thumbless hands and dropped from maybe thirty feet up—it was tough to judge from that distance, binoculars or no. I couldn’t see him land. The inconveniently placed center cement barricade hid my view. But I could feel the impact on the ground under my feet from half a mile away. I heard it, too, and saw the bridge shudder. I handed back the binoculars. It hadn’t landed on any of the wolves, I told myself. The pack sense would have told me if someone had died.
    â€œWhat’s a troll?” Tony asked as he took the binoculars, then made an impatient sound. “I know what it is in the stories—‘Three Billy Goats Gruff’ and all of that. But how do you stop it? Our guns didn’t seem to do much more than tick it off while we were trying to get the civilians to safety.”
    â€œThey’re tough,” I told Tony. “Usually more brawn than brains, though they can talk, or most of them can. A troll’s skin is supposed to be very thick; the book I read about it compared it to asuit of armor, for whatever that’s worth. It must be tougher than most medieval armor if your guns didn’t hurt him.”
    I tried to remember everything I could. “He’ll be equally comfortable on land or the river—you should warn your guys in the boats.” There were a number of boats gathering on either side of the bridge, more now than there had been five minutes ago. I judged that most of them were gawkers, but I thought I saw a couple of official boats, too.
    â€œAny idea how we can kill it?”
    â€œBack in the day, people used to hunt them with lances,” I told him apologetically.
    Tony gave me an unamused laugh. “Mercy, we’re all that stands between the citizens and that thing when it comes down off the bridge. I don’t have any mounted knights down here.”
    â€œJ.C. has a horse,” the guy with the bloody sleeve said.
    â€œYeah,” said another guy absently. Like Tony and a few others, he had a pair of binoculars. He was staring through them as he spoke. “But his lance is too small.”
    â€œYou’d know about small lances,” said still another guy. This one apparently was J.C. because he continued, “But my horse is afraid of sheep and small children. I don’t think I could get him within a mile of a troll—and no one’s lance is that