Kyren was surprised when their ride finally made it to the school. It was not Hawkthorne who came to pick them up but rather Aunt Janette. Janette was Drakesmith’s wife and the twin’s mother. Over the years, she had a certain habit of catching the three of them whenever they were doing something they shouldn’t have been. Her scowl was a sight to behold, but it was one the three of them generally tried to avoid.

Alex stepped forward. “What are you doing here Mom?”

Aunt Janette gestured towards the car. “Get in. Your fathers had business to take care of this afternoon.”

Kyren and the twins jumped into the car quickly. When they had put some distance between them and the school, Rafe asked the question they were all wondering. “How many?”

Aunt Janette frowned slightly. “Only two this time, both omegas.”

Omegas were the weakest variety of werewolves. They were also the most common. Deltas were a rarer variety and were much stronger. Once a werewolf killed enough people, they would mutate from an omega to the stronger beta variety. Betas were the next step up, but they were exceedingly rare. Alphas were absolutely terrifying, but even in the massive horde that attacked Columbus, there had only been two alphas.

It had been a busy week already. Two days ago, Hawkthorne and Drakesmith had taken down eight omegas and two days before that, they had killed a delta along with two omegas. Those kills had meant hours of work for Kyren and the twins. The guild had a policy that the hunters couldn’t perform certain tasks after they were involved in battle. Normally there would be civilians who were on payroll to perform those duties, but they hadn’t been able to get anyone qualified to take over after the last batch had left three years ago, so, Kyren and the twins had long since taken over those duties.

Alex was in charge of equipment maintenance and logistics. It was her job to inspect the equipment that was used in the hunt. If something was broken, she had to fix it or order a new one. Even if nothing broke, she would still need to order supplies like new ammunition or specialized explosives that were used.

Rafe and Kyren had taken over a more morbid task. When a werewolf was killed, they needed to know who the werewolf was when they were human. The task meant that the two of them could spend hours in the guild branch’s morgue puzzling over each corpse.

At first the three of them were happy to help, but since the start of the summer, the branch had been given more responsibilities. Where once they had only covered a small portion of the state, now they covered more than half of Ohio. All of the other Guild branches in the state had been wiped out by the horde during the recent tragedy. There had been eight other branches. Each had been ambushed before the attack had begun in scale. Hawkthorne and Drakesmith had been ambushed too but had managed to fight off their attackers.

The process of training and assigning new hunters was a long one, so, the fallen branches had yet to be reformed. Until they were, the Redhill branch was severely understaffed.

Nobody spoke on the way back. At this point, taking care of incidents like this was a regular occurrence.

When they arrived, Kyren and Rafe jumped out of the car and headed to the armored truck that Hawkthorne and Drakesmith used whenever they went out on official guild business. In the back, two bodies were strapped down. They were hardly recognizable as human. The eyes were yellow and their head and back were covered in fur. Omegas rarely had much in the way of fur and at a glance, Kyren realized that they were looking at a pair of dead deltas.

Rafe looked over. “I thought they said it was two omegas.”

Kyren shook his head. “They probably just told your mom that to keep her from worrying.”

“Well, I’m worried. This makes three deltas in less than a week.”

Kyren didn’t respond to that. They both knew what that might mean. It hadn’t been too long since a shade had brought a horde of werewolves down on them. One of the signs that had been missed last time was an increase in werewolf activity and the presence of several deltas. Ever since, they had been weary of any increase in incidents. “Let’s just get them to the morgue. I’ll talk to Hawkthorne later.”

Rafe nodded grimly and the two of them started the process of bringing the corpses to the morgue for further examination. The two were well-practiced. They smoothly rolled the bodies onto gurneys and brought them to the morgue.

When the two set about inspecting the first body, their alarm grew. Normally, every corpse they inspected had one injury, a single bullet wound to the head. It was the fastest way to kill a werewolf, and Hawkthorne and Drakesmith were skilled, experienced hunters who virtually never missed. These were deltas though. It wasn’t too hard to imagine that their speed and strength had pressed even the two experienced hunters into using alternative means to complete the job.

Rafe reached into a cabinet that contained supplies for some of the routine tests that they relied on. “Basic tests first?”

Kyren looked over. “We should start with fingerprints. Most deltas have some kind of criminal history before being turned.”

Rafe looked at the claws that extended from the beta’s hands. “Do you really think we’ll be able to get enough of a print?”

“We’ll have to do the same thing we did with the that omega from Indiana.”

Rafe nodded along. The procedure had been a creative solution to a challenging problem. They had tried every test they could think of, but the body hadn’t been in great condition. Eventually, they had decided to carefully clip the outer layers of the claws off and take a partial print from the fingers that were still partially formed within.

The procedure went swiftly. The first claw they tried didn’t have enough of a finger left to get a print, but the third claw they tried did. When they ran it through the system, they quickly found a match. The man who had been named Terrence Hartly, had been arrested for several minor crimes and had been accused but not convicted for much more serious crimes including one murder. The detail that they found the most comforting though was that the man was from California. The delta that they had found earlier that week had been from Iceland. If they had been from the same region, then it would have been seriously concerning.

The second delta took a little longer to identify as their method didn’t work this time. Still, this beta had a criminal record too, so, they were relatively easy to find. It seemed they had been reported missing six years prior in Oklahoma. Shortly after, one of their co-workers had been discovered dead, and the case had never been solved. Before they left, Kyren sent a message to the local Guild branch in Oklahoma indicating that the murder should be investigated for signs of werewolf attack. The co-worker may well have been this delta’s first victim.

After Rafe had finished logging the information they had found into the Guild’s system, they left and locked the morgue then went to look for Alex.

They found Alex in the equipment storage area. She was on the phone, having a heated argument with someone. Rafe took a seat on the coach that the three of them had put there for exactly that purpose. They had found it at the end of someone’s driveway and had rescued it before it could be disposed of. Kyren took a seat right beside him.

“Like I told you we need another shipment of flares.” Alex paused, listening to the answer for a second. “I know we’re using a lot more than most branches. We have to deal with more cases than most.” Alex hung up the phone in annoyance shortly afterwards and started venting to Kyren. “Why can’t the Guild suppliers get it through their heads that we have to use more supplies than others. We only have two hunters. They need to use flares because we don’t have the numbers to use traditional tactics.”

Kyren looked on with amusement. “Suppliers giving you difficulty again?”

Alex sighed heavily. “They just don’t understand that we’re covering half a state. We need a lot of supplies to do that.” Alex briefly plopped down on the couch before standing back up again. “Ah right. I wanted to ask you two if those were really omegas.” Alex grabbed an empty pistol magazine from the counter near her. “They went through some serious ammunition to take them down.”

Rafe shook his head. “They were actually both deltas.” Alex started to ask a question, but Rafe held up his hand. “Don’t worry neither of them were from Iceland. I don’t think we have another horde on our hands.”

Alex visibly relaxed as she took that in. “I’m just about finished here. Do you guys want to run the course before we go home.”

Kyren and Rafe confirmed that they did want to run the course. The course was used for training hunters. It involved using adrenaline to overcome difficult obstacles and required firing from challenging positions. While Kyren had made it clear that he didn’t want to be a hunter, he still wanted to complete his training.

Five minutes later, all three of them were standing at the start of the course, training pistols in hand. The training pistols were designed to be as close as possible to the standard Guild hunter pistol. Hunters used pistols for their mobility and effectiveness at long and short ranges. While it was ideal to take werewolves out from a distance, that was almost never an option. Werewolves had far superior senses to any human and it was usually the werewolves that found the hunters first, not the other way around.

Grinning, Rafe looked at the score board they had set up by the entrance. Every time they ran the course, they kept track of who finished first. The last time they had run it, Rafe had managed to pull ahead by one point.

On a count of three, they all burst into motion, using adrenaline to move faster than any normal human could. Each of them was careful to strike a careful balance to avoid hurting themselves while moving as fast as they could. The first obstacle was a flat, wooden ten-foot wall. Kyren jumped most of the way up, then used his strength to pull himself onto the lip where he took his pistol out and aimed at the first target. Every time they ran the course, the target’s location was randomized, but it didn’t matter, Kyren’s first shot hit the bullseye, and without stopping, he continued over the wall.

The rest of the course continued just like that. Kyren slid under and heaved himself over difficult obstacles while firing at randomized targets that sometimes moved in erratic ways. Kyren didn’t miss a single shot or pause for any of the obstacles, but he could still hear the other two moving just as fast. They had all been training for years and they almost never made mistakes.

It was Kyren who made it through his lane first this time. He only managed to pull ahead by a fraction of a second, but he had done it. The other two glowered in annoyance as Kyren made a tally on the board by his name.

Kyren didn’t get home until late that night. The three of them had ran the course until at last they were all tied in score again. Kyren enjoyed the competition. He knew that it wouldn’t be long before he wouldn’t be able to push himself to the limit like this and have the others keep up with him. It wouldn’t be long before Kyren could move faster than the others without even using adrenaline.