Marcus shrugged and after looking, pointedly, both ways, stepped off the curb dragging Kevin with him. “I’ll see you home. Kat would appreciate if I did and I could use Kat owing me something.”

They walked quietly for another block before Kevin finally broke the silence. “So what did you mean, you’re a supernatural event?”

“Great line, ain’t it? I use it a lot. Never get too many people asking what I mean about it, though.”

“And why is that.”

“Which way?” Kevin looked around and realized they’d reached the campus finally. They were now directly between the university library and the English department building.

“Left—along the bikeway,” he answered. They resumed their walk. Around them they began to pass the familiar statues of long dead university presidents and alumnae. They passed an occasional millionaire who’d managed to pry his wallet open and grace the university with cash, tastefully. No two stood together to form an icon to philanthropic wealth. This early in autumn, the trees had only begun to show the faintest hints of color, the merest tinge of yellow and orange against the backdrop of night.

The moon was directly over head, a fingernail width of arc showing.

“Nice dodge which doesn’t answer the question. I repeat, why is that?”

Marcus stopped and regarded him, now standing in a deeper shadow of a horse-mounted general, the latter looking fiercely noble. “Well, just because… I am.” The grin stood out in the faint moonlight and then Kevin watch as it shifted.

Elongated.

Grew pointier with teeth that soon, more resembled fangs. The grin developed a growing, deeply pink tongue and the mouth sank toward the concrete upon which they stood. The voice roughened and became more of a snarl than the voice of human, finishing, “I truly am.”

Kevin stared. He saw a shape in the shadows and it was no human shape, at least no longer. A dark shape, crouched there, with a furry tail and pointed, grinning muzzle and that scared the bejesus out of Kevin, right where he stood. He took a step back.

“faaarrrowwwlll mee.”

At least that’s what Kevin thought he heard.

“nowwwarrll.”

Kev definitely heard ‘now.’ He complied. He wouldn’t argue with any wolf clearly weighing well over a hundred pounds, even if he was in the middle of a large eastern city and the moon wasn’t full. Kevin was much more a realist than a physicist. A tiny part of him was briskly taking notes and observing while an ever smaller part of him muttered in the background, so that’s how that works.