A Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters Read Online Free Page B

were found.
    There was a reason that the Bledsloe ancestors had immigrated to the New World. There was a reason that once they got there, they moved to lands at the fringes of human habitation—lands the white man didn’t want, but the red man had been driven away from.
    There was a reason, and that reason was that the Bledsloes were not entirely human.
    All across the world, legends tell of those who can take on the forms of animals. In Europe, that animal is most often a wolf or bear. Werebear met with some toleration, even respect, but werewolves met with none at all.
    Jake had changed. He had not become a wolf all at once. With almost human hands, Jake had grabbed the six-gun from a man who had been laughing at him a moment before. With almost human hands, Jake had shot that man dead.
    But there had been five men there. Even if the gun had been fully loaded, even if Jake had been able to make each bullet pay, several of the men were clustered so close to Prudence that Jake could not fire at them without risking harm to her. Instead, he had sprung forward, more and more a gigantic wolf with every moment. He had leapt, torn, and bitten.
    He had swallowed human blood and eaten human flesh.
    Prudence had been too involved in her own battles to interfere. In her the wolf also rose, but in her case—perhaps because she had no fear for Jake’s safety—the impulse that carried her was one of flight.
    A slim, grey she-wolf had torn through the flimsy nightshirt, had run for safety. As dawn was greying the eastern sky, a frightened girl, naked but strangely unscratched by the brambles she pushed through, had made her way back to the camp.
    Jake was gone. Five dead men lay in their camp. Blood splattered everything.
    As she gathered what she could salvage of their gear, Prudence had remembered one of the earliest lessons her mother had taught her.
    “At no time ever, even if you are starving—especially if you are starving—should you eat either the flesh of a wolf or that of a human. The one will rob you of your ability to become human, but the other will be worse. It will rob you of your sanity.”
    Later, Prudence had learned other things. Depending on the phase of the moon, a werewolf—even in human form—gains tremendous strength, including immunity from most physical injury, although not from disease. When the moon is full, only blessed weapons or silver can harm a werewolf.
    Prudence had tested this herself, as had, she supposed, nearly every werewolf child. She had liked running as a wolf, enjoyed feeling invulnerable. Perhaps her name influenced her, though. She was prudent. She did not care for the lack of control, for the tug of the moon on her sensibilities.
    Jake, though . . . Jake had liked being stronger. That was one reason he had been determined to go west. He knew that he was stronger than average. He didn’t want to hide when he could win a place where what he did would be above question.
    And Prudence, ever prudent, ever responsible, had gone with him. Yet, in the end, she had been the reason catastrophe had come to her brother.
    “Jake . . .” she sighed aloud remembering, sorrowing. To her astonishment, she was answered.
    “Hello, Pru.”
    Jake’s familiar voice came from the shadow of a dark red rock. Prudence turned to face it, shading her eyes with her left hand.
    “I can feed you on something better than rotted sheep,” the voice, clearly Jake’s, continued. “Come along. I’d love to show you my place. I’ve settled here now.”
    Prudence let her right hand drop to the gun on her hip. Jake laughed.
    “I don’t think so, Pru. I can smell the silver from here. That’s something the folks never told you, did they? They said we go insane. There’s a little of that, at first, as you adjust. Then . . .”
    Jake stepped out into the sunlight. He wore battered jeans, frayed from mid-calf on down and a cowboy hat. Nothing else. His feet were bare and his skin, although sun-bronzed, showed no