Hot Blooded

the woman who stood behind her.
Mamma Louisa stood there, looking like a tribal angel. She held something in her
hand, a red pouch of some kind that bulged with its contents and had feathers
and stones dangling from its drawstrings.
    "Come, child. Get up on your feet. We're not safe, even now."
    She hurried to obey, while Mamma Louisa stood there, eyes scanning the trees
around them, the pouch held up like a weapon. When Jenny was beside her, she
turned. "This way."
    She followed the woman in white over a path that meandered through the woods,
along the river's edge, wondering where on earth they were going, right until
she saw the welcoming lights gleaming from the windows of the plantation house
up ahead. Mamma Louisa led her right to the back of the house, through the
kitchen entrance door and up the back stairs to the third floor. As they moved
through the door at the top, she found herself in a cozy living room. Rattan
furnishings, stained a deep brown color and stacked with jewel-toned cushions,
littered the room. One wall sported a hardwood stand, draped in a brightly
colored cloth, its entire surface filled with fascinating objects, statues,
stones, crosses. In its very center was a shrine with a dark-skinned Madonna
enthroned within it.
    "Sit, child," Mamma Louisa said, nodding toward one of the comfy-looking
chairs. She locked the door behind them and then turned and came to her, eyes
concerned. "Are you hurt?" she asked.
    "No. I don't think so."
    All the same, the woman was examining her. She ran her hands over Jenny's
arms, eyes sharp and probing. She repeated the process with her other arm, then
lifted her hair and examined her neck and ears. Kneeling, she inspected Jenny's
legs, even her ankles. Every bit of exposed skin was subjected to her scrutiny.
    "What are you looking for?"
    "The mark of the wolf." She nodded as if satisfied. "Your dress is torn here.
Better let me see the skin underneath."
    Jenny didn't know why she complied so easily, but she did. She lowered the
strap of the dress, exposing her shoulder to Mamma Louisa's steady gaze.
    Finally, the woman nodded. "Nothing, it's good, you escaped without injury."
She met Jenny's eyes. "The wolf didn't harm you, then."
    "But it was no ordinary wolf, was it Mamma Louisa?"
    The woman's gaze shifted so quickly Jenny knew she was going to lie. "What
else could it have been?"
    "A werewolf. The loup-garou."
    "Every child knows there's no such thing."
    "But you know different."
    She moved to her altar, then opened a cupboard underneath. Jenny saw mason
jars, filled with herbs and roots and other things she couldn't identify.
    "You've seen the wolf before, haven't you? You know about it."
    The other woman shrugged, removing several jars and setting them upon the
altar. "I know some things."
    "Will you tell me? The things you know?"
    She straightened, closing the cupboard, a small red pouch in her hands. It
was empty. "Some things are better left alone,
chère."
She opened her
jars, taking a pinch of this and a bit of that and dropping it into the red
pouch. She added a gleaming black stone and then knotted the drawstrings while
chanting something in a language Jenny didn't know. She held her hands over the
bag and whispered what sounded like "Ah-say, ah-say, ah-say." Then she bought
the pouch to Jenny, pressed it into her hands. "Keep this with you. Don't be
without it. It will keep the wolf away."
    Jenny looked down at the pouch. "What if I don't want to keep it away?" She
lifted her eyes to Mamma Louisa's. "I came here to find the werewolf, to prove
it exists. I can't do that unless I see it again."
    "You saw the wolf with your own eyes,
chère
. What more proof do you
need?"
    She shrugged. "Photographs. A sample of its fur, or its blood. A footprint."
She shook her head. "If I could get hold of the carcass from one of its kills,
something it's fed on, I might be able to extract a DNA sample from the saliva."
    "Mmm," Mamma Louisa said slowly. "If it kills you, maybe it leaves some spit
on your remains, eh?"
    "It's not going to kill me."
    "It's a wolf. It's nature is to hunt, to kill."
    "It's also a man."
    She blinked, but didn't look away this time. "Your science tells you that?"
    "No. My science tells me that would be impossible. But I saw it. I saw it
change…"
    "Then you know who he is? The loup-garou?"
    It was Jenny's turn to avert her eyes. "You mean you don't?"
    "I'm a powerful woman. What I know