The Shadows of Christmas Past

werefolk?"
    "Werefolk. We are separate breeds, but we all answer to rules set up by an elected group Council. The Council is very conservative. For the last fifty or sixty years they've made it the priority for all memory and belief in werefolk to be wiped out of human consciousness. It'll be safer for us if people don't believe we exist."
    "People don't believe werewolves exist."
    "See, it's working."
    She didn't even crack a smile. "It would be dangerous for your kind if you were discovered.
    Everybody knows the legends, and the horror movies and books about how people get bitten and turn into bloodthirsty monsters during the full moon. That sort of bad publicity could get real werefolk killed."
    "Precisely."

    "Do you turn into a ravening monster during the full moon?"
    Harry curbed his indignation. "Not my style," he told her. "But the legends have a basis in reality. People who are bitten by weres do change physiologically. What's normal for someone born as a were manifests more like a disease—at least initially—with someone who's been bitten. While a natural-born werewolf can change almost anytime, without pain or difficulty, a bitten develops a monthly cycle that forces the change. The process is not only painful, but it makes them crazy. The animal self takes control, and it's vicious, hurting, and terrified. Eventually, most bittens will get control of their minds and bodies and blend in to normal shapeshifter society. If they're protected and cared for from the first, the transition is an easier process."
    "So, you're saying that the stories of werewolves as monsters are strictly about people who've been bitten and gone on a rampage?"
    "There are good and bad people in every society. I will say that most of the legends of violence come from the bittens. We're trying to kill the legends, which is why the council has encouraged closing off our society to outsiders. There's been a long moratorium on taking human mates. Biting has been forbidden." He shook his head. "It's helped keep our secrets, but it's been hell on our gene pool. Some of the younger people are getting rebellious about it.
    Which brings me to why I'm looking for the runaways."
    Good Lord, what had he just said? It was all very right to tell Marj some basic stuff. But he had no right to give away information about anyone else. Confiding in her came way too naturally.

    Marj heard Harry's mental OOPS loud and clear. She believed he was searching for something, and he claimed it was runaways. Runaway what? Werefolk? If that were true—
    The realization came to her with a start. "Phil Fennick's a werewolf!"
    "Werefox." Harry gave a deep sigh. "I've already told you too much, but I do want your help to get the case closed safely, and soon. The kids I'm looking for are a pretty mixed bag of radical hippie kits, kittens, and cubs."
    "Radical hippies? Uh, the sixties were over about thirty years ago. Hippies have grandchildren now."
    Her parents had actually met at some rock concert back in the sixties, and they'd traveled around the country in a VW Beetle. She'd seen photos of them in long hair, bell-bottoms, and fringed vests. They had ended up as very successful lawyers, then retired young to raise the only child they had late, out in the dean, open, independent West And they'd raised her to be independent, to respect the environment, to celebrate rather than to fear the differences among people, to follow her love of animals wherever it led her. They'd certainly encouraged her to develop her psychic gift and never to fear it.
    Marj supposed that qualified them as clinging to their original hippie ideals. And how she missed them! It was a pity that they'd never lived to see grandchildren. Not that she was likely to produce any, in any case. Because the one man she was insanely attracted to had turned out to be werewolf. And Harry had already told her that werewolves didn't take human mates.
    One-night stands, as she already knew. Brief liaisons. But not lifetime partners.
    Damn.
    "You know the generation problems humans went through back then?" Harry asked, drawing her out of her reverie.
    She pulled her attention back to the present, because moment to moment was all she was going to experience with Harrison Blethyin. "Yes."
    "That kind of upheaval is what's going on among my people now. I have to find the kids before they do something stupid—like out themselves. Or freeze to death up in the mountains."
    "Freeze to death? Can't they stay in