This week, I was re-reading an Ed McBain novel, Bread, and I came across a sentence that for some reason struck me: “like a stray would that you fed and now follows you home.”

And that made me think of giving the narrator a grim who doesn’t leave. Then later I realized it could be kind of funny that she feeds him in exasperation, treating him like a real dog instead of a death omen.

Here’s this week’s installment:

I felt foolish about what I’d said just as soon as I stepped out into the blue sky afternoon. I’m supposed to be incognito when I do my job; I try not to let anyone connect me to the trouble I plan to rain down on their heads.

But I’d done it, and I couldn’t take it back, so I turned down California Avenue, heading towards my rendezvous with the rest of the coven (read that sarcastically), when a large black dog came out of the alley, nearly stepping on my foot.

I held back a shriek, just barely, and stopped in my tracks, backing away slowly.

It swung its head around to follow my movement. Its eyes were golden, bright and eerie in the dark face.

It was not a dog but a wolf.

“Who’s a good boy,” I said, my voice wheezing out of my chest.

The wolf stared at me for a long unblinking second and then it began to growl, a low ferocious rumble deep in its chest. It pulled its lips back, baring fangs that curved sharp and yellow in the sunlight.

“Whoa, there,” I said, putting out a hand. I continued backpedaling and rammed right into a runner wearing tight black shorts and a tight black sports bra.

“Hey, watch it!” she said.

“Erk,” I said, or something like that, staring at the wolf. The runner pushed past me with an annoyed sound and I realized she couldn’t see the wolf.

The hackles on the back of its neck stood up and it paced closer to me.

Just because the runner couldn’t see it didn’t mean it wasn’t real.

I took another step back and my heel teetered on the curb. I grabbed at a parking meter to keep my balance and a couple walked by, oblivious, the woman saying to the man, “I told you he never does what he says he’s going to do.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“So why did you think he was going to do what he said he was going to do?”

“Well, he’s my friend.”

I nearly sprained my eyeballs at that remark. I caught the woman’s glance. She rolled her eyes at me as they passed by and said, “Well, Carl, now you’re going to have to get that money back, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

I took in a deep breath. The wolf was still standing there, growling, fangs bared, but the interlude had restored my equilibrium. If the wolf was going to attack me, it would have attacked me already.

I turned and began walking toward the beach and the coven’s meeting place. The wolf kept pace beside me.

*

“I see you brought a little friend,” Serena said sourly as I joined her under a large red sun shade.

“Not very little,” I said. I pulled a beach towel out of my bag, unrolled it, and floated it over the sand, sitting down on it as quickly as possible so the breeze wouldn’t carry it away.

The wolf sighed and stood looking at me for a moment, then settled at the unoccupied end of the blanket.

“Hey,” I said. “Maybe I wanted to stretch out.”

“You’re talking to your grim?” Serena asked, pausing in the act of unpacking a cooler.

“Oh, is that what he is?” I asked. “Phew. I thought it might be the other one, the ‘I’ll huff and I’ll puff’ one.”

“It’s not a laughing matter,” Serena said. She was wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat of the type that made her look cool and sophisticated but which would have made me look like a country bumpkin.

“At least you can see it,” I said. “No one else can.”

“They could if they tried. There’s nothing particularly magical about being able to see the world as it is.”

“Maybe not,” I said. “But there’s something creepy about it. Where’s Nikki?”

“Parking,” Serena said. “She never accounts for the time it takes when she leaves her apartment.”

“Hello, there,” Nikki called from about a hundred yards away, huffing and puffing and kicking up sand, a little like a tugboat as she surged towards us. She let out a breath of relief when she reached the shade, recoiled slightly at the wolf, and said, “Really,” and exchanged a glance with Serena. I could guess what they were thinking: Great, we finally find Witch #3 and she’s brought along her own personal death omen.

“Odds don’t look so good, do they?” I said brightly, gesturing at the wolf. “Makes me wonder what happened to the third witch.”

~~~

Jennifer Lawler has been a writer-editor for more than twenty-five years and has published more than forty novels and nonfiction books. She is the founder of the online education company Club Ed LLC.