Keys held securely in your mouth, you pad through the snow, under the dead winter trees, for maybe ten minutes. In the silence and darkness, you forget about Clay, the Bane, and the old pipeline as you pass through a twilight world of shifting shadows and gusting snow—the world as it was ten thousand years ago. Then you suddenly spill back out into the regular world, as if stepping onto a rectangular map laid out on a table. Trucks rumble down a county road; human silhouettes pass under fluorescent lights. The smell of diesel and fast food. One step takes you from the desolate wilderness into what passes for northern New York's civilization: a loading bay behind an Amazon fulfillment center.
Your wounds ache. As a werewolf, you can quickly regenerate from most wounds—except those caused by silver, fire, or the fangs of certain horrible supernatural monsters (like other werewolves). You could focus your spiritual energies now and regenerate from your injuries.
But your spiritual power is limited, and expending it all will leave you unable to shapeshift. "Losing the Wolf" is only a minor and temporary inconvenience for a young werewolf, though your elders are careful not to expend all their spiritual energy, as doing so prevents them from contacting the spirit world.
Next