It was a drab cluster of municipal buildings surrounded by a mixed neighborhood—nice-but-modest homes and industrial-urban blight. Still, a five-hundred-year-old ceremony was taking place there. That made it beautiful, and worth the thousand mile drive. Mad Dog parked his Mini Cooper across the street. He looked at his watch and smiled. Midnight. The drive had taken a bit less than sixteen hours and gotten him no speeding tickets. Hailey stuck her muzzle in his ear and whined. The massive wolf-hybrid had been a surprisingly docile passenger. Now, she wanted out. He leaned over and opened the passenger door and she launched herself into the dusty lot beside his parking space. He opened his own door and stepped onto broken asphalt through which a few weeds protruded. He stretched muscles, cramped from occupying too small a space for too many hours, then walked around to the back of the car. He opened the hatch, and pulled out Hailey’s bowl and a jug of water. He put most of the jug in her bowl, then drained the last himself.
