"You, lady, right there, you need to stop," came the angry male voice, and Riley ignored it because, well, who pays attention to mall cops anyways? Without breaking stride, she cut through the rather packed Billings Bridge Mall and made her way to the OC Transpo bus station, intent on catching the first bus out of there. The mall security guy was still tailing her, but she could tell that he was losing steam...just like a human.
Riley hopped on the 111 bus heading to Baseline Station, and flashed her student pass to the driver, a bespectacled white man in his forties. If he thought anything of the tall young woman who raced to catch the bus, he didn't let on. Riley waited with baited breath for the bus to take off, right as the mall security guard reached the platform. Nice save, Riley thought with a smile.
Heading to the back of the bus, Riley carefully opened her purse, and looked at the contents. Among the junk she normally carried, there were some nice earrings and bracelets from Vivah Jewelry, one of the mall's best. Riley smiled, pleased with herself. Not bad for about an hour's work. Those unfortunate big-city bozos never even knew what hit them...
Today, Riley was dolled up to the nines, like her grandfather, Grandpa Joe, also known as Joseph Colley, used to say. Standing five-foot-eleven, neither slim nor chubby but somewhere in between, the curvy, brown-skinned young woman with the stylish Afro looked gorgeous in a dark gray leather vest over a white turtleneck shirt, dark gray Capri pants and black UGG boots. Got to sell the image if you want them to fall for the con, Riley reminded herself.
The City of Ottawa, Ontario, was turning out to be a lot of fun for Riley, fashionista, Carleton University criminal psychology student, and sufferer of a touch of kleptomania. Sure, Ottawa could never rival the lively environs of Halifax, Nova Scotia, where Riley was born. In the Canadian Capital, Riley felt ill at ease at times, mainly due to the fact that there were so many people around. In rural Nova Scotia, one could run for miles without seeing a stinking human, and it was a blessing...
Riley switched buses a few stops down the line, grabbing the 104 bus that would take her to Carleton University. It was three o'clock and her Criminal Behavior : Opposite Viewpoints class was starting in a few minutes. The professor, Angela something or other, a tall white woman with blonde hair, was a former police officer who decided to give teaching a try. Riley found her hard to stomach, but not for the obvious reasons...
Riley is a gifted young woman, in more ways than one. Among her many gifts are an uncanny sense of smell, and she can tell that her brilliant professor, Ms. Angela, is having an affair with a grad student named Clive, a Jamaican guy currently working on his MBA at Carleton University. Clive was Angela's T.A. and the two reeked of each other. The fact that they tried to hide their obvious tryst both amused and annoyed Riley, who could see right through them...
"Riley, you're different, you're like me, I hoped the family curse might skip your generation but alas, it was not to be," said Grandpa Joe, on that long ago night when Riley asked him about the changes she was going through. At a time when a lot of young women were figuring out their identities, Riley was undergoing a rather startling transformation.
"Gee, thanks, Gramps, I'm a frigging Werewolf," Riley replied, and Grandpa Joe, a tall, slender, dark-skinned man who'd been born and raised in the Africville community of Nova Scotia, repressed a shudder. The old man never got used to the term that the mundane world used for their kind. It was so damn inaccurate, and he found it downright offensive.
"Don't use that term, young lady, you're one of us, that's all," Grandpa Joe countered, and Riley sighed. They were sitting at the dinner table, inside the old house that had been in their family since the olden days. The Colley family had been in Nova Scotia for a very long time, ever since their ancestors came over from the United States shortly before the U.S. Civil War. They were among the first black people to ever set foot in Canada as free men and free women, and that meant something.
"Gramps, I'm a freak," Riley protested, and the old man closed his eyes, hard. Grandpa Joe had secretly hoped that Riley would take after her late mother, Julianne Wentworth, a lovely red-haired, green-eyed, English-born woman whose proper Londoner family turned their backs on her for marrying Joseph Colley Jr. the handsome black Canadian man who won her heart. Sadly, the old man's hope floundered, and Riley took after her father, in more ways than one. Riley won the family's genetic lottery, becoming a full-blown werewolf on her nineteenth birthday...
