Chapter 1 Preoccupied with approaching doom while snowflakes settled on his hair and sheepskin jacket, Ashe Evans walked right past the white buffalo standing in two inches of snow beside the road. A disgruntled snort disturbed the snow-muted morning as the buffalo, offended by Ashe's rudeness, thumped a hoof impatiently against frozen ground. Startled from his thoughts by the sudden noise, Ashe turned swiftly to locate its source. "Good morning, Mr. Thompson." Ashe, his nose and ears red from the cold, breathed a relieved sigh and waved at the large bison, causing the heavy backpack he carried to slip from his shoulder. Mr. Thompson's breaths were misty white clouds in the late March snowfall as he blinked at Ashe in irritation. Ashe Evans might have been any twelve-going-on-thirteen-year-old trudging toward a rural school in the snow. He wasn't. Cloud Chief might have been any small farming community in western Oklahoma. It wasn't. The buffalo might have been any buffalo still living in the Central Plains, but Amos Thompson would tell you himself (quite majestically, in fact) that he most certainly was not. Protected by three vampires and a perimeter spell laid each year by an itinerant witch, Cloud Chief, Oklahoma, appeared to be a ghost town on maps and to passing non-residents. Inside the spell's boundary, werewolves, shapeshifters and vampires populated the small but thriving community. "Sorry I didn't see you, Mr. Thompson,"