“So do you, and that’s why you insist on saying you hate it.”
“Ah, in with the pop psychology.”
“That’s me,” I said happily. He grumbled wordlessly.
We drove in a stretch of silence until we reached I-70.
“I miss the old days,” Ben said suddenly. “When it was just the two of us.”
The old days. Our pack of two. We’d Change, run, hunt together as a pair. Sleep curled together, wake human, naked, in the great outdoors. Aroused, inhibitions lowered to nothing—we’d spent some very nice mornings together, after full-moon nights.
“Maybe we can sneak off for a little while. The rest of the pack won’t miss us.” I smiled thinking of it.
Ben wore the same dreamy smile. “Hmm. Makes me almost look forward to it.”
On the drive into the mountains, I watched the rearview mirror, waiting to see someone following us. No one did, and we arrived at our destination. One of these days someone in a uniform was going to discover this wooded field at the end of a remote dirt track filled with cars at midnight on full-moon nights. I hadn’t figured out a better way to get the pack to wilderness. Charter a bus, maybe?
My skin itched, every square millimeter, every pore. The car parked and silent, the world dark around us, I sat in the driver’s seat. Ben sat beside me. Outside, people lingered at the edges of the field, waiting for us.
“I don’t like this,” I said. This was the first full moon since we found the word Tiamat defacing New Moon’s door. “I can’t get rid of the feeling that someone’s watching us.”
Ben shook his head. “We’re a pack. Nothing can get to us if we stick together.”
That didn’t make me feel any better. “You’re supposed to tell me that nothing’s out there, that I’m being paranoid and everything’s going to be fine.”
“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said unconvincingly.
Sighing, I got out of the car.
“Hey,” Shaun called to us from the trees. Shaun was, for lack of a better word, our lieutenant, our right-hand wolf. He also managed New Moon for us. Brown-skinned, dark-eyed, he wore a T-shirt and jeans and went barefoot. He was rubbing his arms like he was nervous.
“Is everything okay?” I said. “You see anything, smell anything?”
“Seems clear.” But he shook his head and sounded uncertain.
The forest didn’t look any different. The conifers stood tall and black against a sky painted deep, deep blue by moonlight. The moon sang to my sensitive ears. It’s time. Maybe it was a matter of expectation. We were expecting something to happen, something wrong and dangerous, and so we looked through the trees and saw more danger than was really there.
Some of the pack members had left their clothing in their cars and walked out naked, like ghosts, moving with purpose. Others had already Changed; they were larger than natural wolves, waist-high, padding forward, heads low to smell for scents, tails out like rudders. Becky, Mick, Tom, Kris. The first ones to Change tended to like being wolves, or weren’t able to control themselves as well. They came to our territory, with the moon shining on them, and the wolves took over. These animals trotted to me, their backs at my hips, heads and tails low, looking away. I reached out, hands spread, and let their bodies pass under my touch. My fingers left tracks in the thick velvet of their fur. Grays, browns, tans, blacks. Their eyes glinted yellow and amber. I pressed my lips in a smile.
The ones who were more comfortable in their wolf skins seemed to revel in these nights. The few of us who lingered by the cars, kept our clothing on, our human trappings, still resisted, even though most of us had lived this life for years.
All of them, wolf and human, showed deference to me. The bowed heads, slumped backs, tails flattened between their legs when they looked at me. They didn’t look at me, but around me, glancing away, not daring to meet my gaze, to offer challenge. All of this was body language that said, You lead, we’ll follow, we trust you. So much trust shown in a few gestures. Almost, it was comforting—I didn’t have to guess what the wolves were thinking about me. In the human world, someone could act like they adored you even as they planned to stab you in the back.
Eighteen of us made up the pack. We’d lost a few people over the last year to fighting, battles for dominance, all the crises that happen to a pack in transition. I didn’t want to lose anyone else. I was desperate not to. I wanted to justify the reverence the others showed me.
I wanted to justify what I’d gone through to become alpha of this pack.
It was my job to keep them all in line. To keep everyone safe—from enemies, from each other. From attention. We came here, to the wild, where no one would get in our way. Where we couldn’t hurt anyone. By touch and look, I replied: Thank you. I will lead, I will keep you safe. I was more confident on these nights than any other. I had to be. They had to believe me if they were going to feel safe.
A couple more of those still human among us hunched over, skin blurring, bones stretching, fur growing, muscles straining, voices groaning. Their transformations called up something in me. The itching turned to fire. Time to run.
The wolves of my pack paced into the woods, to the wilds of our territory.
Ben stood at my shoulder. He kissed my neck. “Ready?”
“No,” I said. “I’m never ready for this.”
“Yeah.” His voice was tight, and I knew what he was feeling. Wolf clawed at my insides, howling, It’s time, it’s time.
We walked farther into the woods, some of us human, some of us wolf, to the place where we made our den. A beautiful spot for a picnic, I always thought, shaded over with trees, a well-worn rock outcropping, lichen-covered granite forming a sheltered space. Plenty of space for a dozen and a half wolves to curl up and sleep. It smelled safe, despite my misgivings. We stripped.
A few steps away, Shaun had taken off his shirt. He looked through the trees, his gaze distant, vacant. His breaths were deep, fast. He grimaced and hunched his back.
A wolf howled, and around us human flesh melted, slipped, morphed into something else. Fur grew on smooth skin, bones stretching. Think of snowmelt becoming a rushing stream.
I quickly hugged Ben. All my muscles tense, I clung to him for a last lucid moment. “I love you,” I said.
He kissed me mouth to mouth. Then he fell, groaning, and I fell with him, and the wolves around us surged and whined, hungry, celebrating. I shut my eyes, clamped my jaw, let my mind slip away—
Her mind is torn. Senses in one direction, thoughts in another. Two-legged thoughts, from the other world. Worried, uneasy. But the fear has no shape, and she can’t focus on it. Her senses tell her that nothing is wrong. But the tension is there, shared among the whole pack. Tails twitch, ears flicker. Watchful. This is what the furless human world does to them. The pack’s children, weaker ones whom she must protect, are especially fearful, slinking close to the ground, whining.
She remembers how that felt, fearing all. She nips and nudges them, encourages them. This is their night. Must not fear.
Her mate is at her side, silver and burning. They bump shoulders, trot side by side, circling around, searching for scent. Hunting.
She stops. Ears up, tail straight. Hackles grow stiff like reeds. Whole body stiff. Because finally she smells it.
Too late, she smells it.
Sulfur, carbon, banked flames from hot coals. The two-legged self provides the names for what she smells. The names don’t matter; it’s wrong. She whines, yips—at her side, her mate bumps her, flank to flank. They look in all directions, but see nothing. Gather the pack, she thinks. Run. But where? The fear is confused, directionless. The scent doesn’t have a track. It’s everywhere. It simply appears.
A wolf yelps, high-pitched, pain-filled.
She hears it and feels rage. One of her pack is in danger, hurt, something has attacked—
She and her mate together—he is at her shoulder—race, bounding in huge strides over brush and bracken until they find thei
r threatened brother.
Not one of the weak ones. A strong male, the beta, able to take care of himself, yet something pins him to the ground, a weight on his back. He yelps and snaps, struggles to twist his mouth around to bite, to free his claws to slash at the thing. He only scratches at dirt. There is a scent of scorched fur.
Nothing attacks their kind. Unless they corner desperate prey, they have no enemies except for two-footed death—enemies from the other halves of their beings. This is something else. Maniacal, deadly, a shadow rising from the earth itself to swallow them.
She attacks. Her mate follows from the other side. Jaws open, throats rough with snarling, they can’t see what they attack, they only know something must be there.
But nothing is. They crash into each other and fall to the ground at their brother’s side, stunned.
Something sinks against her, pressing her. Human hands, but they’re too large, too strong, and too hot. In a panic she lurches, claws into earth, struggling to escape. Writhing with every muscle, she manages it, cries out, and then all her wolves are running. A burning smell fills her and drives her to panic.
They can run very, very fast when they need to.
She nips at flanks, pins her ears at the slow brothers and sisters, urging them on, faster. This is for their lives. The forest becomes a blur, the moonlight a tunnel through which they fly. Lungs pumping, hearts pounding, mouths open to take in air, tails straight out. Miles pass effortlessly. The pack together is a sea of motion.
The smell of sulfur fades. Soon she senses only forest, pine and damp, earth and life, as if the danger has never happened. She lopes around her pack and gives a signal to slow, to settle. The wolves mill, uncertain, panting, ears back—frightened.
So is she. She can’t hide it. But she’ll watch out for them.
She leads them to a place if not as comfortable as their usual den, at least defensible. It’s a space of sheltered trees on the side of a hill, open on all sides—she can watch anything that approaches, smell the air all around. They have plenty of chances to escape. She paces, counts her wolves by scent. All here. All safe, though shaken. She settles in to patrol. To keep watch until morning.
She watches the sunrise. The pack sleeps around her—naked, furless. They’ve all slipped back to their other halves. It’s sad, seeing them like this. But they still smell of pack, of family. Exhausted, sleep is heavy in her eyes, but fear keeps her upright.
Her mate wakens, and his furless hands reach for her. She sniffs him, wet nose tracing his limbs.
“Kitty.” His voice is thick, anxious. “You have to sleep. Come back to me, please.”
She licks his face, saying, But I’m here, I’m right here.
Others wake, moving slowly, groaning. Some of them flinch, looking around wide-eyed.
She yips. I’m standing guard, you see? I’m keeping watch.
“It’s our turn, Kitty. Let us watch. Sleep now.” He bends his face to her shoulder. She squirms under his touch. His fear increases hers.
“What’s wrong?” another asks.
“She won’t sleep.”
“Can’t say I blame her.”
Her mate again, almost desperate. “Shaun and Mick are keeping watch, okay? You can rest now.”
He whispers by her ear, soothing. Strokes her flanks. Urges her to sleep. Shelters her with his presence.
Her eyes close. She can no longer stand. When she sleeps, she’s curled up tight, stiff with worry.
I convulsed with the feeling of falling. My muscles twitched in anticipation of pain.
But I lay on solid ground, the earth of a forest, and with a great, frightened heave of breath, my lungs filled with Ben’s scent.
His embrace tightened around me. “Shh, shh. You’re okay. It’s okay.”
The morning was bright around us. Late morning, by the look and smell of things. I was usually up much earlier than this, the day after running. But Ben and I were both still naked. He held me close, his front to my back, his breath stirring my hair. We weren’t in our usual den. His whole body was taut with anxiety.
“What happened?” I sat up, struggling free of him but still keeping hold of his hand, his arms. I still smelled burning coals, like the woods were on fire. But all around me was calm.
“I’m not sure,” Ben said. “Something came after us last night.”
“Is everyone okay? Where is everyone?” We were alone in our shelter.
“I sent most of them home. I thought they’d be safer away from here. Mick and Shaun are still here.”
Watching our backs. Memories returned—images, emotions. We’d all been terrified. How far had we run? I didn’t recognize this place. I started shivering and cuddled closer to Ben.
“You’re freezing,” he murmured. But I couldn’t get dressed, because my clothes were back at the old den, miles from here. I looked around, dazed, trying to get my bearings, glancing over my shoulder for something that burned.
Mick and Shaun returned. Fully clothed, they might have been anyone. They’d walked out, studying the area between here and where the attack had come, looking for any evidence of what had happened. They brought our clothing with them. I dressed quickly, trying to get warm.
“What’s out there?” I said.
“Nothing,” Shaun said, shaking his head. “Just that smell.”
The smell of a burned forest. Unseen, a bird called, the sound echoing.
“Shaun—you’re okay?” I remembered an image: Shaun was the wolf who’d been attacked first.
“I’m fine,” he said, but he looked tired and seemed to be favoring a shoulder. All I remembered from the attack on me was shock and anger.
“Could you tell what it was? What do you remember?” I asked.
He shook his head. “It’s blurry. Things are always blurry the morning after—you know. But I could have sworn it had hands. Like it grabbed me and shoved me. It was strong—it must have been huge.”
“But did you see anything?”
“No, nothing. But the smell—”
“Fire,” I said. I could still smell it, and the odor triggered a feeling of fear.
“Something’s hunting us. I don’t like it,” Mick said, scowling and surly. He was short but stout, built like a brick wall and just as tough. Dark hair in a buzz cut, black eyes looking out. Still gleaming with a little wolf. He and Shaun were some of the first to back my takeover of the pack. I couldn’t have a better pair looking out for me. I might have been the alpha, but I couldn’t do it without them helping me. I didn’t rule by force, but by friendships.
“Let’s get back,” I said, urgent now, hurrying. I wouldn’t let go of Ben’s hand. My mind was coming back to me, and the pieces of my body clicked back together after shifting. “I need to make some phone calls.”
The four of us went back to the cars.
“You think this is connected to the Tiamat cult?” Ben said. “That this is the attack we’ve been waiting for?”
“The burned door, the smell of fire here—what else could it be? It was waiting. All this time it was waiting for the full moon.”
“Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it’s random,” Ben said. Even he didn’t sound convinced.
“That would be worse, don’t you think?” I said.
Because then I wouldn’t know where to start with trying to figure this out.
Chapter 4
First, I called Odysseus Grant.
We’d kept in frequent touch since the message appeared on New Moon’s door. He’d been keeping an eye on the Band of Tiamat on their home turf. He didn’t believe any of them had left Vegas, which meant the group of lycanthropes that had kidnapped me, and the vampire priestess that had tried to sacrifice me to her goddess, had sent someone—or something—else to leave that note at New Moon. And, I believed, whatever had come after us last night. I told him the latest news.
“The full moon was the trigger,” Grant said, after I told him what happened. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.
”
“We should have expected it, is what you’re saying.” I paced the living room, holding my phone to my ear with one hand, scratching my greasy hair with the other. I was still feeling stiff and cranky, off-balance, Wolf’s shadows lurking in my mind. The bars of the cage she lived in most of the time hadn’t quite closed yet. I didn’t feel quite human, and I didn’t want to be talking on the phone. I hadn’t even showered yet. This seemed more important.
“Maybe. But there’s more to this. You said no one was hurt but that this thing was powerful. You could have been hurt.”
“It sure seemed like it. It came out of nowhere. We outran it.”
“Anything else you remember? Any detail at all?”
“Fire. The smell of burning coals. And a shape, something with hands that could fight. I don’t know. It’s not very clear. It’s all in wolf senses. Makes it hard to remember.”
“I understand. They’ve sent something after you, that much is obvious. I’ll learn what I can. If we can identify it, we can get rid of it.”
I already felt better. Right up until he said, “Whatever it is will strike again. Now that it’s exposed itself, it won’t go back to hiding.”
“What does it want? To scare us? Or to kill us?”
He paused before admitting, “I don’t know.”
This was my fault. I’d brought this thing here. “I don’t suppose you know of any cool charms that might work against something like this. Holy water, old Indian arrowheads, that sort of thing.”
“Can’t hurt to try,” he said, as close to encouraging as he ever got. “I’ll call you when I learn something.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll talk to you soon.” Sooner rather than later, I hoped.
That evening, I called to tell Rick about the new development. We agreed to meet at New Moon to discuss.
The first time Rick came to New Moon, I had to invite him in.
I shouldn’t have had to. The legend about having to invite vampires in applied only to private residences. Public places, where people were free to come and go at will, were open to vampires. But Rick had come to New Moon and stopped at the threshold.