Hunger Moon Rising

  “Sure.” She shrugged, obviously mystified and a little hurt, but I couldn't stay and make things right between us. If I didn't get out of the office that minute, I knew I was going to do something I'd regret the rest of my life.

  “Sorry,” I said again, and left.

  Chapter Three

  Dani

  When I got home from what had to be the weirdest day of work I'd had since Ben started at the Sun Times, my little sister Tara was already there waiting for me. She was seven years younger than me and living at my condo off and on while she dabbled in school, trying to decide what she wanted to be when she grew up.

  I sighed when I saw her little red Miata parked out front. It wasn't that I didn't love her—I did with all my heart. Since our folks had divorced when I was seventeen and she was ten, we were even closer than most sisters because my mom was too busy chasing new husbands to be much of a mother. But sometimes, no matter how much I loved Tara, I just wanted a little peace and solitude.

  I parked my sensible but sleek Infiniti sedan and went to the front door. Surprise, surprise, it was already unlocked and hanging ajar. Loud pop music poured out at me when I pushed it open with my fingertips. So much for peace and solitude, I thought as I dropped my purse and keys on the table by the door and made sure it was securely locked.

  “Tara?” I called, as I made my way past the trail of clothes, shoes, and CDs she'd left in her path. I found her in the condo's small kitchen, making a batch of one bowl brownies, which meant she was going out later. It was the one halfway homemade recipe she could cook, and she generally reserved it for special occasions, like when she wanted to impress a new boy.

  “Oh, hi!” She was bopping around, licking the mixing spoon, and I had to laugh despite myself when I saw the chocolate mustache she was wearing. “I'm baking for Jeremy,” she explained, nodding at the oven where the brownies were already starting to smell good.

  I rolled my eyes. Jeremy must be her latest flame. “What's this group?” I asked, nodding at the small CD player in the corner of the kitchen that was blaring noise in my direction. “You mind turning it down?”

  “The Killers. This is 'Mister Brightside,' from their Hot Fuss CD. You like it?”

  “Never heard of it,” I said.

  Tara made a face at me. “God, where have you been?” There's nothing like a college-aged sister to make you feel like a fossil.

  “Just at work, making money to pay for this place, so you can come in and bake brownies, and listen to obscure groups I've never heard of because I'm too busy earning a living to keep up with the latest trends,” I snapped.

  “Geeze, sorry.” Tara bopped across the kitchen and flipped off the CD player. “Who peed in your Cheerios, anyway?”

  “Nobody.” I sighed and plopped down at the tiny breakfast nook table that was big enough to seat exactly two—three, if they were anorexic. I looked at her hopefully. “Are those brownies almost done?”

  “Almost.” She sat down across from me and propped her chin in one hand. “Okay, so spill.” Her latest major was Clinical Psychology, and she loved to practice analyzing me.

  I waved a hand at her. “Nothing to spill.”

  “Bullshit,” Tara said confidently. She gestured at me. “Just look at that body language—you're closed off, depressed—”

  “I'm cramped because the damn table is so small,” I objected, then sighed. “Okay, I had something really…weird happen at work today.” I told her about the guy with the picture, and how Ben had been acting really strangely after he helped evict him from the building.

  “Sounds like displacement anxiety,” Tara began. “You see, Ben—”

  I held up a hand to stop her premature analysis. “Just wait, that's not even the weird part.”

  I told her about how Ben had marked the desk while we were moving it, but when I got to the part where I was giving him one of my expert, patented back massages, she interrupted me with a squeal of glee.

  “Oh, my God! It finally happened. You and Ben did it right there on the desk, didn't you? This is so cool—I knew it! I knew all that 'platonic friendship' crap couldn't last.”

  “Hold it,” I said indignantly. “What do you mean 'platonic friendship crap'? We're still friends, and we did not do the nasty right on Great-Grandfather Linden's antique mahogany desk.”

  “Okay.” Tara frowned. “Let me get this straight: you had him in the office with the door closed, and his shirt off, and a bottle of baby oil, no less…”

  “It was all I could find,” I said, trying not to sound defensive, but Tara went plowing on through like I hadn't said a word.

  “You had all that going for you, and you didn't jump his bones?” she finished.

  “Of course not. We're friends. Best friends—partners. But that's all,” I emphasized. “It's just that…I don't know. I gave him a shoulder rub earlier in the day, and he didn't seem upset. But when I went to give him the back massage, he just freaked out. It was the weirdest thing.”

  Tara sat up from her slouch and considered me carefully. “You know what your problem is?” she asked at last.

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “Do tell.”

  “Your problem is that Ben spoils you,” Tara said, and sat back with an annoying smirk on her face.

  “He what? He does not,” I denied.

  “He does too. He lets you get away with anything you want, so you take him for granted. When you first met him, you were still wounded from your relationship with Mitch, the ex from hell,” Tara said. “You weren't ready to get romantically involved with anyone, and Ben saw that. So he waited. And he's been waiting ever since.”

  “That's ridiculous,” I snapped, frowning. “Ben isn't waiting for me.”

  “Is too,” Tara snapped back. “And you—” She poked a finger at me. “You keep him waiting because you like having someone to call in the middle of the night if you get upset, or a nice muscular shoulder to cry on without risking getting hurt again.”

  “That's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard,” I said, lifting my chin and looking down my nose at her. “Your analysis stinks. Maybe you'd better go back to being an English major.”

  “If I'm so wrong, tell me this.” Tara leaned across the table and looked me in the eye. “How would you feel if Ben started seeing someone else—dating some girl—and stopped spending every waking moment with you?”

  “I…” I licked my lips and tried to sound superior. “That would be his choice, of course. I don't have anything to do with his love life.”

  “Oh, so you wouldn't mind if I took a shot at him?” She grinned.

  “You?” The thought nearly made me speechless. “You? Why you…you better not even—”

  “See?” Tara crossed her arms over her chest and looked at me triumphantly. “You say you don't want him, but you sure as hell don't want anyone else snapping him up either. You like him just the way he is, but he can't stay that way forever.”

  “Stay what way?” I demanded.

  The oven timer buzzed, and Tara got up to check the brownies. “Look, Dani,” she said over her shoulder, not answering my question. “Ben is a nice man, don't get me wrong. But he's still a man, and if there's one thing I know, it's men.”

  “Oh, please.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Oh, like you know so much more with your seven years more of experience?” Tara burned her fingers on the brownie pan and swore loudly.

  “Well, I have been dating for a little bit longer than you,” I said, getting up to help her. It was crowded in the tiny kitchen, but we were used to it and danced around each other, Tara running cool water over her fingers while I got a knife and a plate.

  “That's not true,” she countered, reaching for a paper towel. “Think about it: how many dates have you been on since you and Ben got partnered up at work?”

  “Uh, I don't know.” I had a bad feeling about this line of reasoning. “Ten or twenty?'

  “Try four or five,” Tara countered. “Basically, you haven
't dated anyone for the last four years, ever since you guys got close. Whereas I have been dating extensively all that time. Comparatively speaking, I'm way ahead of you.”

  “So what does that prove? Comparatively speaking?” I cut us both a brownie and dug around in the freezer for the vanilla ice cream.

  “It proves that I know about men. And since Ben is a man, I know about him.”

  “So enlighten me.” I added ice cream on top of the gooey, hot brownies and grabbed for the caramel syrup to drizzle on top. “What do you know about Ben?”

  “I know that he won't wait forever.” Tara dug in my silverware drawer and came up with two mismatched spoons. I'm not very domestic. “Maybe this scene in your office today just means he's running out of patience.”

  I opened my mouth, but for once, I had nothing to say. We sat down at the table, and I tried to imagine it. My Ben, running out of patience? Ben the pacifist? Ben the Buddhist? Ben the vegetarian? Ben who caught flies that anybody else would have swatted and set them free outside?

  “But,” I said at last, around a spoonful of hot brownie caramel sundae, “Ben doesn't feel that way about me.” The words sounded weak, even to me.

  “Don't insult my intelligence.” Tara spooned up some more ice cream and popped it in her mouth. “Or your own, or Ben's anymore, for that matter. Just accept the facts—he's sweet, gentle, gorgeous, and he's been waiting five years for you. What else do you need?”

  “I don't know.” I shrugged and licked my spoon. Could it be that my flaky little sister was right? I knew that I felt Ben's eyes on me sometimes—all right, all the time—when we were together. I loved that feeling, of having him looking at me, wanting me. But neither of us ever acted on it. Why? Was he waiting for me to make the first move? Was I ready for something like that? What if he made a move? Would things get weird between us?

  Wait a minute. I shook my head and put down the spoon. Why was I listening to Tara, of all people? Taking relationship advice from my little sister was like asking for information on world peace from George W. Bush. It was just stupid. Ben and I were friends, and that was all we'd ever been and all we were ever going to be.

  What I needed to be doing wasn't analyzing our perfectly good and healthy friendship; it was finding out what was at the root of what was bothering him now. And he hadn't been acting strangely until after that old man with the folded picture barged into the newsroom and started babbling about his daughter being abducted by wolves. Or was it werewolves? Whatever—for some reason it had upset Ben, and he hadn't been himself since.

  “…to do it.” Tara's voice interrupted my train of thought.

  “Huh?” I looked up from the melted remains of our sundae supper.

  “I said, if you ask me, you need to get laid, and Ben is just the guy to do it.”

  “Tara!” I slapped her arm. “Honestly, is that all you think of?”

  “Do you ever think of it?” she countered. “What are you waiting for, anyway? Another abusive jerk like Mitch to come along?”

  “Tara,” I said quietly. “You know I don't like to talk about that part of my marriage.”

  “He hurt you, Dani.” She leaned forward and put a hand on my arm. “But Ben won't. You can trust him—he's one of the good guys. Just what the doctor ordered.”

  “The doctor?” I frowned as her words woke a memory in my brain. Something the man with the ragged gray hair and the wild eyes had shouted right before they dragged him off. Ask Doctor Locke—he knows. Or something like that. I snapped my fingers. “That's it. Why didn't I follow that up earlier?”

  “Follow what up?” Tara sighed. “Never mind—I know that look. You're onto a hot lead, and everything I just said to you is going to go straight out the window.”

  “That's not true.” I had moved to my home office as I spoke and was already trolling the Internet. I struck pay dirt on the first Google search. I checked my watch—it was getting late, but what the hell?

  A short, cryptic phone call later, I was in business. “Hey, Tara,” I called, coming out to watch as she stowed the rest of the brownies in one of my few Tupperware containers that still had its original lid. “How about a field trip? I need to go check something out, and I don't want to go alone.”

  “Sorry, sis.” She tucked the brownies under one arm, leaving the dirty pan in the sink for me to wash later. “But I was supposed to be at Jeremy's forty-five minutes ago. Looks like you're on your own.” She gave me a quick kiss on the cheek as she left. “Or you could call Ben,” she trilled over her shoulder as the door slammed behind her.

  Just great. That was exactly what I had been afraid of.

  Chapter Four

  Ben

  I felt like crap.

  I was lying on the couch with a cold compress over my eyes, trying to understand what was happening to me. Why had I suddenly lost control? Was it just because Dani was touching me that I went crazy? After all, she'd given me back massages before, and I hadn't overreacted. Was it just her touch on my skin, wanting her so badly and knowing I could never have her that had caused my reaction, or was it something else? Something worse?

  Was the were part of me somehow getting stronger? I pressed the compress, which consisted of a wad of wet paper towels, hard against my eyes and groaned. It was like the bad old days all over again, before I'd learned to manage my condition.

  I remembered going into the men's room in high school, feeling so pumped full of adrenaline I wanted to scream or punch someone. I would shut myself in a stall and take deep breaths until the feeling passed, praying that I wouldn't start to change, praying I could keep control just long enough not to turn into a monster. And always there was that feeling of the other creeping under my skin, looking for a way out. My were nature trying to escape and control me.

  “No,” I said out loud, clenching my fists. “It does not control me. I control it.” But the words rang hollow, and for the first time in a long time, I was scared. Really damn scared.

  The one person I could ask about this was my grandfather, but I knew what he would say to me. Grandpa thought it was strange and unnatural that I didn't change every month with the moon—that I had somehow managed to control my lycanthropy. I could almost hear him in my ear saying, “You'll be sorry, sonny boy. The curse ain't nothin' to play with. The Goddess doesn't like it when her creatures ignore her call.” Grandpa was a Pagan, although he went to Mass every Sunday with my mom just to keep her happy.

  I was thinking I would have to call my grandfather for advice whether I wanted to or not if things kept getting worse, when my phone rang. The shrill sound went through my head like an iron spike. I groaned and rolled over, dislodging the wad of wet paper towels, which fell on the floor with a splat.

  My cell phone went on and on, shrilling out the latest annoying jingle Dani had downloaded for me. Several months ago she had decided we should switch to the same cell plan so all the minutes we spent talking would be free. We'd gotten new camera phones out of the deal and the ability to download songs and themes which my partner found endlessly amusing. She was always going online and changing my ring tone so that I could never tell what it was going to sound like next. It was kind of a joke between us, but sometimes, like right now, it was annoying.

  I was tempted to let the damn thing ring, but in the end I answered it, just to stop the racket. Damn, it had been bad enough when she was going through her classical phase and had it rigged to play Pachelbel's Canon—but what the hell was it playing now?

  “'Lo?” I mumbled into the phone, keeping an arm over my eyes to block out the light from the lamp beside the couch.

  “Ben?” Dani's voice always came across the phone line as a sexy feminine growl that I loved to listen to. “Are you still mad at me?” she asked.

  “Dani,” I said, sitting up and wincing as the light lanced at my eyeballs. “I was never mad at you.”

  “Could've fooled me,” she said, and I could hear the question in her voice. She wanted to know if I was serious
.

  “Okay,” I said with a sigh. “I am mad at you, but not for anything you did today. It's the latest ring tone you put on my cell—what the hell is it, anyway?”

  “It's 'Mister Brightside' by the Killers. From their Hot Fuss CD. Don't you like it?”

  I groaned. “No, it's terrible. And since when are you up on the latest musical trends?”

  “Since Tara made me feel like a fossil for not being current. So I thought I'd pass it along.” She laughed, and I couldn't help smiling. Even over the phone, Dani has a low, musical laugh that seems to come all the way up from her toes. I would have forgiven her a lot more than the crappy new ring tone for that laugh.

  “Well, could you please change it?” I asked, shifting on the couch to get more comfortable. “It really sucks. If not liking music like that makes me a fossil, then I guess I'll just have to be one.”

  “I'll change it right away,” she promised. “In fact, I'll have a new song downloaded for you by the time you get here to pick me up. How about the theme to the X-Men movie? Isn't that one of your favorites?”

  “Sure, that's fi—Wait a minute,” I interrupted myself. “By the time I come to pick you up? Where are we going?”

  “I got a hot lead on that case I was working on today before…um, before,” she ended lamely, and I knew she hadn't wanted to say, “before you freaked out.” I decided to ignore it. “The missing girl abducted by wolves—remember?” she added helpfully.

  Great, here we went again. Why couldn't she just leave it alone? “You were working on it, not me,” I said, trying to control the tension I could feel creeping into my voice. “So why do you want me along?”

  “Because you're my partner.” Dani sounded wounded. “And besides, it's down by the docks.”

  “I see,” I said. “The docks, huh?” The docks weren't actually by any kind of water; it was just a name for an abandoned industrial district on the far east side of the city. It was one of the worst parts of town, and it was getting dark out, so I could see why she wouldn't want to go there alone.