Hunger Moon Rising

  “Dani…” I squeezed my hands into fists, feeling the solid steel key ring crumple and contort like a cheap wire hanger in my grip. “God!” I exploded, my voice echoing down the empty street.

  “Don't you mean 'Goddess'?” Dani inquired coldly. “Isn't that who you pray to?” She shook her head. “I thought you were a Buddhist—a pacifist.”

  “I am,” I said, still struggling for control.

  “Tell that to the guy you beat to a bloody pulp in there.” She motioned at the bar again.

  I took a deep breath. “I explained why I had to do that.”

  “Oh, right.” She put her hands on her hips, her anger obviously overcoming her fear. “It's part of the rules of this weird secret society you apparently belong to. You had to either beat him up or…or fuck me.” The word seemed to stick in her throat and she turned pale.

  I nodded, unable to deny it. “Yes. That's pack protocol.”

  “Pack? Pack? What pack? What the hell are you talking about, Ben? And who or what are you?” she demanded, her eyes blazing.

  “I'm the same person you've always known,” I said. “The same man who's been your best friend and partner for the last five years.”

  “Bullshit,” she spat. “That's complete and utter bullshit. The Ben I know wouldn't have grabbed that bum in the alley last night. The Ben I know wouldn't have beaten that man in the bar. The man who's been my friend for the last five years wouldn't have grabbed me and…and…” She shook her head, her hand coming up unconsciously to wipe her lips as though she was trying to wipe away all traces of my kiss.

  “Fine, you're right.” I felt the tension building in my muscles and made a conscious effort to relax. I couldn't let this confrontation push me into a change—I couldn't. I took several deep breaths. “I've worked very hard to be that man,” I told her. “But you're right—tonight, I wasn't the same Ben you've come to know.”

  Her mouth twisted into a disbelieving sneer. “Listen to you, talking about yourself like there are two of you. Are you going to blame your behavior on some kind of multiple personality disorder? And what about your face? How did you heal so quickly?”

  “That's part of it,” I said, reaching up reflexively to touch the place where my cheek had healed with supernatural quickness. “Of what I am.”

  “Which is what? An alien? A god? A superhero?”

  “A werewolf,” I said. “Dani, I'm a werewolf.”

  “You're a what?” She seemed to be having trouble wrapping her mind around the concept, which I could understand. My partner was nothing if not practical, and the idea of supernatural creatures living and working among humans would not exactly fit into her worldview.

  “It's true,” I said quietly. “I'm a were. A shapeshifter.”

  Dani's eyes got wide. “You're telling me this after you acted like that poor man, McKinsey's father, was crazy when he came in shouting—”

  “Well he was crazy,” I protested.

  “Apparently not as crazy as I was led to believe,” she shot back, her eyes flashing.

  “You're right,” I said. “I guess I deserved that.”

  “Damn straight.” Dani gestured to the moon, which was almost full, riding high in the black sky overhead, dodging in and out of the ragged, wispy clouds. “So if you're a…a…”

  “A werewolf,” I supplied.

  “Yeah.” She nodded. “If you're a…that, then why haven't you changed by now?”

  “Because.” I clenched my fists at my sides again, distorting the key ring even more. I tried to keep my voice low and controlled. “Because I'm resisting it with everything in me. I'm holding myself back, the same way I've been holding myself back all night.”

  Her eyes widened, and I could tell she'd gotten my message. I wasn't just holding myself back from changing—I was holding myself back from taking her, from claiming her and making her mine the way every fiber of my being insisted she should be. God, how I wanted her! I would have taken her right there against the side of her car if she hadn't been looking at me with such fear in her eyes.

  My need to be inside her, filling her, fucking her, owning her, must have shown on my face because Dani took a wary step back.

  “I guess this…explains a lot,” she said in a slightly breathy voice. “The way you got so upset when McKinsey's father came running in yelling about werewolves. The way you've wanted nothing to do with this story from the first.”

  “This story is dangerous,” I said. “For you and me both. You need to drop it, Dani. Whatever happened to McKinsey Cullen, she's gone now, and getting yourself mixed up in the local pack won't bring her back.”

  Dani frowned. “You're asking me to drop the story?”

  “Hell, yes, I'm asking you to drop the story. I'm telling you to,” I said. “Haven't you heard a word I've said, Dani? Those people are dangerous. You could get hurt.”

  “I've already been hurt.” The look she gave me was sharper than any knife could have been. “And don't talk about those people like you're not one of them when you know damn well you are.”

  “Dani, I'm sorry—” I began. She held up a hand to stop me.

  “Tell me one thing, Ben. Do you know where McKinsey Cullen is? Did you or one of your…your pack do something to her? Is that why you're trying to keep me from going after this story? Because you have a personal stake in it?”

  “No.” I took a step forward, my voice filled with frustration, but Dani backed up again. Clearly she didn't trust me. I made myself stop and hold my ground. “No, Dani,” I said. “I swear to you—the other day when her father came bursting into the news room was the first time I had ever heard of McKinsey Cullen. I found out she was missing the exact same time you did. I didn't have anything to do with her—I have as little to do with any of this as I can.” I indicated The Cloven Hoof, meaning the whole were lifestyle.

  Dani's eyes narrowed to green slits. “Oh? Then why did you get so upset when I decided to follow it up and try to find her?”

  “Because I was afraid you'd find out. About me—about this.” I gestured at myself helplessly. “I…I didn't want you to know.”

  Dani sniffed. “Small wonder. Didn't want me to know you were living a double life doing God knows what to God knows who.”

  “It's not like that!” I burst out.

  “Oh?” Dani raised an eyebrow at me. “Okay, then what is it like? Can you deny you've been keeping this from me? Pretending to be someone and something you're not? Acting like one person when you're actually someone completely different inside?”

  “No, but, Dani, if you'd just let me explain…” I took a step toward her and this time she held her ground.

  “I've had about as many of your explanations as I can take tonight, Ben.” She held out her hand, palm up. “Now give me my Goddamn keys.”

  I untwisted the metal ring as best I could, forcing the steel to conform to a rough circle again, although it wasn't the perfectly smooth shape it had been. Dani didn't say a word as she watched me work with the metal, showing her my strength for the first time on purpose. She only kept her hand out, waiting until I was done.

  “Here.” I handed the mangled mass over to her, the keys dangling limply from their smaller rings on the larger, distorted one. “I'm sorry. For everything.” I put my hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. “Dani, please,” I said. “You're the most important person in my life. Please say this isn't the end of our friendship.”

  She was looking down, studying her keys as though searching for the right one. When she looked up at me, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. “I thought I knew you, Ben,” she said, her voice breaking over my name. “But I never did. Not really. I trusted you.” She shook her head. “I guess I was wrong.”

  “Dani.” I stared at her helplessly and reached out a hand I knew she wouldn't take.

  She shook her head. “I have to go.” She unlocked the car with shaking hands and started the engine, staring straight ahead. I stood on the curb and watched her drive
down the street and out of my life. I knew she was never coming back.

  I lifted my face to the sky where the moon floated above me mockingly and howled. The lonely sound scratched at my soul, floating over the empty street and into the night, expressing an agony too deep for words.

  Chapter Nine

  Dani

  The most depressing sound in the world is the first sleepy twittering of birds outside your window when you've just spent the entire night crying until you think there aren't any more tears left in you. I lay in my bed and listened to them sing and considered calling in sick for the first time since I had started at the Sun Times seven years before. I was miserable in a way I hadn't been miserable since I'd finally realized I was going to have to divorce Mitch or he was going to kill me. Only, then my misery had been mixed with a generous portion of relief—I knew I was doing the right thing, no matter how hard it was.

  This time I had no sense of relief to bolster me in my despair. There was only a desolation so bleak I could barely lift my head off the pillow. Ben had lied to me—lied about everything he was and everything he stood for. I felt betrayed and violated in so many ways I couldn't begin to number them.

  My partner and ex-best friend wasn't the kind, gentle, dependable man I'd thought I knew. He was the complete opposite. I could imagine him spending his days with me, opening doors, pulling out chairs, acting the perfect gentleman, gaining my trust. Then at night, he went out and put on a leather jacket and ran around with a homicidal gang of…of…I still couldn't make myself say that word. Could scarcely wrap my mind around the concept of him being so completely inhuman.

  I wondered if he laughed at me behind my back, thinking what a gullible idiot I was, believing his lie, swallowing his story hook, line, and sinker. And all the while he was pretending to be this great pacifist meditating for world peace, he was actually out getting into fights, beating people up, probably breaking the law in every imaginable way.

  I flipped my pillow, searching for a spot that wasn't damp with tears. I had sworn when I got rid of Mitch that I would never let myself get fooled that way again. My first husband had been a man with the face of an angel and the soul of a shark. We used to go out to dinner parties with his clients, and he would treat me like a queen, ordering my favorite wine and looking soulfully into my eyes just to put on a good show. Then, once we got home and he had a drink or two, he would hurt me, and not just with his fists. No, Mitch liked to leave bruises where they wouldn't show.

  I had promised I wouldn't end up in that situation again, and yet, here I was five years later in the same kind of fix. I had trusted Ben, and he had broken that trust. I couldn't get over how much that hurt.

  I found myself remembering the first time I had really trusted him—really let him in past the professional exterior I showed the rest of the world and kept around me like a shield…

  I had been going out for my morning paper and found my cat, Sylvester, had been hit by a car. He was dead by the time I found him, and there was nothing I could do but bury him. I got a shovel, but the ground in the little patch of garden that went with my condo was so hard I couldn't make much of a dent in it. I couldn't even dig a hole deep enough to bury my cat.

  I don't know what made me do it, but I called Ben and he was there in five minutes, his big brown eyes filled with a gentle concern. He'd made short work of digging the hole and helped me bury Sylvester, and I'd found myself telling him how I'd had the stupid cat since college. Many nights after a fight with Mitch, Sylvester would curl on my lap and purr while I stroked his fur. Somehow the thought that I would never hear that deep, rusty purr again had been the worst thing of all. In the middle of telling Ben that, I broke down and cried.

  My partner put his arms around me and just held me, letting me get it out, and I felt so warm and safe and comforted. I was vulnerable in so many ways, but he hadn't taken advantage of me—hadn't even tried to kiss me, for which I remembered feeling vaguely disappointed. It was then that I first began to trust—first began to think that maybe there was at least one decent man in the world after all.

  And now Ben had proved me wrong.

  I sat up in bed suddenly and pushed my hair out of my face. I didn't know why he'd gone to such great lengths to fool me, but I was damned if I'd give him the satisfaction of letting him know how much it hurt. I was getting up and going to work even if I felt like a pile of dog crap that someone had stepped in. I would treat Ben with the same cold civility I had used when he first came to work at the Sun Times, and the first chance I got I would go to my managing editor, Barry Craythorne, and tell him I needed a new writing partner ASAP. Or better yet, I would just go solo. I didn't need anyone besides myself—the whole reason I was in this mess in the first place was because I had allowed myself to forget that.

  My anger carried me through my morning routine and into work, but it couldn't stop the cold dread in the pit of my stomach when I walked into my office—our office—and saw Ben sitting on his side of the desk with his head in his hands. He looked so completely miserable that I was almost taken in. Almost. But he had lied to me before, and I wasn't interested in a repeat performance.

  It was the longest and worst day I could ever remember having since I'd started at the Sun Times. The corner office, which had seemed so sunny and airy when Craythorne had first assigned it to us, now seemed tiny and stuffy—filled with everything Ben and I weren't saying to each other.

  By four o'clock, I was more than ready to go home, even though I usually stayed in the newsroom until well past six unless Ben and I were out chasing a lead. I was more than glad it was Friday, even though the weekend loomed ahead of me filled with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Ben and I had planned to go to the State Fair and eat cotton candy and ride the Ferris wheel until we were dizzy on Saturday. Obviously, that was now off as was the scary movie marathon we'd had planned for Sunday. I loved scary movies, but I hated watching them alone and Ben was always willing to volunteer as my couch companion.

  It looked like I was going to have to turn in my Blockbuster card for a while, I thought, giving my dejected partner a covert glance as I gathered my things to go. But then again, who needs to rent a monster movie when you work with a werewolf? I shook my head. I still couldn't wrap my mind around that. It all seemed like a bad dream. Although I knew I wouldn't have cared what he was—werewolf, mummy, Count Dracula or hell, Count Chocula, if only he hadn't lied to me. It was the lie I simply couldn't forgive.

  “Hey, Ms. Linden.” Pete the copy boy stuck his head in the door just as I was slinging my purse over my arm to go.

  “Yes, Pete?” I moved past Ben, trying not to feel his eyes on me as I walked. I used to love having him look at me, but now his gaze felt like a lead weight against my back.

  “There's some guy here to see you.” Pete nodded his head in the direction of the conference room we used for confidential sources. “Says it's important.”

  “Who is it?” Ben looked up at once, the old protective light shining in his eyes.

  “Pete, please tell Mister Davis that the identity of the gentleman who wishes to see me is none of his concern,” I said coldly. “Especially since we won't be working together anymore by Monday.”

  I swept past them as Pete started to repeat my statement, and Ben said, “Look, I'm not deaf. I heard what she said.” I shut the door with a bang to avoid hearing any more.

  Inside the conference room was a man with neat gray hair who looked vaguely familiar. The moment I opened the door, he rose and held out a hand.

  “Oh, Ms. Linden, thank you so much for agreeing to see me.” I took his hand, and he shook enthusiastically. “You're too kind to give me a second chance.”

  I gave him a puzzled smile. “I wasn't aware I'd given you a first chance Mister…?”

  “Cullen. J. C. Cullen. McKinsey's father?” He raised an eyebrow at me, and suddenly it fell into place.

  “Oh!” I put a hand to my cheek. “Oh, my—I had no idea. You look—well, you
look so different.”

  “Ah, yes.” He sat down and smoothed the nice silk tie he was wearing over his neat white shirt. “That would have something to do with having taken my medication this morning. You see—” He leaned forward earnestly. “I have a mild bipolar disorder. When I go off the meds…well, embarrassing things tend to happen.” He gave a self-conscious little laugh, and his cheeks got red.

  “Please, Mister Cullen,” I said. “Don't worry about it.”

  He shook his head. “I was so upset, you see. McKinsey's been missing for well over three months. And I…well, I'm a big fan of your work, Ms. Linden. I guess when I went off my meds, I somehow got it into my head that you could help me. That you were the key to finding my daughter.” He gave an awkward little shrug. “And so I rushed in here with her graduation picture, acting like a loon. I'm so terribly, terribly sorry.”

  “You don't have a thing to be sorry for.” I patted his hand, which was trembling slightly.

  He looked up at me. “You're very kind. I just wanted to say thank you for humoring me. And now, I should go.” He got up to leave, but I put a hand on his arm to stop him.

  “Wait, Mister Cullen. Do the police have any leads at all?”

  “No. Nothing.” He looked down at his hands.

  “You were shouting about wolves,” I said, watching him closely. “Werewolves, actually. Did you ever—”

  He shook his head rapidly. “Sometimes when I'm off my meds I think I see things. Terrible things. I thought—” He put a hand to his eyes. “It was just the bipolar disorder talking.”

  “What about the hair?” I asked. “There was a long lock of brownish-gray hair stuck to the back of your daughter's picture with chewing gum. Do you know who or what it belonged to?”

  Mister Cullen frowned. “There was hair? I'm so sorry—I don't remember that at all. The boy she was seeing…” He gave a bitter laugh. “Well, I guess I should say the man she was seeing—he was much too old for her. Theodore Savage was his name and he had brown hair with some gray in it. But I don't know how any of it would have gotten stuck to her picture.”