Stray Moon

by Kelly Meding

  We got anything that was ours out of my mom’s rental, and I hugged her for a long time by the driver’s side door. “You be careful, daughter,” Mom said. “May Mother Earth protect you.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise. And if your resources find anything else of value?”

  “I’ll forward it to you immediately. I love you.”

  “Love you, too, Mom.”

  I always hated parting from her, because my mother was the embodiment of inner peace. She made me feel safe in an unsafe world, but knowing she was driving away from a dangerous situation made it hurt less. I watched the taillights make their way down the road, until the car disappeared on the horizon.

  Chandra finished her calls a few minutes later, and I filled her in on what was up. “Letting your mom go was a good call,” she said. “She did what we asked her to do, so there was no sense in continuing to expose her to danger.”

  “Exactly. Ready to go hunt a werewolf?”

  We went in the opposite direction of the boys. I nearly called Jaxon and asked him to use his last wish to locate Gideon, but we might need that wish later on down the road. Besides, how difficult would it be to find one werewolf in a town of less than eight hundred people?

  Harder than I imagined.

  We searched until dusk and found more clues, including paw prints, but not the young werewolf himself. His clothes at the silo hadn’t been disturbed, and I saw no sign he’d even returned. The longer he remained missing, the more I worried someone besides us had found him first. And I really didn’t want to report that to Alpha Kennedy.

  Hey, thanks for letting us borrow a werewolf, but he’s gone missing, too. Sorry.

  Not happening.

  When our quartet reassembled at the office, it was empty, so we hit the town’s small diner for dinner. We got a lot of looks, which annoyed the hell out of me, but our group had two black faces in a sea of very white. Add that to the general xenophobia of a small town, and we were always going to offend some of Gabriel’s sensibilities. The waitress was prompt and polite, though, so I ignored it in favor of a big platter of fried chicken.

  Halfway through the meal, though, the hairs on the back of neck prickled. I rolled my shoulders, as if stretching out a crick, as an excuse to look around. The diner had a long, eat-in counter, and a man in a denim jacket and baseball cap caught my attention. Something about him seemed out of place, and it wasn’t the ancient coat or loser ball team on the cap.

  Curious, I pushed my mind toward him. It might not work, because we’d never had a conversation, or been in proximity in any meaningful way, but what was the harm in trying? I silently asked who he was and who he worked for, hoping to see something, like I’d seen into Jaxon’s and Alice’s minds.

  Nothing.

  Maybe I was too far away.

  I wiped my fingers on a napkin, then stood. “Be right back.” I strolled over to the counter, grateful the stool next to my target was empty. Without looking directly at him, I leaned forward and flagged down a server. “Can I get some extra napkins for my table?”

  “Sure thing.” She handed me a small stack from a bin on her side of the counter. “Here you go, hon.”

  “Thanks bunches.” I turned to go and “accidentally” brushed my elbow against his shoulder. “Hey, sorry.”

  “Barely felt it,” the man said in a monotone voice.

  When I returned to my seat, Novak frowned and said, “We have plenty of napkins.”

  “I know, but the guy with the out-of-date jean jacket?” I said in a hushed voice. “There’s something about him that’s got me on edge. I tried to do that mind-peek thing.”

  “The what thing?”

  Oh, right. I still hadn’t disclosed my newly discovered ability to Novak and Chandra. We hadn’t had a chance away from Kathleen until now, so I told them what I’d done to Jaxon in the car. I also admitted to seeing into Alice’s mind during our invisible field trip. “Anyway, I couldn’t get anything on him,” I continued, “so I thought if I touched him, or got close, I’d be able to sense something.”

  “And?”

  “Dude, I just sat down. I haven’t tried again yet.”

  “Give her a minute, Novak,” Jaxon said.

  Novak squinted at him. “She really saw into your head?”

  “Yeah. She saw some memories of us, because that’s what I was thinking about.”

  “Huh.”

  I picked up a chicken leg and took a bite, while pushing my thoughts toward the man again. The image of a large brown wolf, muzzled and caged, flashed in my mind, along with the word “menace.” “Oh no,” I said as I dropped the chicken leg. “I think he captured Gideon.”

  Chapter 15

  “Why do you think he has Gideon?” Jaxon asked.

  “Because he’s thinking about a caged wolf and thinks he’s a menace,” I replied. “Who else could it be?”

  “You think he’s working for DM?”

  “Almost positive he works for them and he’s here to keep an eye on us. Someone dial my phone.”

  “What? Why?”

  Instead of asking questions, Novak discreetly palmed his phone in his lap.

  “I’m going to take a call and go outside to answer it,” I replied. “Maybe he’ll follow me.”

  “Oh yeah, draw out the bad guy,” Jaxon said. “Great plan.”

  “Deal with it.”

  My phone rang, and I made a small show of excusing myself to go outside and answer the call. All I got on the other end was diner noise, and Jaxon distantly complaining about my hero complex. The latter made me smile, and I thought back to that intense kiss in the parking lot. I was insanely attracted to the guy, but a relationship with a coworker I barely knew was a very bad idea. It hadn’t worked once before, apparently, so why would I think it could work now?

  It couldn’t, and besides, I had a boyfriend.

  Maybe.

  The sidewalk in front of the diner was quiet, and I could easily give Vincent a second call. Talk about things and see where we stood. This needed an in-person conversation, though, and I couldn’t keep getting distracted by my love life. Not with so many lives at stake. We had no idea what forces we were actually up against, the numbers DM Clinic had, or what they knew about us. So I faked having a conversation on the now-dead line and kept half my attention on the diner door. The place had street parking and no attached lot, so I hung around just beyond the light of the wide front windows.

  Denim Jacket didn’t let me down.

  After only a few minutes of talking to myself, he left the diner and strolled in my direction, hands in his pants pockets. I gave no indication I saw him coming and giggled at my silent phone for good measure, then said good-bye. Giving him the chance he needed to make a move.

  Hired muscle is so predictable.

  He acted as if he was going to walk past, and then at the last second he lunged at me. I allowed him to twist my left arm up and behind my back. My phone clattered to the sidewalk. Something hard pressed into my ribs. “I’ve got a gun on you,” he hissed into my ear. “Walk. To the alley.”

  “Don’t hurt me,” I replied with just enough fear to sell it. Idiot didn’t know I was letting him abduct me. Or that I could break his hold on me faster than he could pull that trigger.

  We walked into a narrow alley between the diner and the building next door, and it cast us in shadow. A few feet down, he stopped us. “Who are you?” he asked.

  “You grabbed me,” I replied. “Who do you think I am?”

  “Trouble, you and your friends, and I don’t need trouble in my town.”

  “Your town? You don’t look like the cop I talked to this morning, so try again, Barney Fife.”

  “Mouthy bitch.” The gun pressed harder into my ribs and he pushed me face-first against the brick diner wall. Now he was testing my patience. “How about you answer my question? Who are you?”

  “Someone you’re about to regret calling a bitch.” I tensed, prepared to dislodge the guy’s hold
on me, but a rush of air was followed by a thud, and Barney Fife was gone. The distant glow of red and cloying scent of vinegar clued me into Tennyson’s presence before I could turn and spot him.

  He held the guy against the opposite building by the neck, Barney’s feet about a foot off the ground. “Do not touch what’s mine,” Tennyson said.

  Okay, we really needed to have a conversation about ownership, and soon.

  “Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?” I asked him. “I didn’t actually need rescuing.”

  “I acknowledge that you are quite capable of defending yourself. However, my response was instinctive and immediate. We have shared blood, so we are connected.”

  The bad guy made a noise of disgust, and Tennyson’s grip tightened. “Who are you guys?” he garbled out.

  “People who now hold your life in their hands,” Tennyson replied. “You will answer her questions, beginning with your name.”

  “Hugh Warner.” His voice was gone a bit distant as he fell into Tennyson’s gazelock.

  “Who do you work for?” I asked. Having an overprotective vampire in my back pocket was turning out to be pretty blessed useful.

  “I’m field security for DM Clinic.”

  “What’s ‘field security’ mean?”

  “Means I blend into the town, keep my ears open for any suspicions about the clinic and what they do. And I keep it safe from unwanted outsiders, such as yourselves.”

  Huh. “So you’re an informant.”

  Hugh blinked once. “Yes.”

  “Did you recently capture a rogue werewolf?”

  “Yes.”

  Okay, now we were getting someplace useful. “What did you do with the werewolf?”

  “I turned him over to my supervisor at DM.”

  “A guy named Hiller?”

  “Yes.”

  Great. The bad guys had our werewolf. And I had more questions, but doing this in the open was dangerous. Someone could walk by the mouth of that alley at any moment and see us. “Tennyson, take him and meet me back at the motel. I’m getting the others.”

  “As you wish,” he replied. The pair was gone in a flutter of black cloak.

  Oh, to run as fast as a vampire Master.

  My friends were settling the bill when I returned, and they’d had the rest of my meal boxed up. I told them what was up once we were packed in the car.

  “So this guy kidnapped Gideon and gave him to DM,” Jaxon said. “Good instincts on this one, Shi.”

  “Yeah,” Novak said. “This new power of yours is coming in handy. Any others you feel coming online?”

  “Not so far, but Iblis knows what might happen in the future,” I replied.

  “Maybe you need another boost of vampire blood.”

  “No!” Jaxon and I said at the same time.

  Tennyson and Hugh were in the center of the three rooms Mom had rented for us earlier in the day. It was hard to believe we’d only come into Gabriel this morning and not a week ago; so much had happened in less than twelve hours. Hugh sat in the room’s only chair, Tennyson across from him on one of the two double beds. Tennyson’s eyes were normal, so he wasn’t gazelocking Hugh anymore.

  “Mr. Warner has agreed to cooperate with the rest of your interrogation,” Tennyson said.

  “Excellent,” I replied. And now that there were five of us against one, Hugh looked a bit green. And scared. “Where did we leave off? Oh yeah, I want my werewolf back.”

  “I can’t get him for you, I’m sorry,” Hugh said. “I don’t have that kind of internal clearance. I don’t even know where in the building he’s being held.”

  “Do you have access to their computer systems?”

  “No. Like I said, I’m field security. I rarely go inside that building, and even then, it’s usually only the first floor.”

  “The first floor is a glamour, so anything you think you see is probably bullshit, anyway.”

  “Glamour?”

  “Yeah. When you look at that building, how many stories do you see?”

  He looked at me like I was deranged. “One.”

  “It’s five stories high, Mr. Warner. There’s a magical ward protecting it from outside eyes, so no one really knows what’s going on in there.”

  “It’s a fertility clinic that’s secretly helping werewolves fix their infertility problems.”

  Novak snorted, and the harsh sound made Hugh flinch.

  “It’s so much more than that,” Jaxon said. “And we’re here to shut it down.”

  “If it’s protected by magic, how do you see past it?” Hugh asked.

  “Trade secret,” I replied. “What we know and do is not important to you right now. You being allowed to live beyond this moment is what should be important to you.” I’d never murder someone in cold blood, but he didn’t know that.

  “You . . . you can’t kill me.” Hugh didn’t seem too certain of that, though. “I mean, aren’t you Para-Marshals?”

  I jacked my thumb at Tennyson. “He’s not.”

  Tennyson played his part perfectly by baring gleaming white fangs; Hugh paled.

  “Look, I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” Hugh said. “I’m not part of any inner circles, and I don’t know anything about what else the researchers may or may not do in that clinic, I swear.”

  “How do you get inside?” Jaxon asked.

  “There’s a door on the rear of the building. Everyone’s got a unique key card and pass code.”

  “Tennyson,” I said. “Mind doing a quick recon for us?”

  “Certainly.” Tennyson rose and was gone in a rush of air.

  “Who comes and goes on a regular basis from that clinic?” I asked.

  “Dunno, the researchers, I guess. But I never see them around town, so I don’t really know where they live. The receptionist, Petey, he’s an in-towner, though. I know that.”

  “If no one regularly comes and goes,” Chandra said, “it’s possible they live in that building, possibly on one of the two floors we didn’t get to see.”

  “That makes sense,” Jaxon replied. “No need to explain all the people working in such a small clinic, and no need for those researchers to interact with townsfolk and draw suspicion.”

  I nodded, because it was the best explanation. “Do you know how many people DM employs?”

  Hugh shook his head. “Not really. I mean, Mr. Hiller once casually mentioned how important security was, because three dozen jobs depended on it, so I guess between thirty and forty.”

  Thirty to forty people with some truly fucked-up morals, if they enjoyed experimenting on other species. “Other than the twenty-eight werewolves currently seeking treatment, who else is there voluntarily?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not my job to know this shit.”

  “Plausible deniability,” Jaxon said. “You can’t spill what you don’t know.”

  Tennyson breezed back into the motel room. “The depth of the building to the naked eye is the same as what the townspeople see from the glamour. I found a rear door and locking mechanism that matches his description.”

  “Perfect.” I held my hand out to Hugh. “Key card and pass code.”

  Hugh squawked.

  I put my hands on the arms of his chairs and leaned in. “Let me be perfectly clear about something, Mr. Warner. As of this moment, you have quit working for DM and are now planning the fastest, most efficient means of driving out of town tonight. If you do not, my vampire friend over there will drain you to the point of near death, and then leave you like that in the middle of a cornfield many miles from here, to live or die as your body sees fit. Do we understand each other?”

  Hugh had gone pasty white, and I worried I’d overdone it, but he nodded. “I understand,” he whispered.

  “Good.” I stood up straighter. “Key card and pass code.”

  Hugh fumbled for his wallet and produced a piece of plastic the size of a credit card. All black, with the DM Clinic logo, and a m
agnetic stripe on the back. “Pass code is 4576.”

  “What’s directly inside the door?”

  “An elevator. You need the card for that, too.”

  Just like the other elevator. “What else?”

  “A hallway to some meeting rooms. I’ve been in one or two when Mr. Hiller called a meeting.”

  “When you turned over the werewolf, did you go into the elevator or visit another floor?”

  “No. I’ve only ever been on the first floor, I swear.”

  The guy had given us some good intel, but he didn’t know anything that could really help us get our werewolves out safely.

  “Anyone else have a relevant question?” I asked.

  “How did you get paid?” Jaxon said. “Cash, check, debit?”

  Hugh swallowed hard. “Cash. I’m on a fixed retirement income, so it’s money under the table.”

  “Of course it is,” I said. This Damian guy was too freaking smart to leave a paper trail. “I’m guessing he pays Petey in cash?”

  “Probably. We don’t really chat, you know? He watches TV all day, while I just keep an eye on things out here.”

  “Are you the one who told Hiller we were in town?” Jaxon asked.

  “Yes. I’m friendly with Officer Murphy, and we got to talking right after he found you guys in the silo, talking about a rogue werewolf. When I told Hiller about it, he told me to capture the werewolf first, if I could.”

  “You didn’t think to ask why?”

  “I’m not paid to ask questions.”

  That had become abundantly clear.

  “What about the building’s security?” Novak asked. “Cameras? Alarm systems? Anything you can tell us?”

  “There’s a visible external camera in back near the rear door. Uh, I’ve never noticed an alarm system, but they gotta have master controls somewhere in the building if we need key cards to get inside. I don’t know where, though.”

  I glanced at Tennyson; his slight head-tilt confirmed the exterior camera. And we were running out of use for this guy. He was an employee with likely no real value to DM, so keeping him as leverage wasn’t realistic. Besides, we were the good guys, and unlawful imprisonment wasn’t really my style.