Under the Moon (Goddesses Rising)

by Natalie J. Damschroder

  …

  Two days ago, Quinn might have confronted Nick after a statement like that. But she didn’t dare risk it now. She’d been attracted to Nick forever but had never been with him when she was under the influence of the moon. She was very afraid the combined moon lust and natural desire for him would make her do something stupid. So she kept her eyes on the road, her hands on the steering wheel, and her mouth clamped shut for the next fifteen minutes.

  The truck stop’s multitude of tiny stores was mall-like, albeit not the kind Quinn usually shopped in. She managed to get a change of clothes for herself, since she’d left their things behind at Chloe’s, and the supplies to redress Nick’s wound after he showered. She hated leaving him in pain, but with the leech primed to attack any time, she had to be ready. It was a convenient excuse to keep her from using more power and increasing her cravings for him.

  Quinn expected arguments from both guys about splitting up to take showers and change clothes, but Nick posted Sam on watch as she went into the women’s locker room. When she emerged they’d switched places, and Nick stood outside, his weight on his right leg. His hair was damp and spiky and he hadn’t shaved, but in a clean, soft-looking T-shirt and jeans, he looked delicious. When Quinn stopped next to him, she got a whiff of musky soap and barely stopped herself from leaning in to sniff his neck.

  “Where’s Sam?” she asked. “Already in the restaurant?”

  “Hell, no. He’s doing something with his hair. He’s such a girl.”

  “Let’s go sit down.” She took Nick’s elbow and started toward the diner side of the truck stop. “He’ll find us.” He wouldn’t admit it, but she could tell even standing in one place took its toll on him. And she needed a table between them and lots more people around.

  They got a booth and she told him about the leech calling while he was asleep, playing it down as he got more and more pissed the longer she talked. Sam joined them a few minutes later, sliding in next to Quinn. Her body sizzled, and she slid away as subtly as possible.

  “I told you all along it was you.” Nick’s hand was in a fist on the table. “We’ll go back to Benton Harbor.”

  “The hell we will!” Quinn leaned forward and worked to keep her voice down. “It’s too late for that. All this time we’ve been operating under assumptions and running around blind, trying to ferret out information. Now we have something concrete. We’re not backing off now. Especially,” she ground out as the waitress approached, “when it’s obvious my sister is involved and that Sam and I might be suspects.”

  “What?” the guys said in unison, staring at her.

  The waitress interrupted, so after they’d ordered enough food to fuel them for a week, Quinn brought them up to speed on the conversations they’d missed. “I don’t know that anyone actually thinks Sam is the leech, but it connects, doesn’t it? With the questions the security team asked Chloe? Maybe they’ve suspected me all along, and the family ties thing was to keep me in the dark.”

  “But why?” Sam was incredulous. “There’s no evidence, and I’m always at the bar. People can confirm that.”

  But Nick shrugged. “Not sure they could convincingly. And you two have always been beyond close. A lot of people wouldn’t be surprised that you’d taken that step.” He motioned to get more coffee.

  “But Tanda and Chloe know me,” Sam protested. “They know I’m not the leech.”

  Quinn heaved a sigh. “They’d argue that you concealed your identity or affected their memories or something. And we’ve been on the road since this started, so it looks like we’re on the run.”

  “Except you went to the Society offices and to talk to Alana,” Sam said.

  “Maybe they didn’t suspect me until after that. Or they didn’t have enough to arrest me or something. I don’t know!” Frustrated, she fell back against the booth while the waitress flirted with Nick over the coffeepot. By the time the woman sashayed off, Quinn had managed to calm down enough to redirect the conversation to something more productive. “That’s all speculation and out of our control. Tell us everything you learned before you got shot.”

  Nick shifted to stretch his leg and leaned over the Formica-and-chrome table. “The inn looks like it does good business. There were a lot of cars out front, couples walking around in the back.” He sipped his fresh coffee. “Everyone looked normal to me, not like the misfits Ned said she collects.”

  “Maybe they don’t mingle with the regular guests,” Sam suggested.

  “That’s what I thought. There’s a compound on the other side of the property from where you found me. A few small cottages, a stable, a shed, and a larger building. No one was around there, but it might be where her friends collect.”

  “Did you get inside?” Sam asked.

  Nick shook his head. “Didn’t want to risk it. And I was trying to get a handle on Marley.”

  “Did you find her?” Quinn asked.

  “No.” He looked disgruntled. “My plan was to scope the place—literally—and then go in like a customer, you know, looking for a room. But I thought I saw something in a window. Next thing I know, Sam’s breaking the spell, and I realize I’ve been staring at nothing for hours.”

  “I looked through the scope and there was nothing in the window,” Sam said. “Not in any of the windows. I couldn’t even see into the rooms.”

  The waitress appeared with a huge tray and set down their plates. Scrambled eggs, sausage, home fries, and toast for Nick. A western omelet and bacon for Sam. A raisin bagel and fresh fruit for Quinn, who gave in to temptation and swiped a piece of Sam’s bacon. The waitress poured more coffee all around again, then left them alone.

  “So why did you start to go closer?”

  Nick and Sam exchanged a look. Then Sam said, “It was like being pulled.”

  “Or pushed,” Nick said.

  “We just got up and started walking across the lawn.”

  “What did you think you were going to do?”

  They both shrugged and forked egg into their mouths.

  Quinn sighed. “Yeah, that was helpful.” She stabbed a strawberry, stared at it, and dropped her fork. “It makes no sense. None of the leeched goddesses have mind control power. It doesn’t exist.”

  “Maybe the woman in South Carolina had something.” Nick shoved a huge bite of sausage in his mouth.

  “No, she couldn’t have.” Sam poked his fork at a chunk of pepper. “It was probably a form of telekinesis, moving our bodies rather than controlling our minds.”

  “So it could have been Marley, or the leech, which we already knew.” Nick looked disgusted.

  Talking was getting them nowhere. Quinn forced herself to eat the strawberry. Her appetite had disappeared, but she needed the fuel. “I’m going to call Marley and arrange a meeting.”

  Neither of the men offered an opinion on that, so she dug out her cell phone. She’d added Marley’s number, listed in the Society directory, to her phone book when they were still in Michigan. She called it up and hit send. After four rings, a machine came on with a message stating she’d reached the Athena Inn.

  “That’s subtle,” she muttered while she waited for the beep. “My name is Quinn Caldwell. I’d like to talk to someone about a room.” She left her number and hung up.

  “I called six times yesterday,” Nick said. “Never got a person, and no one called me back.”

  “But you saw people walking around? Like, guests?”

  “A few, yeah.”

  “Weird.”

  Sam chewed his last bite of omelet and picked up the check. “I’m going to pay. I got it,” he said, waving away the money Quinn pulled out of her wallet. As soon as he slid out of the booth, she could breathe easier.

  Nick concentrated on mopping up yolk with his last piece of toast.

  “How’s your leg?” She watched the tendons flex in his hand and wrist, her eyes traveling up his forearm, her palms itching to touch. “Did Sam help you redress it?”

  “I did it.
It’s fine. Hurts like a son of a bitch, but it looks good.”

  “I can heal it now.”

  “Later.” He swallowed and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “You’re wiped out.”

  If he only knew. “I want to go to the inn and try to find Marley. I need to see her face to face.” She hesitated, knowing it was fruitless, but she had to try. “I think I should go without you and Sam.”

  “No way.”

  “You’ll be safer away from whoever’s responsible for this,” she argued, motioning to his leg. And away from me.

  Nick smirked with no humor. “I think we know who’s responsible.”

  Defending someone who might be related to her, share her blood, came automatically, even though she agreed with him. “We don’t know—”

  “It was on her land!”

  “I know.” She stuck her elbow on the table and rested her head on her palm, weary of it all. “She’s my sister, Nick. I—”

  “But she’s not your family.” He stabbed his toast at her then leaned over his plate, his voice going lower and more intense. “You don’t know her or what she’s capable of. And if you’re going to take her side over me—” He stopped, leaning back abruptly, and flung his toast to the plate. “I’ve lost my appetite.” He shoved out of the booth and stood. “I’ll meet you outside.”

  Quinn sat, miserable, wishing he’d let her explain but thinking it might be better to let him stay angry.

  She didn’t trust her sister over her friends, for god’s sake. She didn’t want them hurt, she was pissed that they already had been, and she was afraid they were more vulnerable targets than she was. Any hope that Marley was innocent or that Quinn could have a real relationship with her family had been lost when Nick took that bullet. Being protected was well and good when all it meant was that no one harmed her. Letting others get hurt instead, or worse, was simply unacceptable.

  Sam returned to the table as Nick swung out the door. “What was that all about?”

  Quinn watched sadly after Nick. “Complication.”

  “What’d you do, say you were going to see Marley without us?”

  She didn’t respond.

  “That’s really what you said? What, are you stupid?”

  Quinn shoved at him. “Get up.”

  “Quinn…”

  “I’m not stupid, and contrary to what Nick believes, I’m not oblivious to the probability that my sister is responsible for his bullet wound or that she’s got something to do with the leech or that she’s dangerous to me. But I cannot keep circling around this and letting the people I care about get hurt. So move.” She shoved him again and he slid out of the booth, wisely keeping silent as she stormed out to the parking lot.

  Nick leaned against the Charger, parked three spaces from Chloe’s Prius. Quinn stopped in front of him, the renewed flare of desire infuriating her.

  “Let me heal your leg.”

  “No way.”

  “You were limping.”

  “So what? You’re too drained. You pull that kind of power while the moon’s on the other side of the planet, you’ll kill yourself.”

  She snorted. “Hardly.”

  “You’re not doing it.” He looked past her and a satisfied smirk shaped his mouth. “You don’t even want to try it.”

  Quinn turned. Sam stalked toward them, his expression thunderous. For a moment, she felt a hundred years old and ready to drop everything and go back to Ohio. But that wouldn’t help any of them. Nor would another six hours of planning. She needed to act.

  “Fine. I’ll do it later.” She spun away and strode to the car, got in, and took off before Nick could realize what she intended and stop her.

  She knew she had no chance to outrun him, so she didn’t try. She keyed the address for the inn into the GPS and followed the route. Her phone rang. She left it in her pocket. A few moments later the Charger appeared in her rearview mirror, Nick and Sam both glaring through the windshield.

  So they were pissed. Good. She wanted enough of a head start that they wouldn’t stop her, and maybe she could gain enough advantage to protect them for a change.

  Chapter Twelve

  Among goddesses, no ties are stronger than those of family. Mothers, grandmothers, and sisters help a new goddess develop and fine-tune her abilities and provide emotional support as she finds her place in our world. However, as is the case outside the goddess community, “family” is not always defined by blood.

  —Society Annual Meeting, Special Session on Relationships

  …

  Soon she was on the wooded, winding road to the inn, the driveway a few hundred yards ahead. She searched the sides of the road, looking for an opportunity, but didn’t see it until she got to her turn. A drainage ditch had been dug into the far corner. She turned right past the one-way sign, whipping into the turn without warning. When Nick followed she reached for the moon’s energy, exhilarated by the clean, cold surge, and sent the Charger into the ditch with a thought. It was deep enough and wide enough to trap the front tires so he couldn’t get out.

  The Prius sped past white pines lining the long, narrow driveway, halting with a little screech in front of the large white colonial house. Black shutters glistened in the sun, and a few hardy fall flowers bloomed in the beds on either side of the wide porch steps. Rocking chairs sat invitingly in front of sparkling windows covered in sheer white curtains, and a grapevine wreath adorned the front door. All very picturesque and not telegraphing “evil lives here” in any way.

  Mindful that Nick and Sam would be close behind her, Quinn got out of the car, her eyes on the building. Chirping birds pierced the serenity as she climbed the steps and approached the front door.

  As she reached for the handle of the screen, the inner door opened and a woman, laughing at the man behind her rather than looking where she was going, swung the outer door at Quinn’s face. She stepped back just in time.

  The woman gasped. “Oh, I’m so sorry! I wasn’t looking.” She tilted her head. “Are you a new guest?”

  “I hope to be. I’m looking for Marley Canton.”

  The woman clucked her tongue. “I’m afraid the inn is booked for the next several weeks. I know, because we were so lucky to get this week when a couple canceled. Called off the wedding, poor things. Anyway, Marley’s in the kitchen. Fran at the counter can tell you when they can book you. Toodles!”

  She and the man trotted down the steps to an SUV parked in a small, needle-strewn lot to the left. Quinn stepped into the warm lobby and glanced around. The square foyer was empty of both Fran and all furniture except a tall counter to the right of the central hallway. On the left, a staircase stretched upward, the carved banister gleaming as much as the polished floor, the dark wood contrasting with the bright white of the walls and check-in counter. The shivery feeling inside Quinn could be anticipation or apprehension, but it came from her, not from the environment. The foreboding she’d had before Nick left to come up here was absent. Still, she remained alert, prepared for anything.

  The bell on the counter dinged when she tapped it, but it didn’t bring footsteps or voices. It would be rude to walk into the back, Quinn told herself, but did it anyway. She saw no one in the hall, nor in the spacious dining room she passed. Pots and pans clanked deeper into the building. Quinn followed the sound of running water to the very back of the house.

  The kitchen door was open to the backyard, the room sunny and bright and clean except for the makings of bread dough scattered across several counters. A young woman stood at the center counter, digging her hands deep into the dough she kneaded. Quinn registered dark hair pulled back in a ponytail, the exact color of her own, and a wide face with high cheekbones and pointed chin that reminded her of Tess. She didn’t move, waiting for a sense of…something. Family. Connection. Recognition. There was nothing. Then her sister looked up and froze, surprise and pleasure spreading over her face.

  “Quinn!”

  “Marley.” It didn’t shock her that Marley
knew who she was—not as much as it did to see her pale lavender eyes. They couldn’t be normal. Uncertainty drained her determination, and she began to hope again. Maybe Marley wasn’t the threat after all. Maybe she was just another victim.

  “How did you get in here?”

  Reminding herself to assume nothing, Quinn said, “It wasn’t hard.”

  “But the front door is—”

  “A couple was coming out. They let me in. Said Fran would be at the front desk, but there wasn’t anyone around.”

  Marley pursed her lips and shook her head. “Fran’s in the laundry room.” She manipulated the dough into a mound, dropped it into a bowl, and draped a towel over it. “Let me get cleaned up and we’ll go in the other room.” She turned to the sink to wash her hands. “Not exactly the—”

  BwoooOOP. BwoooOOP. BwoooOOP.

  Marley cursed over the loud alarm and quickly dried off her hands.

  “What’s that?” Quinn shouted.

  Marley waved a hand toward one wall and the alarm stopped. Quinn saw a speaker up near the ceiling, then noticed the windowsills, backsplashes, and shelves high on the wall were all lined with different kinds of crystals. Marley’s power source, and she’d just used it. So her eyes weren’t the result of leeching. Quinn felt her expression twist with disgust, her hope short-lived. Marley had both light eyes and power, so the only possibility remaining was that she had created the leech.

  “Someone’s trying to get in.” Marley squeezed past her and rushed down the hall toward the front door.

  “They’re probably with me!” Quinn hurried to follow, not wanting Marley to attack her friends. When she burst into the foyer lobby, two men held guns on Sam and Nick, who stood with their hands raised, looking disheveled and disgruntled. When they saw Quinn, Sam sagged in obvious relief while Nick tensed, his eyes flashing and his jaw tight.

  “They are with me,” Quinn said, stepping up next to Marley. “Call off your goons.”

  “They’re not goons.”

  But neither were they typical security. The guy on the left, standing in the doorway of what appeared to be an old-fashioned parlor, had long, stringy hair and wore dirty jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. The older one on the right was beefier and held his rifle with more authority, but he looked farm-hardened rather than street-tough.