Mark of the Moon

by Beth Dranoff

  So I told him. Everything I knew, and even a few guesses at what I didn’t.

  “Dawn is coming soon,” Jon said. “Will you spend the day here? I can’t protect you, but maybe my home will be safe enough for you even while I’m dead.”

  I wanted to go home. But home couldn’t be home to me, Lynna was at Anshell’s and I couldn’t risk going to my mum’s place and possibly putting her in danger. I didn’t feel safe at the Swan Song, and I wasn’t completely certain I trusted Anshell enough to be at the Pack house right now either. Hiding sounded good; if I was going to hide, Jon’s place was as good a place as any to do it in.

  Plus, Jon’s guest room—first time I’d ever seen it—felt like the perfect antithesis to a blood bath. A poufy duvet and down-filled pillows covered the surface of a four-poster canopy bed complete with lacy dust ruffles, sheer curtains and sheets of no less than a 600-thread count of finely spun Egyptian cotton.

  All white. It was strikingly feminine, raising more questions than answers. Still, tonight we were trading secrets for safety, so I didn’t ask, allowing him instead to tuck me in with a chaste kiss on my forehead before he vanished down the long, narrow hallway to his own daytime rest.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  I felt someone’s weight sink down on the bed. Strong, hairy arms pinned mine to the mattress above my head as whiskers tickled my face. I found myself straddled by a snarling partially shifted were-cat, very male, very not happy to see me. He sniffed behind my ears and hissed, spittle barely missing my open mouth and landing instead on my cheek.

  I guess Jon’s someone-that-I-used-to-know had keys to his place.

  “Bitch,” he hissed. It came out sounding more like beeettsshh. “You need to die already.”

  I twisted sharply to my left and used the momentum to keep him going until he landed, ass-first, on the floor beside the bed.

  “Not today,” I said, peering down at him. My head was still sleep-fogged, but the adrenaline kick of yet another attack was chasing that back. “What the hell is your damage? Wasn’t scratching me enough fun for one lifetime?”

  “You,” Claude said, swallowing a very un-manly yowl as he overcame his tossed-over-by-a-female humiliation by arcing back onto his padded feet. “Every time I turn tail, there you are. In his gallery. In his car. In his home, and now in his bed.”

  Sir Hiss-A-Lot clawed the sheer tulle surrounding the bed, leaving shredded ribbons of fabric. So much for Jon’s midwinter night’s dream of girlish innocence. Claude’s fur spiked around his neck, puffed up to make him seem even bigger than he already was. Half feline, half man, one hundred percent the stereotype of the green-eyed jealous cat.

  “Yeah,” I said, pointing out what should have been the obvious. “His guest bed. Not his bed. Guest. Not that it’s any of your damned business.”

  Claude sniffed daintily but said nothing, opting instead to curl his paw into a fist and punch a hole into the wall in front of me.

  “I know you’re fucking each other,” he said, turning to stalk from one end of the room to the other. “I caught you, remember?”

  “I remember, asshole,” I replied. “What does that tell you?”

  Claude growled and leaned forward onto the bed, the pushing of his paws causing the frame to groan in protest.

  “It means you’re on my territory, bitch,” he said. I snarled back this time, allowing my own claws, my own fur to sprout, going up onto all fours in front of him, nose to nose. Claude’s eyes widened and he shrank back, just a bit.

  “No,” I said. “It means your territory is up for grabs. Besides, if you hadn’t scratched me,” I continued, “none of this would be happening. You turn my life to shit and then you have the balls to come in here and tell me I won’t die and that I’m in your way? Seriously?” I practically spit my frustration at the tom.

  “The vampire is mine,” Claude said, only fractionally calmer. “Not yours.” Even furry, I could tell he was hanging on to his calm by a fractional thread.

  “Jon belongs to Jon,” I said. “You want to kill off everyone he sleeps with? You’ll have blood on your paws from here to Nunavut and back pretty soon, because I don’t get the sense the man does monogamy. Make it easier on yourself and the rest of us and give it a rest.”

  I leaned back into my pillows and picked up my mug of tea, now cold, and took a sip as I retracted my own fur and claws with the barest of twitchy itches. McHissy deflated and sank into the far corner of the bed, leaning his back up against one of the four grooved cherrywood posts, watching me through narrowed eyes. I returned the favor for a full three minutes before sighing. I gave an inch. Okay, maybe it was a centimeter.

  “You know you have to stop doing this.”

  “Fuck you,” he replied with a huff.

  “Whatever,” I said. The eye roll part was involuntary. Really. “If you’re going to be an ass, you can get out of my room. Now.”

  “Bitch, this ain’t your room,” he said. ”Get your tired ass out of here and maybe I’ll be a bit nicer to you.”

  “Ooh, you mean we can be friends? Best buds? Oh yes, I’d do anything for that privilege.” My sarcasm was duly noted with a flare of his nostrils and a narrowing of his eyes. “Besides, every time I set foot out there, something bad happens. So if it’s okay with you, and frankly even if it’s not, I’m going to hang here for a bit longer. If you want me to move faster, go make me coffee.”

  “Leave,” Claude growled at me, hair starting to rise up along the back of his neck, staring me down anew.

  “No,” I said.

  Jon found us that way a few minutes later, locked in a glaring standoff. He leaned against the doorway, hair tousled with sleep, and stared blearily back and forth between Claude and me before shaking his head and going to get coffee. He returned with two mugs—one for each of us. Claude’s was in a travel mug with a big yellow smiley face on the side.

  “Claude,” Jon said firmly, holding the cat’s gaze in his. “It’s time for you to go.”

  Claude’s mouth gaped open and shut. Jon leaned forward to whisper something in Claude’s ear that made the cat’s yellow eyes flash to brilliant moor-kissed emerald and then back again before he turned tail and stomped out of the room.

  A couple of minutes later the front door slammed; I wondered whether Claude had taken his key.

  Jon slid his palm over the night table. Question answered. He looked from the key to me, raised his eyebrows, then left the room. I heard the door to his bedroom open and close.

  Right. One question answered. Only to be replaced by another, more significant one.

  Awesome.

  I was getting out of here before things got any weirder.

  * * *

  I parked my truck down by the lake and walked past families and children playing, past sand and garbage and ships. Ghosts echoed in my head, chasing me down the path I walked, taking me farther away from the city I knew and the reality I thought I knew.

  Ezra was dead. My relationship with Jon was possibly over, possibly shared with a crazy cat named Claude. My life as a norm living only on the fringed edges of the supe community—gone, and replaced with the ability to shift into feline form of some kind. Oh yeah. And I had new knowledge of a father I’d barely known, who’d apparently had the shifter gene and neglected to mention it to me before his untimely departure.

  The positives? New allies with the possibility of being new friends. Celandra, the dragon. Sam, the feline. Anshell—still wanted to know what he was. And Jon, who apparently planned to look out for me as long as he could regardless of our relationship status.

  I still didn’t know why this was happening to me. Or what was I up against. Either way, it involved that crazy demon chick—Alina or Cybele or whatever her real name was. Icy smoke demons kept coming after me. My kitchen was melted goo. There had t
o be a connection—but what? The best key I had to the lockbox of clues, my mentor from my previous life, was decomposing in a pool of his own cooled blood. And the great unanswered question: How did they get to me in the Swan Song?

  My breath came in gusts of icy steam; I walked faster. Not paying attention. I’d looped around and was heading back to my truck. And? What would I do once I got there? I couldn’t go home. I wasn’t going to go back to Jon’s. I couldn’t go to my mother’s. Lynna wasn’t at her place and besides, I was thinking getting kidnapped by a big blue demon was a pretty good indicator of the lack of security around her apartment.

  I was out of time and out of options.

  * * *

  The door to Anshell’s place swung open with a bang. Someone was a little twitchy. I didn’t recognize the woman who let me in, all muscle and winding leaf-pattern tattoos, but she’d apparently figured out who I was. She stepped back only enough to let me past before slamming the door shut and barricading re-entry with a series of serious-looking metal locks and fasteners.

  “Anika,” she said with a nod, and then, “Wait here.” My new friend Anika shot me a look that conveyed the potential for serious ramifications should I choose to move from my spot. I matched her look, staring her down just long enough to prove it was my decision to acquiesce—I sure as hell wasn’t taking orders from a complete stranger.

  Tattoo girl didn’t seem to care much. “Suit yourself, chickie,” she said with a shrug before slinking up the stairs. I noticed she hadn’t asked my name, even for show. Exactly how many people knew about me? I was starting to think I didn’t want to know.

  It was maybe thirty seconds before I heard another bang and then the sound of footsteps, heavy, steady, heading down towards me. I couldn’t help leaning back, just a bit, into the shadows of the doorway. Pretty sure I was safe here, or should be, but just in case...

  “Dana.”

  I let out a breath I’d forgotten I was holding and stepped out into the light. With a slight incline of his head, Anshell nudged me towards the kitchen. I sat. He put a pot of coffee on to brew, and slid into the stool across from me.

  “Tell me.”

  “No,” I replied. The bowl in front of me, filled with cubes of raw sugar, was suddenly intensely interesting.

  Anshell honored my silence for the amount of time it took to make the coffee before trying again.

  “Where have you been for the last twenty-four hours?”

  There had to be words. My not wanting to say them didn’t mean they didn’t need to be said. So I forced myself back into that nightmare so that Anshell would know.

  “I was kidnapped last night from inside the Swan Song. Tortured. Asked a bunch of stupid questions which I survived purely because something bigger and badder and meaner than me came along and slaughtered everything it came into contact with other than me.” I was starting to babble, my eyes suspiciously wet. Anshell looked like he was physically biting the inside of his cheek to keep from interrupting me. “I escaped. Don’t ask me how because I’m not so sure I know. Then I ran from the place, nearly naked and covered in blood, wearing these stupid paper booties that did nothing, and managed to make it to my truck. Which I had to hotwire, by the way. Then I went to Jon’s, still covered in blood and stinking like raw sewage. Yeah, I’ve been out having all kinds of fun.”

  Anshell grimaced. I took a sip of coffee before going on.

  “Tell me again how the Pack protects its own. How you didn’t know anything about it. You or Sam. Or maybe you did and you’re putting on a good show here.” I glared at Anshell, who shook his head. “Something is after me. Or someone. It doesn’t matter where I go anymore; nowhere feels safe. Even at Jon’s, after I showered and burned my clothes, his idiot boyfriend found me. Fucker woke me up to give me shit. Like it’s my fault that Jon swings both ways. I mean, really?” Deep, heavy sigh. “I can’t go home because my kitchen is melted. Lynna is here, so I can’t go to her place. I don’t want to put my mother in danger. And even work isn’t safe anymore.”

  “Isn’t the Swan Song supposed to be a neutral zone?”

  I nodded.

  “So then how did whoever snagged you pull it off? Why didn’t it trip any alarms? Something’s hinky,” he said.

  I thought about it. “Did Sandor call you? Was he worried about me in any way?”

  “I haven’t heard from him,” Anshell replied, mulling over the words as he said them.

  “Let me try.” I called Sandor’s cell, and the office line at the Swan. Both went straight to voice mail after the first ring.

  I wasn’t liking where this was going. Because if Sandor hadn’t called looking for me, then it was probably because he wasn’t worried. And the only way Sandor wouldn’t be worried about me vanishing in the middle of my shift was if he was in on it—or something had happened to him as well. Either way, not good.

  Anshell had clearly followed the same train of thought because he picked up the phone, punched in a couple of numbers and asked whoever answered to track down Sandor Slodvizik. Unintelligible response, but the voice at the other end of the line must have answered in the affirmative because Anshell said “thanks” before disconnecting.

  “Thanks,” I echoed.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Listen, I know you’re not sure where to go or who to trust. And I don’t blame you. The fact is that we do not know where the leak is, and until we do, we’re better off not trusting anyone.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  Anshell chose to ignore my question. “You said you told Jon everything?” he asked instead.

  I nodded.

  “What did he say?”

  “It’s not him,” I replied. “He was angry and protective and told me not to trust anyone as well. He was worried about me coming to your place, which is why I crashed in his guest room—until I was so charmingly woken up.”

  “Okay,” said Anshell.

  We sat in silence a moment, sipping our cooling drinks. I didn’t know what Anshell was thinking about, but I was casting my brain back to that room with the electrodes. What had Ezra asked me? About the pack, and about Anshell? I was missing something, something important. It danced on the edges of my consciousness but I couldn’t touch it. I grunted my frustration; Anshell looked at me.

  “What?” He raised an eyebrow to punctuate his question.

  “Ezra,” I replied. “He wanted to know about the Moonie Toones pack. Moon Face pack. Face of the Three Moons pack? Something like that,” I finished lamely. The name was there, in my brain, if only I could access it.

  “The Moon with Seven Faces,” Anshell said slowly, correcting me. “The pack whose protection you are currently under. What did you tell him?”

  “I believe I said something to the effect of ‘huh’ and then ‘Ezra, stop shooting pain at me,’” I replied acerbically.

  “Indeed,” said Anshell. “Anything else?”

  “Well, they wanted to know about Seven Faces. But they also wanted information about our personal relationship,” I said. “Obviously, I couldn’t admit to knowing anything about the pack so I wasn’t much help there. Instead I played like we were fucking each other to tweak Ezra’s inner prude and get him to stop asking me questions about you.”

  “You pretended we were sleeping together to forestall further questions? Interesting tactic,” Anshell said, lips twitching in a grin that reached all the way to his eyes.

  “I would have said just about anything to get him to stop making those electrodes jump,” I replied, no trace of a smile on my lips, wiping the mirth from Anshell’s and replacing it with sympathy. “It was weird,” I said. “They knew we knew each other, but they thought we were physically involved as well and that I was staying here. And they knew about that incident after hours outside the bar the other night, the night when Sam
and I met.”

  “That is indeed curious,” Anshell concurred. “And it does help us narrow down the list a bit. Who else knew about what happened?”

  I thought about it a moment, forming the beginnings of a checklist in my head.

  “Sam, because he was there,” I said, holding up one finger. “Jon. You. Sandor. And I might have mentioned it to Lynna.”

  Anshell gave me a level look, waiting for me to put the pieces together. Welcome to my lightbulb moment.

  “Oh shit,” I said. He’d been unconscious the whole time, so I hadn’t even thought of him. “Goth Guy.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  It was weird even thinking it. We’d rescued him from a bloody death. Right? So why would he help Alina, or Ezra, or whoever? Was this an enemy of my enemy is my friend deal, or was it something else?

  Sam took that moment to pad downstairs, wearing nothing but a pair of drawstring pants and looking delicious. Damn, how did he do that? His chest was far from hairless, but it was strategically sleek, drawing my eyes down the shaded path to what lay just beyond the waistband of those stubbornly slung pants. His hair was messy, one side sticking up more than the other, and his eyes were still bleary with sleep. The grin he flashed me, though, was pure mischief.

  “What are we talking about down here?” Sam schooled his face into poker straightness when he looked at Anshell.

  “We were talking about the fact that Dana was snatched from the Swan Song during her shift last night,” Anshell replied. The shift in Sam’s stance was barely perceptible, but he pulled up and back just a bit, waiting for more information.

  “Her abductors were particularly interested in our clan,” Anshell continued, “and knew that Dana had stayed here. She encouraged their assumption that she and I were an item.”