Dark Moon

by Lori Handeland

  “Then we’ve got plenty of time to figure out what they’re planning,” I said. “Who knows, we could even stumble over the werewolf tomorrow night, blow his brains out, and be home free.”

  Both Edward and Nic turned a bland gaze on me.

  “I know.” I sighed. “Like that’ll happen.”

  Chapter 31

  We spent the rest of that night trying to discover something more about the dark moon, witchie wolves, even Lydia. According to Nic, she existed, but he couldn’t find out anything else about her, which made him nuts.

  The man wouldn’t get off the Internet. Around 3 a.m. I fell asleep on the couch, only to be awoken by Edward several hours later.

  “Dawn approaches,” he said. “Let us go and question the native woman.”

  Mr. Politically Incorrect. I was going to have to watch what he said to Lydia.

  From the bloodshot appearance of Nic’s eyes as the three of us climbed into Edward’s Cadillac, he hadn’t slept at all. Shortly after the sun rose, we reached Lydia’s.

  She stood on the porch as we climbed out of the car. The smirk on her face was disturbing. The way she stared at Edward even more so.

  “Lydia,” Edward said. “It has been a long time.”

  “Wait a second.” I glanced from Edward to Lydia and back again. “You know Cora’s granddaughter?”

  Edward snorted. “She is no more Cora’s granddaughter than she is mine. She is Lydia Lovell. A familiar.”

  “Familiar with what?”

  “The werewolves.” Edward made an exasperated sound. “You know what a familiar is.”

  I did, but how was I supposed to know Lydia was one?

  Traditionally, familiars took the shape of black cats, dogs, or wolves, going places no human could go. The concept of the helpful spirit being is believed to have originated with the totem animal guides of the shamans. However, since the werewolves were already animals, their familiars took the form of humans.

  “She said she was training to become a Chippewa—”

  “Chippewa?" Edward interrupted. “She said Chippewa?”

  “Yes. Then no. She corrected herself. Why?”

  “I’ve learned a few things from Cadotte, and no true Ojibwe would ever use the word Chippewa.”

  Nic pulled his gun and pointed it in Lydia’s direction.

  “Not yet,” I murmured.

  The gun didn’t appear to make Lydia nervous, which only made me more so. Either she didn’t plan on any of us living long enough to stop her, or her nefarious plan was too far along to thwart.

  Was there a door number three?

  “Herr Mandenauer is right. I work for the werewolves. But soon they will work for me.”

  “You’re raising a witchie wolf army,” I said.

  Lydia inclined her head.

  “But how? You aren’t a werewolf.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes,” I said firmly, even as my mind doubted. One thing I’d learned as a Jager-Sucher, the rules applied only until someone or something changed them.

  “You don’t sound very confident. But I’ve spent a lot of time and money to make all of you doubt what you know and who you trust.”

  Money? The light went on in my head.

  “You bought information from the traitor.”

  Lydia laughed. “There isn’t any traitor—or at least not in the technical sense of the word. None of your own betrayed you.”

  Good to know. Really set my mind at ease.

  “If not one of us, then who?”

  “Do not waste your time,” Edward said. “She will not tell us.” Edward turned his attention to Lydia. “I am afraid your lover is dead. Will that destroy your plans, I hope?”

  “My plans are right on schedule.”

  “You wanted Basil dead?” I asked.

  “Not particularly. He was an incredible lay. He’d do anything I wanted, anywhere. All day, all night. The boy was amazing.”

  “Way too much information,” Nic said.

  “He follows orders amazingly well. ‘Kill Dr. Hanover,’ I told him. Next thing I know—bam, bam."

  “Actually, it was just bam, right, Nic?”

  “Yeah. Then he ran away like a girl.”

  “Hey!” I protested.

  “Sorry. How about we try bam-bam on Miss Familiar?”

  Lydia laughed again. Why did she find Nic’s threats of shooting her so amusing? Maybe she couldn’t be shot.

  “Why is she so smug, Edward?”

  I needed to know what I was facing before I could face it with any sort of strength. Even then...

  I glanced at the sun sparkling through the trees. I wasn’t going to be able to do much damage at this time of day.

  “Lydia is a descendant of Gypsies,” Edward answered.

  “Romania, tambourines, fortune-telling Gypsies?” Nic asked.

  Lydia snorted at the same time Edward said, “Hardly. Gypsies are the traditional companions of werewolves. Familiars. They protect them and in turn are paid handsomely.”

  “You didn’t know this?” Nic asked me.

  “I knew.”

  “Gypsy? Werewolves? You weren’t a little suspicious?”

  “She said she was Ojibwe. Why shouldn’t I believe her?”

  “You couldn’t tell the difference?”

  “Have you ever seen a Gypsy?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Exactly. They’re a little hard to peg in the wild.”

  “There are very few with pure Gypsy blood left,” Edward said.

  “Why is that?” Nic inched forward; I elbowed him back. Who knew what kind of powers she had?

  “Hitler killed four hundred thousand in his death camps,” Lydia snapped. “He labeled us nonhuman.”

  “I hate it when that happens,” I muttered.

  Lydia shot me a glare. “Mengele loved to experiment on the Gypsies as well as the Jews. When he concocted monsters, he made them from bits and pieces of other things.”

  “His werewolves have Gypsy blood,” I guessed, and Lydia dipped her chin in acknowledgment. “But if they’re your cousins or brothers. Children ... whatever—”

  “You say they as if you aren’t one of them.”

  “Fine, if we’re related, then why do you want to rule us?”

  “Someone has to. If the werewolves banded together, had a leader with half a brain at the helm, someone who didn’t get distracted by a demon, or the full moon, or blood on the breeze, they could become so much more than what they are.”

  Edward had always feared just such an occurrence. If all the werewolves joined forces, what was to prevent every other monster from doing the same? Pretty soon people would be in the minority—if they weren’t already.

  We had to stop her. If only we knew what she was up to. Why did she need a witchie wolf army? What could they do? More importantly: How could we kill them?

  “Why get rid of Basil?” I asked. “Especially if he was so gifted.”

  “Well hung, you mean?”

  I hadn’t but... I shrugged.

  “I didn’t kill him.”

  “I did.”

  That voice. It couldn’t be.

  I turned toward the sound just as a figure stepped from the woods and pressed a gun to Edward’s temple.

  Oh, jeez! Oh, shit! Oh, hell!

  “Billy.”

  Chapter 32

  “You’re dead,” I said, echoing the protests of my dream, which, in retrospect, appeared to have been a vision.

  “Not quite.”

  “I ripped out your throat.”

  “Not completely.”

  “You healed.”

  “I’m very old.” Billy smiled, and the expression was more frightening than a scowl. “I can heal just about anything. Except silver. Which is something we have in common. I always wondered what it was about you that bothered me.”

  He’d found some clothes—Lord knows where since there weren’t any outlets for the big and tall in this neck
of the woods. The jeans and sweatshirt almost made him appear normal.

  Almost. A single glance into his eyes and no one would mistake Billy Bailey for anything other than an escaped lunatic.

  “Thor, the Thunder God,” Nic murmured.

  Double damn. Had the old woman seen Billy? If I’d known that, I could have exited Fairhaven screaming a long time ago.

  “Toss your weapon into the trees,” Billy ordered.

  Nic complied, and Billy shoved Edward forward so he could keep the gun trained on all three of us. I didn’t care for his expression when he glanced at Nic.

  “You’re screwing my girl,” Billy said. “I don’t like it.”

  I froze as all of the horrible things Billy planned to do to me when he got out of his cell flooded my mind.

  I needed to kill him, really kill him, and quick.

  “Mandenauer.”

  Edward, who’d been inching toward the rifle propped against the rear bumper of the Cadillac, stopped. I managed to sidle in front of Nic while Billy’s attention was on my boss.

  Billy didn’t want me dead. Not yet. But I had a feeling he wouldn’t feel the same way about the others. Though why he hadn’t just shot them first and done his talking later, I wasn’t sure, and I didn’t plan to ask.

  “If you don’t want a taste of what you’ve served up so freely,” Billy continued, “you’ll move far away from that gun.”

  Edward did as he was told. Unfortunately, he arrived at my side talking. “You didn’t make sure he was dead, then burn the body? Have you learned nothing?”

  I still couldn’t find my voice through the fear.

  “You’re the werewolf in human form,” Nic said. “You killed all those people.”

  “Actually, that was her.” Billy jerked a thumb in Lydia’s direction. “Except for Basil. That was me.”

  “Why?”

  “He tried to shoot Dr. Hanover.” Billy’s eyes narrowed on Lydia.

  If that gaze had been turned in my direction, I certainly wouldn’t have tossed my head and shrugged. Why wasn’t Lydia afraid of him?

  “You promised I could have her when you were through,” he said. “That was our deal.”

  “True.” Lydia examined her fingernails. “ But I never promised she’d be alive.”

  Billy growled and the hair on my arms lifted.

  “He’s really very good.” Lydia glanced at me. “If you like your sex extremely rough.”

  Something wasn’t adding up, but I was still too frightened to do the math.

  “Don’t look so scared. You’ll be dead by then.” Lydia returned her attention to Billy. “I didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “We’ve discussed this.” He gave a long-suffering sigh. “I fuck her until she dies, and then I do it some more. A deal is a deal.”

  “That just isn’t going to work for me. Sorry.”

  Billy swung the gun in her direction, and Lydia disappeared.

  Nic and I stood gaping at the place where she’d been an instant before.

  “I hate it when she does that,” Billy said.

  Edward had been creeping forward while Billy’s attention was elsewhere. Almost as an afterthought, Billy’s elbow shot out and clipped the old man in the mouth. Edward’s head snapped back and he fell to the ground, but he didn’t pass out. Sometimes I wondered if Edward was human himself.

  Billy shifted his icy stare to mine. “Soon, Doctor. Remember everything I ever told you.”

  Black spots danced in front of my eyes. When they went away, so had Billy.

  Nic was at my side. I couldn’t help it; I turned my face into his neck and hid. Even with ancient Ojibwe women buried in shallow graves, murder, mayhem, and a ghost wolf army on the rise, the world had still been a much cheerier place without Billy in it.

  “I’m okay.”

  I’d found my voice. Hallelujah. So why wasn’t I screaming mindlessly until someone locked me in a nice, safe, impenetrable white room?

  Because having Nic here helped more than I would have imagined. He was steady and sane—which put him two steps ahead of Billy. Sadly, Billy was about two hundred steps ahead when it came to strength and power.

  I took a deep whiff of Nic’s scent, trying to clear any remnant of Billy’s. Then I brushed my lips against his chin and lifted my head.

  “So that was Billy Bailey,” Nic said. “Creepy son of a bitch.”

  “Let’s kill him.” Edward struggled to his feet.

  “You neglected to mention that Gypsies have superpowers, too. That I did not know.”

  “It explains how she found out about you.”

  “How?” My mind wasn’t keeping up very well—too full of Billy.

  “If she can disappear and appear at will, she could know anything.”

  I saw Nic’s point. Lydia didn’t need to tap our phones or pay our enemies for information. All she had to do was become invisible and walk inside the compound. “Why didn’t she kill me before now?”

  “She needed you here for...” Nic shrugged. “Something?”

  “Terrific.” I glanced at Edward. “So explain why Gypsies have superpowers.”

  “Most do not.”

  “Did she, or did she not, just go poof?”

  “She did.” He sighed. “Lydia is not only a Gypsy but a witch.”

  “Since when are there witches?” Nic turned to me. “Did you know there were witches?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “You want a rundown on every supernatural creature we’ve encountered?”

  “Yes.”

  “If we’re still alive next week, remind me to make you a list.” I turned my ire on Edward. “Why didn’t you tell us she could disappear?”

  “Even if I had known, what good would it have done to tell you? Could you have prevented the disappearance?”

  I rubbed my forehead. “What do you know about her?”

  If I focused on Lydia, maybe I’d quit seeing Billy’s eyes fixed on me. I doubted it, but anything was worth a try.

  “Her grandmother was removed from one of the death camps and sent to Mengele.”

  “Her grandfather?”

  “Was also at the laboratory in the Black Forest.”

  “And then?”

  “They were released, along with the werewolf army.”

  “That’s all?”

  He shrugged. “Witches are hard to identify. They do not sprout tails. They do not suck blood. They do not rise from their graves. They are just magic.”

  Just?

  “Does anyone find it odd that the usual familiar helps a witch, but a werewolf familiar is a witch?” Nic asked.

  “Not all Gypsies are witches,” Edward said. “Only the pure have magic—witches for want of a better term. Mengele used that blood to concoct his werewolves.”

  “Magic Gypsy witch blood to make werewolves.” I did remember something about that in my notes, but since I’d doubted it would help me find a cure, I’d pushed the information to the back of my mind.

  “Where did you meet Lydia?” I asked.

  “I was acquainted with her grandmother.” Something flickered in Edward’s eyes, and he looked away. How well had he known the woman?

  I considered the suspicion. Edward could no more have an affair with a werewolf familiar than he could... what? Employ a werewolf?

  “You didn’t think it was a good idea to keep track of these people?”

  “Of course. But as they are magic, they have a habit of slipping out of our reach.”

  “And the name Lydia didn’t set off any alarm bells?”

  “It is a common enough name.”

  “If you’re lost in the forties,” Nic said.

  “I will admit I made an error not keeping better track of the witches.” Edward steepled his fingers. “But let us discuss your error, Elise.”

  “Mine?”

  “Billy isn’t dead.”

  Oh, that error.

  “Get over it,” Nic
said.

  “Excuse me?” Edward lifted a brow.

  “He isn’t dead, but he will be as soon as I find him.” Nic reached for his weapon, frowned. “And my gun.” He started off in the direction of his pistol, then turned back. “I’m confused. To make the witchie wolves, dead people need to be bitten by a werewolf in human form?”

  “That’s the theory.”

  “As near as we can tell, the bites were all from the same mouth.”

  I nodded, though he knew this as well as I did.

  “A mouth we’ll assume to be Billy’s since there isn’t a pack of werewolves in Fairhaven—unless you count the ghost wolves.”

  “There is a point soon, correct?” Edward asked. “People were disappearing before we got here, and we have a lot more ghost wolves than two, so how could Billy have bitten anyone if he was locked in a compound in Montana?”

  From the silence that settled over the clearing, no one had a definite answer for that, but Edward usually had an educated guess. Today was no different.

  “Perhaps another werewolf came first. Once Billy arrived, he killed him.”

  “That would be a Billy thing to do,” I agreed. “Except Damien said there was no werewolf here but him until I arrived.”

  “Damien could have been wrong,” Edward said.

  Could have been, but I doubted it. Damien had been a werewolf for nearly sixty years; he knew how to identify another like himself.

  “Let us find Billy, ask him, then kill him,” Edward suggested. “Or just kill him.”

  “You know what my vote is.”

  “Why did they let us go?” Nic asked. “Billy could have killed any, or all, of us. Lydia wants you dead, Elise, yet she took off. Why?”

  “They must realize we will come after them,” Edward continued. “The full moon is tonight. Billy will have to change.”

  “And I’ll be waiting for him,” Nic said.

  “Wait.” Edward held up a long bony hand. “If they want us to hunt under the full moon, we will not.”

  “Wrong,” I said, at the same time Nic snapped, “Like hell.”

  “I did not say we would not hunt.” Edward sounded exasperated. “Nor that we would not kill him and anything else that gets in our way.”