I stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out. After washing my hair three times, I was pretty sure it didn’t smell like smoke. I’d used handfuls of different shampoos—rosemary mint, pink lemonade, and “Butterfly Nectar”—so I wasn’t sure what my hair actually smelled like, but it smelled sweet.
I tried to focus on the little things: clean hair, fresh water, thick towels. I was alive. I wanted to appreciate the faint glow of the sky through the bathroom window. Dawn should have comforted me. Instead, I wondered if Salamanders gained power in the daytime. If the rising sun somehow called them from hiding. If they’d find us. How quickly they’d find us. What they’d do when they found us. Why they wanted to kill me, when I didn’t even know they existed.
I shook my head, furious with myself, then stopped to cough. When I could take a breath again, I scrubbed the fog off the bathroom mirror with the intention of doing something to make sure my curly hair didn’t dry into a frizzy mass. Instead, I stood there, transfixed by my reflection. I didn’t even look like myself. I looked—
I grabbed the towel and scrubbed my head vigorously, turning my back to my mirror so I didn’t see my face, reflecting pale and bloodless. The black circles under my hazel eyes. Towel hanging limply from one hand, my other hand rose slowly. My fingers traced over my right cheekbone, probing the blue-black bruise centered on the small cut I’d seen. It stung, now. In fact, the pleasure of my shower suddenly disappeared behind a litany of pains, both major and minor, making themselves heard.
Goddammit.
Once dry, I stopped short with the realization I had nothing to wear. Literally nothing. Not even underwear. I sank to the bathmat, hugged my knees, and pulled the towel tight around myself.
Sheila knocked on the bathroom door, calling softly. I jolted awake, lifted my head off my arms and blinked as the room came back into focus.
I cleared my throat several times before my voice emerged.
“I’m okay. I—I fell asleep, I guess.”
Sheila’s voice sounded gentle. “I brought you some pajamas. Here. And a toothbrush.” She cracked the door and held a t-shirt, stretchy cotton pants with paisleys, and an aqua toothbrush still in its packaging. I reached for them and clenched my teeth against the protests of stiff muscles. There was a pair of clean underwear on the pile: zebra stripes and red lace. I wasn’t a hundred percent sure if this was an effort to cheer me up after my brush with death or just Sheila’s normal style. Probably the latter, I decided, thinking about my own underwear with some chagrin. Burned to a crisp or lying in an ashy, sodden mess.
I took a while to get dressed, as I fought with various parts of my body that didn’t want to move. Decently attired, if not making much of a fashion statement, I finally emerged from the cocooning bathroom. Sudden panic coursed through me—was Carson okay—and I hurried to the office to make sure. Tim sat on the edge of the bed next to Carson, who slept more or less peacefully, sprawled on his back. His tiny chest rose and fell quickly just a hair quicker than normal. Tim stared out the window in a way that would have looked like daydreaming had it been anyone else.
“Is Carson okay?”
“A bit restless, but sleeping.”
“Thanks for staying right by him.”
“I’m not about to leave either one of you alone right now,” Tim said and gave me a nod both serious and caring.
Sheila appeared in the doorway with two mugs curling steam. “Jules?” Her voice quiet, nearly a murmur. “I brought you some chamomile tea. I thought it might be soothing for your throat.”
“And my nerves, right?” I tried to smile at her as she handed one mug to me and the other to Tim.
“Irish Breakfast for you, my wild wolf.”
“Just what I like,” said Tim.
The tone behind his words brought a blush to my never-discomfited best friend and left me caught between rolling my eyes and throwing hot tea at the two of them. I settled for taking a sip, tasting plenty of honey. The heat and sweetness eased some of the tight bitterness in my throat and chest.
We sat in silence. I watched Carson, Tim watched the window, and Sheila alternated watching the three of us. When I finished my tea, Sheila took my mug and suggested I try to get some rest. I nodded, too tired to even formulate words.
“Tim will stay on watch. Call if you need anything. Anything at all,” she said.
I curled up beside Carson on the futon and tumbled into sleep almost before the two of them left the room.
Chapter Three
Carson woke me with a sudden cry. His little eyes sprang wide open in alarm and he reached for me with both hands. His wispy baby hair was damp with sweat from whatever he’d been dreaming.
“Shh, sweetie, it’s okay.” My voice sounded strangely tight and congested to my own ears, but served to calm him slightly.
I sat him up on the bed and looked around the room for his nebulizer. Once I found it, I looked down at my son and realized he seemed to breathe just fine. He wasn’t coughing at all. Me? I felt like an elephant sat on my chest and I heard my lungs whistling in a thoroughly annoying—and somewhat alarming—way. I set down the nebulizer and picked up my inhalers, after which I took some deeper breaths without exploding into coughs. I ached all over. While I tried to stretch out some of the pain, I heard a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said, then repeated myself loud enough to carry.
Sheila poked her head in the door. She held her phone, hand cupped over it.
“It’s Eliza. Are you up to talk?”
I nodded and took the phone.
“Julie, hi. I’ll be there tonight, okay? I’m in Cody, Wyoming waiting for a flight to Salt Lake City, then to Medford. I’ll rent a car at the airport and be down to Sheila’s place in Ashland before bedtime. Are you feeling okay? How’s Carson?”
I took a second to catch up. Cody must be the closet airport to Greybull, the small town in northern Wyoming that Eliza’s pack called home. “We’re okay. Sheila’s taking good care of me and Tim’s here… Are you sure you don’t mind coming?”
“Julie, don’t be ridiculous. I booked the flights last night, right after we got off the phone. Of course I’m coming. That’s what friends do. You almost died—there are Salamanders and a Were involved and who knows what they’ll try next. I can help.”
I pushed aside my initial inclination to protest more, to feel guilty she’d drop everything to come when I needed her, and allowed myself to just be grateful. I said, “Thanks, Eliza. I know Carson will be safe with you here.”
“No problem. You’d do the same for me. Besides, I can even justify it as pack business, kind of. The Full’s quite worried.”
“Did Lily ask you to come?” I said.
“Well, let’s just say the pack’s happy to take advantage of our friendship. The Full’s charged me with protecting you until the council can figure out what’s going on. We’re Carson’s pack, too, you know. You’re pack by proxy, if nothing else.”
Eliza was one of the strongest Weres in the Greybull pack, a full moon Were herself, second only to Lily Rose who led the pack as the Full and also mayor of Greybull. And a stripper in her spare time—not really, but I liked to imagine that, because of her over-the-top name and glamorous looks. Lily Rose was the antithesis of what I expected of a Werewolf and she threw me quite off guard the first time I met her. I thought the pack leader would be much bigger, stronger, and well, male-er. Since Carson’s father Mac was a member of the Greybull pack before his murder, the Greybull pack firmly claimed Carson as one of their own. Eliza and Lily Rose continually urged me to move to Wyoming and bring Carson into the pack, but I didn’t want to live in Greybull. Or anywhere else in Wyoming. No way.
“Lily says the whole council is very concerned for your safety,” Eliza continued.
My eyebrows raised. I was fairly certain “your safety” really meant the well-being of Carson the uber-powerful Were baby, at least as far as the council was concerned. I somehow doubted they worried about the
safety of Julie Hall, human. Of course, they also had a vested interest in learning more about the rogue Were who attacked me. They couldn’t allow stray Werewolves to make trouble for the packs.
“Okay. Um. Thanks for coming,” I said, wishing for better words. What could I say to a friend who dropped everything and flew to my side in a time of need?
“I’ll see you soon, Julie, okay? Put Sheila back on the phone for directions. You should save your voice—you sound awful.”
When Sheila ended the phone call, she stood there, arms akimbo, and assessed me with a long look.
“Oh, before I forget.” She strode out of the room and came back with a package of pacifiers, one blue and one orange. “This is the right kind, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Thank you.” I blinked furiously to hide my tears.
Carefully, I focused my attention on Carson as he finished nursing then fussed with the little footed sleeper the hospital had given us and changed his diaper.
Sheila let me perform those tasks in silence. When I was composed again, I looked up at her and asked, “What’s next?”
“Well.” Her mouth curved in a smile. “I think we’d better get you some clothes. Unless you’d like to run around in my extra pajamas all day.”
So less than twelve hours after nearly dying in my burning house, I flip-flopped across the Rogue Valley Mall to shop for the basics: bras, underwear (thankfully not with zebra stripes), jeans, t-shirts, a sweatshirt, new sandals for me, onesies, stretchy pants, and new pajamas for Carson. And some extra pacifiers, just in case. Plus, I bought a pretzel with hot cheese because I never went to the mall without getting a pretzel and I didn’t think it was time to break tradition. At Sheila’s prompting, I also picked up a new cell phone. I wouldn’t have thought about it, but she was right: that was absolutely essential. We stopped in town for a new baby sling to carry Carson, this one a beautiful woven print of blue and purple, so I thought we covered all our immediate needs. Since I escaped the fire without my purse, wallet, credit cards, debit card, or anything else, Sheila paid for everything. I’d made a quick call to my homeowner’s insurance who promised me living expenses and longer-term reimbursement for my property and belongings. After setting the rather onerous process in motion, I resolved to put money on the back burner and focus on more important things.
Like finding out who tried to kill me and Carson. And why.
I held Carson while I finished my pretzel—without dropping any cheese or salt on his head, quite an accomplishment—and listened to Tim and Sheila make small talk in such an obvious attempt to soothe me that I actually got annoyed. At a lull in their forced conversation, I spoke.
“I want to see my house.”
Sheila frowned. “Are you sure? It might upset you.”
“I’m sure it will upset me. But I need to see for myself.”
An understatement. I felt an almost physical pull to go back, to see the house, to revisit our near deaths.
Tim nodded, as if he expected as much. “Let’s go then,” he said.
The drive from the mall to my house in Jacksonville took twenty minutes. Twenty minutes during which tension strangled my back and neck, and turned already stiff muscles into torture. Twenty minutes to wonder if the Salamanders would be there, drawn back to the crime scene—as I was—ready to attack again. Twenty minutes to pretend my labored breathing meant I needed my inhaler. Twenty minutes of clenched fists before I realized what I was doing. Those twenty minutes seemed much, much longer. Yet not long enough to prepare myself.
I smelled the fire first, before the house even came into view. I retched then turned it into a cough. Sheila turned around in the front seat to look at me. I gazed back, face like stone, and dared her to say something. She gave me a nod before facing forward again.
Tim parked down the street from my house and I got out of the car. A small fire truck still sat in front of the house and yellow caution tape blocked my driveway. Two firefighters leaned against their truck, chatting with each other while they watched the wreckage of my house. My gaze followed theirs before I was quite ready.
My car, my poor old car, sat in the middle of the blackened driveway. At least, I assumed it was my car. A mass of metal and melted upholstery, though the rear windshield somehow still looked whole without even a crack. A landslide of char from my roof and siding covered the crushed hood. Water still dripped from the wreckage of the house, spreading a greasy, black puddle down my driveway and into the street.
“Holy crap.” I realized my own voice broke the silence and further noticed Tim and Sheila frozen in tableau. Tim stood at full alert, looking as much like a wolf with cocked ears and rankled fur as possible to look in human form. His eyes scanned the scene and I felt sure he absorbed every scent in the area. Sheila, on the other hand, looked only at me. Her back to the house, as if it didn’t even matter, she stood with her whole body canted in my direction. Her blue eyes looked enormous, gaze locked on my face, and I wondered what she saw. Me, I felt encased in marble, as if the faintest movement would crack me.
We stood like that long enough one of the firefighters noticed us, pushed off from the truck, and started in our direction.
“Jules, do you want me to get Carson?” The emphasis in Sheila’s voice made me think she spoke before.
It took another minute before I understood her question.
“Yes, please.” I said.
With Sheila holding Carson, I walked toward the black hole of my house.
When I passed the firefighter, he said something to me. I brushed past him with a meaningless gesture and felt thankful Sheila hurried to take care of any necessary explanations.
Holy crap. I mouthed the words this time. My house.
Several walls still stood. The rest was a litter of roof and burned things, blackened items I could almost recognize. Here and there, scraps of paper and cloth floated like jetsam on the wet ashes. Everything destroyed. Utterly.
I had nothing to say. Didn’t know what to do.
I turned to Sheila, standing next to me, and held out my hands for Carson. I hugged him, buried my nose in his hair, which, thankfully, after a bath this morning no longer smelled like the fire, though everything around us did.
Carson squirmed in my desperate embrace, trying to look around in his six-month-old-I’m-my-own-baby-and-don’t-forget-it way.
“Can I walk around?” I asked.
One of the firefighters hovered behind us. “You can look,” he said, “but don’t go inside and stay back from the walls, because they’re not stable.”
Sheila and Tim followed me as I traced the perimeter of my house. My former house. Kitchen. Living room. My bedroom. I stopped there and poked around on the ground, full of footprints, mud, and charred bits. I looked up at Tim and he mutely used his toe to point to a half-covered mark on the ground. When I looked closer, I saw part of a print. I stretched my hand out. Half a paw print that would have been the size of my outstretched fingers. Huge.
“Did you follow the tracks last night?” I asked.
“As far as I could.” Tim’s voice sounded grim. “He took to the road and confused things—quite clever.”
“In a car?”
“Not clear. The Salamanders definitely parked down the road a bit. The Were may have met up with them.”
“Are they…around? Any of them?”
“No.”
I almost asked if he was sure, but stopped myself. He wouldn’t say it if he weren’t sure.
God, I had a headache.
Carson fussed a bit and I jiggled him on my hip while we walked the rest of the way around the wreckage. After a minute, I said, “I guess there’s not much else to do here.”
We silently drifted back into the car. Sheila continued to watch me with worried eyes. I was just glad she didn’t say anything.
I stared back at the house as we drove away.
“Now what?” Sheila asked Tim.
“Now we wait for Eliza. I’m not leaving you two alone
without another Were to protect you. As soon as she’s here, I’ll widen my investigation around Julie’s house and we’ll find them.”
Whoever they might be.
Chapter Four
When Eliza arrived right after dinner, she strode over to me, grabbed both of my shoulders, and searched my face for a long minute before pulling me close for a hug.
“Julie.” My name took on an unfamiliar weight as she let go of me and looked again, cataloging my visible injuries—bruises here, some cuts there. She hugged me tight one more time, nodded slightly, and turned to Tim.
When she spoke to him, the entire atmosphere changed. The air became thick with static charge.
“Tell me everything you know.” Eliza had no authority over Tim, but I wouldn’t guess that from her tone. After his report, the council officially assigned Tim to investigate the attempted murder and find the Were involved. So technically, he outranked Eliza. However, as the stronger Werewolf—full moon to his waxing moon—as my close friend, and a representative of Carson’s nominal pack, Eliza held the high ground on both power and moral imperative. She didn’t hesitate to let it show.
“As I’ve notified the council,” Tim said and continued after a pause so short I wondered if I imagined it, “Salamanders set the fire at Julie’s house. At least three, maybe four. They called a strong fire and firefighters fought hard to contain the blaze. The fire completely destroyed the house. Julie and Carson were lucky to escape—the Salamanders clearly meant to kill them. Julie woke up because the rogue Were barked for some reason, maybe to alert the Salamanders to approaching witnesses, maybe in jubilation, or a natural reaction against the flames. She rescued Carson, who called the moon and drew water to protect himself. After escaping the house and rescuing Carson, Julie managed to fend off the Were until firefighters arrived at the scene and he fled. The Were is a mature male, black fur, according to Julie, and quite large, confirmed by the size of his prints.”
Waxing Moon Page 3
