“Shut up.” I rolled my eyes. “Cut the straight girl a break. Seriously, I don’t care if you date men, women, both or, or ani—” My hyperbole stumbled into silence as I remembered I spoke to a Were.
Eliza laughed out loud and I relaxed.
“It’s not a big deal, Julie. I just…” She shook her head. “Everything’s pretty tense right now and I know you didn’t mean anything by assuming it was a guy. We’re still friends.”
“Yes,” I said, jumping on the word. “Definitely still friends. Now we can be friends who discuss our love lives—not that I have one.”
“Not that mine needs to be discussed.”
“Okay, well, that too. But we can talk about it later, if it gets interesting. If you meet someone special, okay?”
“Okay.”
We finished our coffee in mostly companionable silence. When we headed back into the house, Eliza first and holding the door for me, a thought caused me to falter and nearly trip. She didn’t… Frantically, I cast my mind back through events. Her protective attitude toward me. The way she liked me to scratch her ears when in wolf form. Her anger at my enemies. The easy camaraderie and trust between us. The strain and tension I sensed in her now. Tim sensed she was lying…would she, if she covered up emotion, lying by omission, would that seem the same? Could she…?
I squelched the thoughts. Not possible. I was just being self-centered again, I told myself quite firmly.
Chapter Nine
The feeling of quasi-normalcy Eliza and I established didn’t last long. Carson rolled around on the floor with Sheila at his side, while Eliza and I sat on the couch. We tentatively filled the room with idle chat when Newt finished his conversation outside and came in the front door.
He looked around the room, then pulled the rocking chair forward to face the couch.
“So,” he said, “no one else will call you on it, Eliza, but you’re lying about something and I want to know what.”
Eliza sprang to her feet and I echoed her, my hand flying to her arm as if to physically restrain her. Newt not only remained sitting, but leaned back in the chair, rocked it slightly with his toes, and looked up at Eliza. The light in the room seemed to brighten as he smiled broadly.
“Hey,” he said. “Just want to know the truth.”
Eliza’s spine could have been made of steel—or steel wire, drawn so tight she might snap.
“The truth?” A note of growl crept into the words. “The truth is your friends, firebug, nearly killed Julie and Carson.”
“Eliza. Who are you fooling? What are you hiding?”
“Don’t tempt me. I’m stronger than you.”
I stepped back as the hairs on my arms rose. My skin felt tight from the energy spilling in the room. I looked wildly at Sheila, who looked just as wildly at me.
Suddenly, Newt laughed and stood up.
“All right,” he said. “This was going to happen sooner or later, so might as well be now. You think you’re stronger? Let’s see.”
Eliza made an inchoate noise of assent, but Newt held up a hand to finish his thought. “If I win, Were, you answer my questions.”
Sheila snatched Carson from the floor and moved toward me to hand him over. Both of us stopped with our backs against the front door. Newt and Eliza faced each other in the small open space of the living room carpet. Newt extended his arms slightly, palms up and hands cupped. The light around him intensified until he seemed to glow, strawberry-blond hair incandescent, freckles gleaming like bronze. Eliza stood ready to spring, still in human form, yet her body expressed everything of the wolf. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings, to anything except the Salamander.
Newt’s face changed when he realized their fight was likely to wreak havoc on Sheila’s house and his best weapon would leave this place a smoky ruin. A slight frown line creased his forehead. He raised one hand in the direction of the windows and more light streamed in—literally streamed into the room in rays, until he was nearly invisible in the brightness. I held Carson’s head to me, afraid it would hurt his eyes. He started to fuss, not crying exactly, more annoyed at being held still, even though surely he could sense the roiling energy filling the room.
To combat the blinding light, Eliza pulled on shadow, coaxed it from under the chairs, the closet door, until wisps of darkness hung around her like a moth-eaten shawl.
She leapt at Newt, and the two of them disappeared in a chaotic whirlwind of light and shadow, a furious knot of wrestling bodies. I half-expected lightning and thunder to fill the room. Carson writhed in my arms, more and more restless; abruptly, my arms were full of prickles and shocks and coiled…something. The next moment, I grasped fur and tried to hang onto Carson as his wolf muscles scrabbled for traction. He twisted in my arms, growled in frustration, and nipped my shirt, his teeth grazing my collarbone.
Carson dove out of my arms and hit the floor, tail wagging but ears flat against his head. He yipped and jumped into the fray, even as I lunged to catch him.
I had a brief moment to think, incongruously, Carson must love that he already knew how to run when in wolf-form. I took a half step toward the indistinct struggle and paused, helpless.
“Eliza! Newt!”
Tim’s voice roared their names like a command and the roiling mass seemed to freeze.
“Stop NOW!”
As the light seeped back into the atmosphere and Eliza’s form—still human—also became visible through the dissipating darkness, Tim continued. “Look what you’ve done to Carson. Look at Julie, team.”
I flinched at the anger behind his words and only then—as he directed attention to me—realized the extent of my own reaction to the fight. My panic might be residual from my recent trauma, fear for Carson’s safety, or just an overspill of the extreme emotion in the room. Regardless of the reason, my heart raced and I could hardly breathe with my body wracked from shuddering. Eliza and Newt, still on the floor, both turned to look at me and Sheila put one hand on my arm. I spun away from her. My side vision caught Carson as a wolf pup frolicking on the floor, looking oblivious to the larger picture and distinctly pleased with himself.
Sheila took off running, which seemed really strange. Eliza leapt up and crossed the room in two steps, grabbed me by both shoulders, and forcibly turned me to face her.
“Did he bite you? Julie, did he bite you?”
I didn’t understand at first, then shook my head as tears streamed down my face. I tried to tell her Carson bit my shirt, but suddenly remembered the sense of teeth grazing my skin. I sucked in a breath and ended up coughing until I gagged. I yanked down the collar of my shirt and looked to make sure, but no, he hadn’t bitten me. Not broken the skin, anyway. I shook my head again and dropped down to the floor. I focused on breathing, in and out, and not coughing or choking. Sheila appeared again by my side, and held out my inhalers.
Ah. Smart girl. I took them gratefully, timed the coughs and inhaled as deeply as possible, sucking the medicine into my poor lungs and holding my breath as long as I could before exploding again in coughs. Once, twice. Switch to steroid inhaler, once, twice. Sheila rubbed my back and said something vaguely soothing that I barely heard. The sound of her voice calmed me, though, and I sat and stared at the mottled brown fibers of the carpet. I knew I could trust her and Tim to take care of everything. After a few minutes, my chest loosened, though my throat still felt strangely knotted.
“I’m sorry,” Eliza said. I looked up at her as she knelt before me, hands on her knees, body craned forward. Her brown eyes were so deep they seemed to have a gravitational pull. “Are you okay?”
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet.
“I’m sorry, too,” said Newt, addressing his remark to both Tim and me. “I was the instigator. My fault.”
I shook my head then cleared my throat to explain. “Wasn’t just you. Eliza, I trust you.”
Eliza dropped her gaze then her eyes flicked back to mine.
“I trust you, but you’ve been
acting…odd. Angry. Stressed. Secretive. Everyone says you’re lying about something. Tim can tell, you know that.” I stopped to cough again, holding up my hand so no one would interrupt before I could continue. “I don’t believe you mean me harm—I can’t believe that, after everything we’ve been through together. I trust you. But I want to know what’s going on.”
Eliza’s face twisted in something that looked like anguish. She dropped back and brought her knees up, face down, hugging herself with her arms. When she spoke again, her voice was hoarse.
“I can’t, Julie. I just can’t. Just,” she swallowed audibly, “give me time. Give me the rest of today.” She looked at me again. “Trust me a little bit longer. Let me figure something out. I promise—I swear to you—I swear on mother moon may she never hear my call—I mean you no harm. Not you or anybody. I just…let me be sure, first. I have a responsibility.”
Sure of what? I wanted to ask. What responsibility? To whom? Instead, silence covered the room, as everyone ceded right of response to me.
Finally, I said, “I trust you, Eliza.”
She broke into a smile and her body relaxed. She grabbed my hand. “Thank you for giving me more time. Just today. Thank you for understanding and trusting me.”
Sheila let out a slow breath I thought might have been echoed by Tim.
Newt laughed, a sound both jarring and somehow suited to the emotional release in the room. He stretched and said, “For the record, Eliza, I trust you, too.” He and Eliza looked at each other for a moment. Eliza dropped her gaze first, perhaps embarrassed by her overt hostility toward our Salamander, and Newt continued, “I just want the full story. Something’s missing.”
Tim called us all to order. “Tonight, then. At dinner tonight, if not before, we have a war counsel. Everyone fully present and we share all information.”
Eliza nodded.
“Well then,” Sheila drawled, “if we’re all okay now, can someone convince Carson to become human again before he rips up my carpet?”
I laughed then groaned. My baby: a gray wolf alternately chasing his tail and scrabbling furiously at the carpet edge between the living room and the kitchen tile. I’d seen him in wolf form before during the last two full moons, but this was the first time he changed out of cycle. The spillover energy in the room must have prompted his shift.
“What I am going to do with him?” I said out loud.
“Move to Greybull?” Eliza said then grinned as I opened my mouth to retort angrily. “Kidding, Julie. Or, well, not exactly kidding, but kind of.”
I swatted at her, mostly glad things seemed back to normal. Yes, Eliza still hid something, but at least we were no longer hiding the fact she hid something. If that made any sense. I shifted uncomfortably, remembering my earlier unformed thoughts and the warm look in her eyes, then consciously dismissed my crazy ideas. Her secret must be something else.
“Okay.” Eliza uncrossed her legs and pulled darkness smoothly, emerging as her sleek, buff-colored self, each strand of fur touched with a hint black at the tip, and padded over to Carson.
Carson yipped excitedly and pounced on her, sinking his teeth into the fur at the base of her neck.
Eliza’s mouth opened in a loll and she collapsed on her side to wrestle with the cub for a while.
My heart ached, somehow, watching them play together, enjoying something I could never share. Never. I reined in my thoughts, firmly. Carson rolled over and showed his belly, then scrabbled at Eliza with his little claws as she mock-shook him.
After several minutes of playing, she dropped down, gave a low rumbling growl, and poked him hard with her nose. They both shifted and Eliza sat up, loosed her hair, and sleekly pulled it back into her characteristic ponytail. Carson pushed up on his hands, weight on his tummy, and kicked his little feet against the floor. He grinned at me, as if to say, “Did you see that, Mama?”
“Yes, yes, you’re very clever,” I said, hoping it didn’t sound like a grumble. I picked him up and relished his baby weight nestled against me.
I looked around at the team.
“Today,” I said, “we find the Salamanders.”
Chapter Ten
After some discussion, we divided into two teams for the rest of the day. Tim asked Sheila and Newt to drive the area in a crisscross pattern with the hopes they’d find the ’Manders. Tim and Eliza planned to search the wooded areas around Jacksonville in the hopes of finding our rogue Were. I approved of Tim’s decision to separate Eliza and Newt, although their spat and the ensuing discussion seemed to have greatly lessened the tension. In fact, I caught Eliza’s level gaze on Newt more than once and I wondered if she reassessed our Salamander. Initially, Tim asked me to accompany Sheila and Newt, but my stomach churned at the idea of another fire attack on the car—at the thought of the gas tank exploding—and so I asked if I could go with him and Eliza to the woods, instead. Somehow, the Were seemed less threatening.
Tim considered. “I’m not sure, Julie. Eliza and I need to be in wolf form to follow any tracks and scents we find. We’re likely to end up off road in the middle of the woods.”
Shit. I couldn’t stay home alone with Carson, and I really didn’t think I could handle driving around, waiting for someone to catch us on fire. But the alternative…
“Use us as bait,” I said.
“What?” Tim and Sheila said at the same time. Eliza frowned.
“The Were can sense us, right? Smell us? If he’s close enough? If he’s after Carson and we’re in the middle of the woods—seemingly alone—do you think he’ll be able to resist?”
“I don’t like it,” said Eliza.
“Wait a minute, let’s think it through.” Tim tapped his chin.
“I think it’s brilliant,” Newt said, and gave me a huge smile of approval. “Julie’s right, you know. Drop her off in the middle of the woods, near where you lost the Were’s scent in the river. Slink away as far as possible without compromising her safety, wreathe yourselves in darkness, and wait.”
“The Were can still scent us, darkness or no,” said Eliza.
Tim nodded agreement with Eliza, but said, “However, it might still work if the Were felt he could get to them before we could. Or if he thought he could take us. Or…”
“We could ‘or’ all day, folks. The worst thing that can happen is he scents the Weres and doesn’t show up.” Sheila flipped her long hair behind her shoulders, where it shone in the sunlight.
I wasn’t sure I agreed with her assessment of the worst thing—I could think of about ten million things that would be worse than the Were not showing up—but I didn’t quibble. Instead, I said, “I think it’s worth a try.”
Tim stared off in space for a moment then made the decision. I’d go into the woods, as bait. Me and Carson.
Before we left, Sheila passed out protective amulets she’d crafted the night before. The last set of amulets she’d made for our team, back in Las Vegas, had been spelled safety pins, complete with bright plastic animal heads. Those had worked by increasing our luck, a fairly subtle spell. Today, she passed out intricately woven string bracelets, one for each of us. They looked almost like the friendship bracelets kids made for each other.
“Wow, so you made these last night?” I studied mine, woven from threads of brown, green, and purple.
“Yup. Some pulled guard duty.” She winked at Tim, Eliza, and Newt. “Some labored long into the morning hours,” she preened a bit, “and some slept.”
I knew she was teasing and didn’t mean to chide me for being a useless human, so I bit my tongue on an angry retort and nodded stiffly at her. “Thank you very much.”
“Oh shit, Jules.” Sheila looked at me in exasperation.
“I mean it! Thank you. I appreciate you using your witchcraft to help us all.”
Sheila sighed.
“Sheila, how do these work?” Newt peered at the bundle in Sheila’s hand.
Sheila handed him one of bronze, azure, and pink string. “It’s thre
e workings in one. A strength charm, a deflection of malevolent magic, and a do-not-notice-me.”
“Um.” Everyone turned to look at me. “Won’t the do-not-notice-me spell interfere a bit with our ‘Notice Me! I’m Alone in the Woods!’ plan?”
Sheila opened her mouth then closed it again.
“Put it on as soon as you see the enemy Were?” Newt suggested.
“Sure. ‘Hey, Were, hold on one second, let me tie this bracelet. Okay, got it. Now try to attack me.’ ”
“On the other hand,” said Tim, “do-not-notice-me might make this ruse actually feasible, if it fools the Were into thinking you’re alone by blunting his sense of Eliza and me.”
“True.” Sheila seemed relieved her work wasn’t totally useless.
“Well, I guess I’ll carry ours and put them on if we can.” I pocketed the two bracelets, mine and Carson’s, interlaced with azure, forest green, and butter yellow. “It’s not active if it’s not on, right?”
“Right,” said Sheila. “Needs to be on your skin.”
Eliza studied hers carefully. “What determines the colors you used?” Hers, I noticed, was two shades of brown, a cinnamon and an ash, intertwined with sage green and pale blue.
Sheila flushed slightly, then gave a broad grin and drawled, “Witch secrets, my dear friends. Just colors attuned to you.”
I glanced at Tim’s wrist, where he’d already fastened his: deep red, dark purple shaded nearly to black, two types of vibrant pink, and a gold thread weaving them together. Sheila’s own bracelet was gray, white, and burnt orange. I wondered if she hadn’t gotten them mixed up, but wisely voiced nothing.
“All right.” Newt gave us all a wicked grin. “Game on, peeps.”
****
Newt and Sheila left right away with the admonition to call me the minute they encountered any Salamanders—my cell phone wouldn’t be in limbo-land, one side benefit of me accompanying the Weres. We had a somewhat argumentative discussion about whether or not the bracelets would work once the Weres changed form; I’d asked if they’d be lost in limbo, or somehow present albeit not in physical form. Sheila and Eliza decided the bracelets would accompany the Weres as wolves, even if the bracelets weren’t exactly tangible, thus should work as planned. During this discussion, I nursed Carson again, changed his diaper, and felt confident he’d collapse into a morning nap while we drove.
Waxing Moon Page 9
