Waxing Moon

by Sarah E Stevens

  “And it won’t be hard for you guys? Just for the human?”

  There was a pause, during which I saw Eliza attempting to find the right words. Newt spoke first.

  “Well, not hard for me. I love fires.” He quirked his eyebrows. “Eliza, stop bugging her. She wants to come? She comes. We can use all the help we’ve got.”

  Tony stayed silent and just watched me. I didn’t know if he thought I would break under the pressure or explode in anger. I wasn’t going to do either, of course.

  Eliza finally said, “I wanted to make sure you completely thought through your decision, Julie; that’s all.”

  “I have. Thank you for your concern.”

  “Jules,” Newt started, then stopped as I shot a surprised look at him. “Am I allowed to call you Jules? Or is that only for Sheila?”

  I shook my head, not even knowing what I meant by the gesture, and then said, “You can. That’s fine.”

  “Okay. Anyway, is Carson coming with us?”

  I opened my mouth to say he was, but then paused. “Would he be safe if I left him with someone? Eliza, what do you think?”

  “The Salamanders are busy with the fires right now. I don’t know. If you leave him behind, none of us can protect him. But if he comes with us, then you’re bringing him right into the thick of things, within striking distance of the Salamanders,” said Eliza.

  “Julie.” Tony waited until he had my full attention. I couldn’t help wondering if he used my full name on purpose, and if so what that meant. Tony asked, “Do you have a safe place for him to stay?”

  “Probably. If anywhere is safe.”

  Eliza said, “Is Carson still wearing the bracelet Sheila made?”

  “Yes! Good point.” My mind spun through possibilities and I came to a snap decision. “Okay, I’m not bringing him. Let me make a couple of calls.”

  ****

  When I came back to the kitchen twenty minutes later, I’d arranged to drop Carson off at my friend Dana’s and managed to pump six ounces of milk for him with the little pump Sheila bought for me. Along with some rice cereal and a banana, that should hold him for a while. I scrounged up a few toys, diapers, and a change of baby clothes, and Eliza and I hopped into Sheila’s car to drop him off. Tony and Newt took the rental car and shadowed us. Two vehicles would be better in case we needed to split up to cover the multiple fires.

  Drop-off took a bit longer than I hoped, because Dana wanted to assure herself we were really okay. I hadn’t seen her since my house burned down and she had about a million questions. I also struggled to convince myself Carson would be safe without one of the mature Weres or our friendly Salamander to protect him. Luckily, he was in a happy mood: sitting up and staring at Dana’s baby Ella while I said goodbye to him.

  I blinked furiously on the way back to the car, but did not cry.

  “Okay.” I slammed the door shut and turned to Eliza. “Let’s go. Day’s a-wasting.”

  Her dark eyes looked at me for a few seconds, then she started the car.

  Chapter Sixteen

  We only went three blocks before my cell phone rang. I cursed under my breath and awkwardly fished it out of my pocket. Glancing at it, I saw a private number and frowned before answering.

  “Yes?”

  “Julie Hall. Next time, we’ll set a hotel in flames. A tourist-filled hotel. If you refuse our demands, their deaths will be on your head.”

  Eliza slammed on the brakes, bringing our car to a stop on the side of the road. She put her hand out the window and gestured for Newt and Tony.

  “Who are you? How did you get my number?” I asked. My hands clenched so tight my bones ached and my voice rose.

  “Call me Ma’at. Egyptian goddess of balance.” The woman’s voice had an edge that made me want to rub my ear.

  “Goddess? My, you have quite an opinion of yourself for someone who runs around trying to kill innocent people.”

  “If people are killed, it’s by your choice.”

  “By your hands. Your fire. You would have killed me—and my baby—and we’ve done nothing to you.”

  “Your son is an abomination! I don’t know what trickeries the wolves used, but a Were baby that strong is not natural. He is abhorrent. He threatens us all.”

  “He threatens no one. He’s six months old.” My voice shook with anger.

  “He won’t live another six months, unless his powers are stripped.” The woman’s voice dropped to a near whisper. “You have twenty-four hours, Julie Hall. Either the Weres strip his powers or we choose new targets for our fires. Targets that kill. Unless, of course, we find you before then.”

  The line clicked as she hung up. I looked at my phone as if it could explain this craziness.

  “Carson’s not an abomination,” I said.

  Eliza looked through the window at Tony before she answered me. “Of course he’s not, Julie.”

  “He’s not! He’s just a normal baby! A normal Were baby!”

  Again, the two Weres exchanged a look.

  “He’s not an abomination. There’s nothing wrong with him.”

  Eliza squared her shoulders. “Julie, none of us thinks he’s an abomination, okay? But he certainly is unusual—more than unusual.” She held up a hand to stop me. “I’m not saying there’s something wrong with him. But he’s not just a normal Were baby.”

  “But no one used any…what did she say? Were trickeries. He was born this way. I didn’t even know I was a dark moon. If the Salamanders are so worried about natural balance, well, Carson’s part of that—he’s a natural, regular Were who happens to be extra powerful. Maybe there’s some equally strong baby Salamander out there, to balance him out. If they’re so concerned with balance, they need to train their own babies to be powerful.”

  Newt stood outside my window. He said, “Jules, Eclipsers are crazy. They’re like religious fanatics. You can’t reason with them.”

  “Great.”

  “I didn’t catch everything she said,” Newt prompted me.

  I repeated the conversation nearly word for word, especially the “abomination” part.

  “So we have twenty-four hours and then they start killing people,” I concluded.

  “I need to call the council,” said Eliza. She slid gracefully out of the car and walked several steps away.

  “Nice that she’s calling herself after a goddess,” I said. “Ma’at.”

  “Makes a certain kind of sense for them to use Egyptian mythology,” said Newt. He leaned against my car door and talked through the window, his arms braced on top of the frame. “Re was a sun god, after all.”

  “Are you descended from him? A sun god?” I asked.

  Newt burst into laughter. “Now that would be a good pickup line, wouldn’t it?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m serious. Tim told me Salamanders are descended from some creature that came from the sun or something.”

  Newt quirked his mouth to one side. “Or something. Who knows, it happened thousands of years ago.”

  All this time, Tony stood silently at Newt’s side, looking at Eliza. In profile, his nose looked slightly too long for his face and I forced myself to focus on that, instead of his cheekbones. His mouth tensed and his eyes narrowed just enough to make faint lines at their corners.

  “Tell them that won’t work,” Tony said. The next moment, he stood beside Eliza and grabbed her arm. She yanked away and shooed him like a fly.

  I exchanged a look with Newt, but he held up his hands to express ignorance.

  After a few more minutes of intense conversation, Eliza put her phone down and turned on Tony.

  “Listen, Tony. You lived as a wolf for five years. You can’t waltz back in and order the council around. Or me. Frankly, I worked hard to convince them you were really on our side—and weren’t too much wolf to deal with rationally.”

  Tony abruptly seemed very tall, his fists clenched by his sides. I held my breath. After a very long minute, Tony gave a curt nod and I shot New
t a relieved glance. Newt winked at me.

  “Fine,” Tony said.

  Eliza held his gaze for a moment, before turning to the rest of us. “All right. The council’s discussing the situation with the Salamander master right now. They’re coordinating a strike on probable Eclipser headquarters in southern California. Reinforcements for us—both types—will arrive later today. Our goal is to find and disable the Eclipsers in Southern Oregon, the ones responsible for the current fires.”

  “And?” I prompted, knowing there must be more to this plan for Tony to have reacted so strongly.

  Eliza’s eyes looked nearly black as she spoke. “If we can’t stop them today, the council’s taking Carson into their custody.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “They will protect him, Julie. Not—anything else.”

  “Bullshit,” Tony said.

  I swung to him. “Then what? What does it mean, Tony?”

  “They’re considering it. The council might strip his powers. That’s what it means. They want Carson readily available to them.”

  “Eliza?” I asked, begging for the truth.

  She chose her words carefully. “Julie, they didn’t say anything about stripping Carson’s powers, just that the full power of the council Weres may be needed to adequately protect him.” She looked at Tony, then back to me, before speaking again, reluctance clear in her voice. “It’s possible, though. It’s possible.”

  “Well, they can’t take him. They have no legal right. I won’t let the council have him. I won’t.”

  “I agree,” said Tony. “We can’t negotiate with the Salamanders. We can’t give in to their demands and we can’t do anything that might harm our most powerful Were.”

  I sucked in a quick breath at his last words. He was right, of course. Carson was the most powerful Were. I just wasn’t used to considering him in those terms: as a potential asset to the whole community of Werewolves.

  “Well.” Newt drawled out the word to at least two syllables, gathering all of our attention. “We stop the Eclipsers right now, right here, while the others raid their headquarters. Then we don’t need to worry about their twenty-four-hour ultimatum.”

  “Yes,” said Eliza. I thought she sounded not just determined, but also relieved—probably happy to have a course of action with no conflict of loyalties.

  I wondered if the council agreed on what to do with Carson—had the entire council discussed it? Or the inner council? One hundred and eleven packs across the country meant one hundred and eleven pack Fulls who liked to throw around their power and lead their own Werewolves. That was a lot of strong Weres to wrangle into agreement, even to get a simple majority. More probably, the inner council was in control, the elite group of twelve Weres who made most of the real decisions. I knew any twenty percent of the representatives could demand a whole council vote. Perhaps even now factions within the council argued about whether Carson’s powers should be stripped. Or maybe everyone agreed. But if so what had they resolved?

  “Newt?” I paused for a minute, not sure if I wanted to bring this up, but then continued with the words tripping over each other on their way out. “Why are you doing this? Why are you on our side? Why is the Salamander master working with the Weres against your own kind? Even if they have some wacky ideas? I mean, why are you—all of you Salamanders—working to protect Carson?”

  Newt’s face turned serious. “First of all, no Salamanders who use their powers to kill or hurt innocents are ‘my kind.’ Second, some of us believe Salamanders and Weres should be allies. We’re alike in many ways, you know. We should work together—focus our strength to fight the things out there that want to devour us all, Weres, ’Manders, and humans alike.”

  “Devour—what—” I started, then shook my head. “Forget it—I’m not even asking. I don’t want to know right now.”

  “Good idea. Let’s focus on the present fight,” Newt said. “Besides, I forgot the most important reason. I like you guys. Plus, I like testing my skills.”

  I smiled at him. “No offense meant, you know. With the question.”

  “None taken.”

  Tony watched our exchange with an intent expression that made me flush slightly. I turned away from him to hide my face.

  “Allies,” said Eliza. A note in her voice sounded suspiciously like embarrassment and I remembered her earlier derisive comments about firebugs.

  “Hell, yeah, wolf.” Newt raised his hand and waited. Eliza chuckled and high-fived him. “So let’s go get those Eclipsers.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tackling the closest blaze first, we drove to the intersection of Tolmon Creek Road and Siskiyou Boulevard, the main drag they’d closed because of the fire. We parked at Belleview Elementary School, where classes had been cancelled for the day. Police blockaded the road just past the school, with their cars parked near those white-striped orange barrels used in construction. One officer stood waving people to the detour.

  I touched the bracelet still tied on my left wrist and mentally urged on that don’t-notice-me spell. Then I checked the gun I’d shoved in my jacket pocket. I didn’t need a jacket in this weather, of course, but I needed to conceal the weapon somehow and didn’t want to rely on the spell. Especially since it was Sheila’s gun, not mine, and I didn’t exactly have a permit to carry it around. Which wouldn’t be a problem, because we were going avoid attracting the notice of anyone official, I told myself.

  Tony, Eliza, and Newt had no need for weapons. They were weapons.

  We parked in the corner of the lot, making it fairly easy to walk the edge of the school fields and bypass the police officers, who weren’t focused on pedestrian traffic, anyway. Eliza called on the moon and pulled shifting shadows around us, just to make extra sure we escaped detection. We walked in the tree line just off the road, crossing people’s gravel driveways every so often. The air started to get heavier and we were close enough that the smoke burned my lungs.

  “How many acres did they say were burning?” I asked.

  “Nearly a hundred, last I heard,” said Eliza.

  Of course, I didn’t have much concept of the size of an acre. But the smoke pouring into the sky and the massive array of fire trucks on the site proved this was a considerable fire.

  An airplane droned overhead, low enough to make my heart race, and passed us on its way to the fire.

  Something brushed against my side and I startled, then looked down and realized it was the black Were—Tony. His fur twitched and I snatched my hand back, as if shocked. He turned to look at me with amber eyes and darted slightly ahead.

  “Tony,” Eliza called, in a quiet voice, nonetheless loud enough for any Were.

  The wolf checked his stride for a moment and glanced back at the group. I saw the fur on the back of his neck stood at high alert. He visibly hesitated, then swung his head toward the fire and gave a low snarl that brought goosebumps to my arms. The next moment, he was gone.

  I stopped. “Eliza?”

  “Dammit.”

  “Eliza.”

  “He smells them, Julie. So do I. There’s at least two ’Manders and he’s gone after them. Dammit, he’s more wolf than human. He’ll lose himself completely if he’s not careful.”

  Newt’s eyes seemed to lose focus for a moment. “One’s nearby. I can barely read the second.”

  I glanced around wildly and put my hand on the gun in my pocket.

  “How nearby?” I asked, proud to hear no fear in my voice.

  “Not that close. At least one hundred fifty feet. Probably right near the fire line.” Newt reached out and touched me on the shoulder. The warmth of his hand coursed through me and lowered tension I hadn’t even felt in my shoulders.

  “Okay. So Tony’s gone after him.”

  “Her,” said Newt and Eliza at the same time.

  “But—we killed her, the one with the cat eye glasses,” I said, then winced at the baldness of my statement.

  “I don’t reco
gnize this one’s scent,” said Eliza. “Must be reinforcements.”

  She wheeled toward the two of us and pointed. “You two stay here. Newt, the fire’s yours—get it under control. Take the nearest Salamander if you can. I’m betting Tony’s gone after the far one, from the direction he took. I’m going after him. I’ll try to draw up whatever moisture I can as I run around the perimeter. That’ll help the firefighters.”

  “We need to get rid of the Eclipsers. That will help the firefighters,” said Newt.

  I nodded, pulled out my gun, and made a show of nonchalantly checking it.

  “Be safe,” said Eliza, then slipped into wolf form and disappeared from my sight.

  I realized we were no longer cloaked in darkness. The thought must have been transparent, because Newt said, “Hey, we’ve got the bracelets. I can also play with the light a bit, if we need it. No worries, Jules.”

  “Right.”

  We stayed close to cover and worked our way forward.

  “How many more Salamanders do you think there are?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Newt, “I can take them.”

  An edge in his voice surprised me and I glanced up at him, then stared. A nimbus of light surrounded him and his freckles looked like burnished copper. His spiky hair stood up, so distorted by heat-shimmer that it almost seemed crafted from flame. The expression on his face looked both labored and exalted.

  “Um, Newt? What are you doing?” I asked.

  He looked at me with eyes like sunlight on moving water. He smiled—his normal grin immensely relieving at that moment—and said, “I’m pulling heat from the fire and sinking it into the ground. Helps the firefighters. Will be easier when we’re closer.”

  “Shouldn’t you wait until we get closer, then? So you don’t exhaust yourself?” I said.

  He shook his head and I half-expected to see drops of sunlight thrown off his hair. “No, it feels good. Like stretching. Besides, I need to sink the heat a distance from the fire line so the hot ground doesn’t prevent containment.”

  He pointed to the right, away from a fire brigade we glimpsed through the scrub. We climbed the slope of the Cascades now, just outside of town where houses were scant. I spared a moment to be thankful the Salamanders hadn’t started by hitting a major population center, but had thrown these fires toward the outskirts. Although that would change by tomorrow, if we weren’t successful.