Waxing Moon

by Sarah E Stevens

  “I knocked him unconscious and hid him in a pile of leaves and brush.”

  I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t say a word. Just stood there with my mouth open like I’d been struck by lightning—which is what I felt like, burned to my core, and rooted to the ground in shock.

  “He’s going to be okay, Julie. He will.”

  Tony sounded adamant, but I wondered who the hell he tried to convince. Me? Or himself?

  “He has that bracelet. He’s well-hidden. I’m distracting the Eclipsers, drawing them away from him.”

  Finally, I found my voice. “You knocked my six-month-old baby unconscious. You hid him in a pile of leaves. Unconscious. In a pile of leaves.”

  Tony shook me. “Quiet. Julie, there might be twenty Salamanders and it’s just you and me. Quiet.”

  I held my breath until the urge to scream passed. Then I punched Tony as hard as I could. At the last second, he dodged, so my fist hit him in the shoulder, instead of the face.

  “Julie!” His voice was hoarse in its urgency. “He’s a Were, he’ll heal, and I had no choice.”

  I panted, silent sobs shaking me. Tony held up his hands in some meaningless gesture. I wrapped my arms around my shoulders, hugged myself tightly, gun digging into my shoulder. The pain of that felt good, felt right. For a second, Tony looked like he would put his arms around me, but I shook my head, took a step away from him. The line of his mouth tightened and he jerked a shoulder in response before turning to scan the area.

  “You with me?” he asked, sparing me a quick glance.

  I nodded. My teeth hurt from the tension in my jaw.

  “We should circle that way, find an outlying ’Mander and attack. Keep their attention this direction.” Tony pointed back the way I came.

  “No. I want to get Carson.”

  “We go back to Carson and we risk drawing the Eclipsers with us. I’ve killed two, injured several. You shot one—I think we’re still dealing with at least a dozen. Maybe more.”

  Shit.

  “Okay, you’re right. I called Eliza, when I was still in the house.” I had no idea how much time had passed since then—probably five minutes, though it seemed like hours.

  Tony grimaced. “No alternative, I guess. We need the help if we’re going to make it out of this. Follow me.”

  Shadow twisted and goosebumps erupted on my arms; the black wolf stood beside me. My hand moved to his shoulder, touched the warm fur without my volition. He swung his head around to look at me and I took my hand away quickly.

  We moved fast and found a target: a young, female Eclipser, brow creased, corners of her mouth turned down as she concentrated and scanned the woods. I thought she might have sensed our presence—at least, she turned in our direction, though her gaze passed right over us. Her hands guttered with flame, as if ready at a moment’s notice. I reminded myself she was the enemy; she’d kill Carson without hesitation and we needed to even the odds. Tony signaled the plan with his eyes and a tilt of the head before he slipped to the other side of the Eclipser.

  When he dropped the darkness covering me, I was ready.

  “Looking for me?” I said with my gun raised, as the woman startled at my sudden appearance, raising her fire-laced hands instinctively.

  Before she could respond further, Tony sprang, knocked her down and tore out her throat with a horrible crunch. He rose and shook his head, blood flying from his muzzle, as I stood frozen. He ran to me, then nipped my jeans when I didn’t respond, snapping me back to myself. When he saw I was capable of movement, he loped into the woods with a backward glance to make sure I followed.

  I did. Followed him. There was nothing else to do, after all. I tried to compartmentalize—to lock away any part of me that quailed from our actions. This fight would only get bloodier before the end and I’d do anything to make sure it wasn’t Carson’s blood being spilled.

  The next few minutes passed in a series of horrible flashes too quick for my conscious mind to interpret. I moved on pure instinct. We ran through the woods. I slipped on a layer of pine needles and slammed into a tree so hard my head reeled. Tony attacked an Eclipser from behind and his fur was suddenly aflame, then extinguished with a quick roll as I distracted the Salamander with a shot, leaving him for Tony to finish off with a tearing snap. We hid, panting, down a gully to avoid a group of several enemies. Smoke billowed from the house, from the woods. Salamanders yelled. I clung to the thought that we led the Eclipsers farther and farther from Carson, deeper into the woods.

  We came up the gully to see a wall of purple flames in our path.

  “Shit!” I scrambled back down the slope with Tony crouched at my side. He panted with mouth open and I couldn’t tell if it was sheer exhaustion or pain from the burns running along his left side. His fur lay curled and singed from the heat—I kept expecting to see wounds visibly healing, but they weren’t. Perhaps because he expended so much power to keep us hidden, to call madness and confusion wherever possible.

  I followed Tony along the gully, thankful the smoke gusted away from us. We pushed up and over the slope, only to see more indigo flames blocking our path.

  Tony crouched on his belly, head raised. His ears plastered to his skull, his fur splattered with blood.

  I finally said, “That way?” and gestured with my head across the gully, away from the flames that seemed to dog our steps.

  He pulled on darkness and emerged in human form, lying by my side in jeans torn and singed, his t-shirt stained by blood and flame, his left side and neck marked with red burns. One sleeve hung in shreds and I saw a gash on his shoulder—I hadn’t noticed it when he was a wolf. His hair streaked with sweat, a smear of blood on one cheek. He looked at me, those honey-brown eyes shining with some contained emotion.

  After he didn’t speak, I asked again, “Should we go that way?”

  He tightened his lips. Looking away from me, he rubbed his mouth on one arm violently and cleared his throat.

  “No use,” he finally said. “They’ve surrounded us. A circle of fire. Coming closer every second.”

  I pushed up on my elbows and looked around in panic.

  Sure enough, I saw flashes of purple down the slope, smoke pouring off the trees toward the house, flames creeping toward the edge of the gully.

  “What do we do? Tony, what do we do?”

  He shook his head.

  “No. No! There has to be something—there has to be some way…we can break through the circle.”

  Tony pulled me to the very bottom of the gully, where we lay on the ground over leaf and needle-covered rocks.

  “It’s a massive wall of fire,” he said. He grabbed my face with both hands, rolling his body closer to mine. This close, I could smell his scent, overlain with sweat and the copper tang of blood. “You wouldn’t survive. I might not survive. It’s over, Julie. We surrender or we die.”

  “No,” I said, hearing the lie in my voice. “They’ll—Carson—”

  “Certain death or possible death. You chose.”

  “I—I—”

  Tony kissed me, savagely, demanding a response. I pressed myself to him, opened my mouth to taste his lips, his tongue. I wrapped my arms around him, heedless of the rocks that dug into my back, feeling only his body on mine, his lips moving to trace a line of fire on my neck.

  “Julie,” he breathed in my ear. “We lost this fight.”

  I kissed his neck and tasted blood. He buried his face against me, then bit my shoulder, gently—just hard enough to draw a sound from me, but not to hurt.

  Tony pulled away to look at me. His breath came fast, his eyes darkened with lust that made me move against him, wrap my foot around his. He raised himself up on his hands and moved away slightly, waiting for me to say something.

  “Right,” I said, after swallowing a few times. I licked my still-tingling lips. “Okay. We surrender and hope they don’t kill us.”

  Or Carson.

  Tony nodded and sat up, took my hand and drew me to stand besi
de him. His face looked grim, all traces of passion fled. We climbed up the lip of the gully; at least we could surrender on high ground. I pushed back my hair, removing a few pine needles, and Tony straightened his shirt. He gave me a nod, then waited until I was ready. This side of the fire loomed twenty feet away and closing, its heat buffeting us.

  “We surrender,” I yelled as loud as I could.

  Tony’s hand closed harder on mine. I wasn’t sure why—why he kissed me, why any of it, perhaps just a response to near death and no more—but I took strength from the warmth of his hand in mine, the tingle of his power on my skin.

  I tried again. “Eclipsers! Salamanders, we surrender.” The top of a nearby tree burst into flames and I flinched. “Ma’at. You win. Let’s talk.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  A woman walked through the wall of flame in front of us. The fire licked her like a corona, gave her up with reluctance as she approached.

  “Drop your gun,” she said.

  I swore as the metal of the gun seared my palm and I flung it to the ground where it sent wisps of smoke into the air.

  “Change form and you die, Were.”

  She was middle-aged, sturdy rather than svelte, with chin-length brown hair and eyes that assessed us narrowly.

  “Where’s the baby? Tell me and I might let you live.”

  “Are you Ma’at?” I asked.

  “Yes. But all you need to know is I’m the one who can have you burned to death, right here, right now.” She gave a tight smile. “Or you can live. In exchange for the baby.”

  “He’s…” God, was there any way out of this? “Are you going to kill him?”

  She lifted a well-shaped brow. “You’re not in position to bargain, Julie Hall. I wonder which would be more entertaining. To see how long it takes a Were to die from fire? Play with the balance so he heals even as we burn him? Or to watch his face as the fire slowly consumes you, as you beg for us to kill your baby instead?”

  I felt the rage building inside Tony, his hand gripping mine so strongly it hurt my bones. Or maybe it was me, holding him too tight. Through the purple flames now surrounding us, I glimpsed figures, other Eclipsers waiting.

  “He’s not an abomination,” I said. “He’s not. He’s just an ordinary Werewolf—no threat to you. He’s just a baby.”

  “He is an abomination and he must be destroyed. You had your chance, but you refused to have his powers stripped, so you left us no alternative. You shouldn’t have gambled with your son’s life.”

  “How did you find us?”

  I stalled and her smile said she knew it. A ball of fire appeared in her hand and she tossed it idly in the air.

  “GPS on Mike Hollis’s phone. Last chance.”

  “We’ll strip his powers. Give us an hour and I’ll have his powers stripped—you can keep us as hostages—I can call the Were council right now and have it done. Then you win, right?”

  “No.”

  Fire roared and engulfed Tony’s right hand, the one not holding mine. He wrenched away from me with an incoherent yell of pain until he clamped his jaw and stood there, just stood there while sweat ran down his face, every muscle in his body hard as stone, while his hand burned.

  Tears blurred my eyes and I screamed, “Stop! Stop it! Okay!”

  Just like that, the fire snuffed out.

  Tony’s hand was black, charred to the bone in places, with thick red blisters up his arm. I went to touch him, but he jerked back, body rigid.

  “I’ll be fine.” His voice grated harshly.

  “The baby?”

  “Over near the house. He’s hidden.” I nearly stuttered in my desperation. We could still get out of this. There must be a way. I shot a glance at my gun, at Tony’s stony profile, at the fire-rimmed shapes of Eclipsers.

  “Take us to him,” said Ma’at. At a gesture, the ring of flames surrounding us guttered to black ash and revealed nearly a dozen Salamanders, perhaps others I couldn’t see.

  I looked at Tony, who gave me a grim nod, and started back toward the house. The Eclipsers fell in around us.

  After we walked for half a minute, without warning, Tony yanked me to a halt. Chaos erupted as several Salamanders yelled and flames popped up, in our midst, in the woods, seemingly everywhere. Ma’at’s hand snaked out and grabbed my arm, her grip so hot my skin blistered. The world exploded.

  Tony shifted; the black wolf sprang at Ma’at on his three good legs. Water poured up from the ground under my feet, just as the air itself seemed to burn. I screamed and hit at Ma’at with my hand, kicked with my feet, trying to get free of her. We landed in the mud and my vision distorted with the impact, but I hung on to consciousness. Scrabbling for purchase on the suddenly wet earth, I wrestled with the Eclipser, while hearing Tony growl and attack. Then I was on fire and I screamed, not a sound of pain—though, God, it hurt—so much as utter, desperate anger. The flames disappeared, only to spring back, then douse again, in a flickering cycle.

  A gray wolf slammed into me and knocked Ma’at away. Purple fire flashed on the wolf’s back and the smell of burning fur choked me. People screamed; knots of furious fighting crashed through the woods; I thought I saw—but it couldn’t be. Everything was so confused. Several figures darted away into the trees. I didn’t know if they were Eclipsers or friendly, and all I could think about was Carson, lying somewhere in the woods. With Salamanders running everywhere, someone was bound to find him and soon. Or he would burn to a crisp by accident in all this chaos.

  I rose to my feet, stumbled as bruises and burns sang with pain. Holding my left side tightly as my ribs stabbed with agony, I crouched and managed a stumbling run toward the area where Tony hid Carson. I swerved around several burning trees, nearly crashed into a wolf who turned and snapped at me before drawing back in recognition. Above all the confusion, I heard sirens as firefighters responded to the blazing house.

  I saw the edge of the woods and the lawn beyond. Noises from the fight and fire engines roaring closer all rolled past me, as my focus narrowed to any sign of my baby. Frustrated tears ran down my face, as I lurched from one bush to another, searching in piles of leaves and debris.

  “Jules!”

  I swung around in shock.

  “Newt?”

  “Are you okay?” He strode toward me, put both his hands on my shoulders, and stared down at me intently. I straightened slowly and pushed my hair out of my eyes, only then aware the ends were singed rough. My ear throbbed with pain as I touched it; that side of my face stiff with a scalding burn.

  “Shit, Jules.” A look of intense dismay crossed his face, followed by cold anger utterly unlike his usual self.

  “Newt! But how…”

  Newt whirled and purple fire flared through a group of trees behind him. He grabbed my hand and tugged me along with him, deeper into the trees.

  “Wait!”

  He stopped, his fingers closing more tightly over mine, his skin warm as always. “Jules, we’ve got to get out of here. The fight’s turned in our favor, but—”

  “Carson. I need to find Carson. He’s around here somewhere. He has to be.”

  “What?” Newt’s eyebrows knitted in confusion.

  “Tony hid him. I need to find him before someone else does.”

  Newt ran his thumb across my knuckles. “Okay. Okay.” He closed his eyes for a minute. “Dammit. I can’t sense him.”

  God, that didn’t mean he was dead or something, did it?

  He saw the panic in my eyes. “No, no, Jules, Sheila’s charm still works, that’s all. That’s a good thing—means the Eclipsers can’t find him, either. Okay. Where did Tony leave him?”

  “He knocked him unconscious and hid him in a pile of leaves and debris. That’s all he said.”

  “Knocked him—are you fucking kidding me?”

  “No, that’s what he said.” I’d never heard Newt swear before; it shocked me.

  Newt’s hand clamped down on mine and he jerked me behind him, shielding me wi
th his body before abruptly relaxing.

  “Newt. I thought it was you.” Tony’s voice didn’t sound entirely pleased.

  “Tony! Where’s Carson? Where is he?” I asked.

  “This way.” Tony reached out to take my arm, but I jerked away from both him and Newt. Flakes of blackened skin covered Tony’s other hand, the one that hung at his side. I thought I saw a thin layer of pink flesh forming underneath the burned crust. None of his other injuries seemed to be healing, though they were minor in comparison. Were energy spilled off him, raising the hairs on my arms, and I wished he could somehow direct it into me—to heal the thousand aches that covered my own body.

  Tony grimaced and led us to a dense cluster of pine trees. At his gesture, I fell to my knees and pushed through the branches into the dark center. Carson lay there, half-covered with pine needles and I brushed them off, murmured meaningless words, and felt him from head to toe, the warmth of his body proving he was alive. He would be okay.

  I gathered him to me and held him tightly, sinking my nose into his hair. His head had a reddened bump on it, still not completely healed, and I tried not to think how hard Tony must have hit him to knock him unconscious for this long—although it had probably been less than fifteen minutes? My sense of time utterly distorted. Yes, Carson would heal, but would he be scarred in other ways? I tamped down my anger, reminded myself Tony had been out of options. Or he’d thought so. I curled around Carson. He was all right and that was almost the only thing that mattered. I brushed tears off my cheeks and looked up. Both Tony and Newt stood alert and focused on our surroundings.

  “Eliza said you were hurt,” I said. “She said you were in the hospital with serious injuries, that you were in a lot of pain, you asked for me. You had surgery.”

  “What?” Newt said.

  “She called me from your cell phone.”

  “I lost my phone during the fight yesterday. Or…I thought it was lost…that’s why I didn’t call you—I told you I would call. And I couldn’t.” Newt ran his hands through his already spiky hair. “Damn her. Damn her!”

  I stared at him as the words sank in.

  “I can’t believe it,” I said. “I mean I understand why she couldn’t bring herself to defy the council. But I can’t believe she’d lie like that. To me. Lie, about something that serious, about you. She said they’d grant me amnesty if I wanted to visit you in the hospital, that they wouldn’t try to seize Carson if I came. She said you kept asking for me. That you needed me.”