Ben dropped his gaze.
I left the room.
Couldn’t go far, of course. A whole five feet to the so-called living room. Still, the space made ignoring them marginally easier. The whole cabin became entrenched in a thick, obvious silence. A moment later, Cormac left out the front door, toolbox and rifles in hand. Then I heard him repacking his Jeep. I half expected the engine to start up, to hear him drive away forever, leaving me to deal with Ben all by myself. But he didn’t. Maybe he planned on sleeping out there to avoid any more arguments, but he didn’t drive away. Ben went to the bedroom. I sat at my desk, at my computer, pretending to write, and wanted to pull out my hair.
I’d spent a year on the radio telling people how to fix their supernaturally complicated relationship problems. And now I couldn’t deal with the one right in front of me.
Ben emerged long enough for supper. More venison steaks. After, he pulled a chair into the living room and sat in front of the stove, just watching the embers burning through the grate, slipping into some kind of fugue state. I couldn’t really argue. I’d done the same thing when this had happened to me. As the body changed, perceptions changed, and the world seemed to slow down. You blinked and a whole afternoon went by. The sense of disconnection had lasted for weeks. I’d almost flunked out that semester. If I hadn’t been just a year away from finishing, I might have given into that urge to drop out and walk away. Walk into the woods, never to return.
Cormac stayed in the kitchen. They still weren’t speaking.
Later, at the appropriate hour, I turned on the radio. Yes, it was that time of the week again. I curled up on the sofa, cell phone in hand.
Ben looked at the radio, brow furrowed. Then, he narrowed his eyes—an expression of dawning comprehension. “What day is it?”
“Saturday,” I said.
Immediately he stood, shaking his head. “No, uh-uh, there is no way I am listening to this. I’m not watching you listen to this. I’m out of here. Good night.” He went to the bedroom and flopped on the bed.
Cormac came from the kitchen, glancing at the bedroom, and sat on the other end of the sofa. “What’s this?”
“The competition,” I said.
The sultry voice announced herself.
“Good evening. I am Ariel, Priestess of the Night. Welcome to my show.” And again, “Bela Lugosi’s Dead.” Of all the pretentious…
I muttered at the radio in a manic snit. “Tell us, Ariel, what shall we talk about this week?”
Ariel, via the radio, answered. “We’ve all heard of werewolves,” she intoned. “We’ve seen countless movies. My little brother even dressed up as the Wolf Man for Halloween one year. All this attention has given short shrift to the other species. Lions and tigers and bears. And a dozen other documented lycanthropic varieties. Oh, my.”
Cormac crossed his arms and leaned back. “You have to wonder if she’s got a body to go with that voice.”
I so wasn’t going to tell him about the Web site. I glared at him instead. Then, a niggling voice started scratching at the back of my mind. Scratching, gnawing, aggravating, until I had to ask, “What about my show? You know, before you saw me in person—did my voice ever, you know, make you wonder if I maybe had a body to go with it?”
He looked at me, stricken for a moment. “You’re a little different,” he said finally.
Oh, God, I’m a hack. An ugly, talentless hack and nobody ever liked me, not once, not ever. I hugged the pillow that was on the sofa and stewed. Cormac rolled his eyes.
Ariel was still talking. “Are you a lycanthrope who is something other than the standard lupine fare? Give me a call, let’s chat.”
I had the number on speed dial by this time. I punched the call button and waited.
Cormac watched thoughtfully. “What are you doing?”
I ignored him. I got a busy signal the first time, then tried again. And again, until finally, “Hello, you’ve reached Ariel, Priestess of the Night. What’s your name and hometown?”
I had it all planned out this time. “I’m Irene from Tulsa,” I said brightly.
“And what do you want to talk about?”
“I’m a were-jaguar. Very rare,” I said. “I’m so glad that Ariel’s talking about this. I’ve felt so alone, you know? I’d love a chance to talk.”
“All right, Irene. Turn down your radio and hold, please.”
I did so, pressing the phone to my ear and tapping my foot happily.
Cormac stared at me. “That’s really pathetic.”
“Shut up.”
Then he had the nerve to take the radio to the next room, to the kitchen table. He hunched before it, listening with the volume turned down low. Couldn’t he leave me alone?
I listened in on three calls: the callers claimed to be a were-leopard, a were-fox, and a werewolf who refused to believe that lycanthropes could be anything other than wolves, because, well, he’d never met any others personally. If he’d called into my show I would have told him off with a rant that would have left him dumbstruck. Something along the lines of: Okay, you big jerk, let’s try out a new word, shall we? Say it along with me: narcissistic…
By comparison, Ariel was shockingly polite. “Marty, do you consider yourself to be an open-minded person?”
“Well, yeah, I suppose,” said Marty the caller.
“Good, that’s really good,” Ariel purred. “I’d expect a werewolf to be open-minded. You’re involved so deeply in the world behind the veil, after all. I’m sure there are lots of things you haven’t had personal experience with, yet you believe—like the Pope, or the Queen of England. So exactly why is it that you can’t accept the existence of other species of lycanthropes, just because you’ve never met one?”
Marty hadn’t thought this one through. You could always spot the ones who spouted rhetoric with no thought behind it. “Well, you know. All the stories are about werewolves. And the movies—werewolves, all of them. It’s the Wolf Man, not the Leopard Man!”
“And what about Cat People?”
Hey, that was what I’d have said.
“That’s different,” Marty said petulantly. “That was, you know, made-up.”
Ariel continued. “Stories about shape-shifters are found all over the world, and they’re about all kinds of animals.
Whatever’s common locally. You really have to accept that there might be something to all these stories, yes?”
“I’ve never heard of these stories.”
Wow, I loved how some people were so good at digging their own holes.
“Your culture isn’t the only one in the world, Marty. Moving on to the next call, we have Irene from Tulsa, hello.”
My turn? Me? I was ready for this. I tried to sound more chipper and ditzy than I had the last time I called. “Hi, Ariel!”
“So, you’re a were-jaguar. Can you tell me how exactly that happened? Jaguars aren’t exactly native to Tulsa.”
“When I was in college I spent a summer volunteering in Brazil for an environmental group, working in the jungle. One time I started back to camp a little late, and, well…” I took a deep, significant breath. “I was attacked.”
How could you not sympathize with that story? Oh, yeah, somebody nominate me for an Oscar. I wondered how long it would take her to spot the fake.
“That’s an amazing story,”Ariel said, clearly impressed. “How have you coped since then?”
“I have good days, I have bad days. It’s really hard not having anyone to talk to about it. As far as I know, all the other were-jaguars are in Brazil.”
“You ever think about going back and finding someone who might be able to help you?”
“It just never worked out.” I’m so sad, pity me…
“Well, Irene, if you really want something, there’s always a way.”
Maybe that was why Ariel bothered me so much: that Pollyanna sunshine attitude. Sometimes, things just didn’t work out.
“I want to get married under a full moon
. Is there a way for me to get that?”
“Sometimes you have to adjust your wants to be a little more realistic.”
“Easy for you to say.”
She dodged, yanking control of the conversation back to her. “Tell me why you really haven’t been back to Brazil.”
I said breezily, “Well, you know, I had to come back home, finish school, then I met this guy, see, and then I broke up with this guy—and you know how it is, one thing then another, and I guess I got distracted.”
Ariel wasn’t having it. “Irene, are you pulling my leg?”
Damn, she got me. That didn’t mean I had to admit it. “Oh, Ariel, why would I do something like that?”
“You tell me.”
“Calling you with a fake story about being a were-jaguar would be—oh, I don’t know—a delusion based in some psychiatric disorder? A desperate cry for attention?”
“That’s what I’m thinking,” Ariel said. “Moving on to the next call, Gerald—”
I hung up in disgust. I still hadn’t gotten her to say anything stupid. I was feeling pretty stupid, but never mind that. My inner two-year-old was enjoying herself.
Cormac was watching me from the kitchen, which made me even more disgruntled. I didn’t need an audience. At least not one that was sitting there staring at me.
He said, “You ever think that maybe she’s really a vampire or a witch or something, the same way that you’re really a werewolf? That she’s keeping it under wraps like you did?”
“Right up until you blew my cover, you mean?”
He shrugged noncommittally, as if to say, Who me?
“She’s a hack,” I muttered.“Then what the hell does that make you?”“A has-been, evidently.” I brushed back my hair and sighed. He stood and grabbed his coat and gun off the kitchen counter. “You want a pity party, you can have it by yourself.” “I’m not… this isn’t… I’m not looking for your pity.” “Good. ’Cause you’re not getting any. If you’re a has-been it’s your own damn fault.” “Where are you going?” “Guard duty. If I see any gutted rabbits I’ll let you know.” Bang, he slammed the front door behind him and that was that. I let out a frustrated growl, grabbed the blanket, and cocooned myself on the sofa. I wasn’t a has-been. I wasn’t. Yet.
chapter 7
I woke, startled, and sat up on the sofa. I hadn’t heard anything, nothing specific had jolted me awake, but I felt like someone had slammed a door or fired a gun.
Cormac.
He was asleep in a chair, which he’d pulled over to the living-room window. He’d been keeping watch, just like he’d said. But I never thought he’d fall asleep on guard duty. It just wasn’t like him.
Whatever had shocked me awake hadn’t affected him. He even snored a little, his chin tipped forward so it almost touched his chest.
Outside, the sky was gray. Light, so it was past dawn, but still overcast, like it was about to snow. I had a queasy, stuffy-headed feeling that told me I hadn’t gotten enough sleep.
“Cormac?” I said.
Immediately he sat up and put his hand on the revolver he’d left sitting on my desk. Only after looking around, tensed at the edge of the chair as if waiting for an attack, did he say, “What happened?” He didn’t look at me; his attention focused on the window and the door.
“Something woke me up,” I said.
“I hadn’t meant to fall asleep,” he said. “I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.” His hand clenched on his weapon like it was a security blanket. He didn’t pick it up, but I had no doubt he could aim and shoot it in a heartbeat. Speaking of heartbeats, his had sped up. I could hear it, and smell his anxiety. He wasn’t used to getting caught off guard. His fear fed mine.
“Something’s out there,” I whispered.
“You hear something?”
“I don’t know.” I concentrated, trying yet again to remember what my senses had told me, what exactly had fired my nerves awake.
I smelled blood. It wasn’t new blood, fresh blood. It was old, rotten, stinking. And not just a little, but a slaughterhouse’s worth. A massive amount, and it was everywhere, as if someone had painted the walls with it. No—no—
Get a grip. Keep it together.
“Do you smell something?” I said, my voice cracking. Of course he didn’t. Not like this. How could he?
“I assume you mean something out of the ordinary.”
“Blood.”
“Are you okay?”
I went to the door. Get out.
My hand on the knob, I squeezed my eyes shut. There wasn’t a voice. I hadn’t heard anything. I cracked open the door.
The smell washed over me. I’d never sensed anything like it. The odor was hateful, oppressive, like it was attacking me. Could a smell be evil?
“There’s something out there,” I said. And it hated me. It had left all those signs that it hated me.
“Move over.” Cormac, gun raised, displaced me from in front of the door. “Stay back.”
I did, holding my clenched hands to my chest. He opened the door a little wider. His gun arm led the way as he stepped out, the weapon ready to face the lurking danger.
Sheltered behind the door, I watched his face. His expression never changed. It stayed cold, stony—his professional look. Then he froze.
“Jesus Christ,” he said, his voice filled with something like awe. He didn’t lower his weapon.
I slipped out the door to stand next to him on the porch and looked out.
All around the clearing in front of the house, carcasses hung from the lower branches of trees. Skinless—pink and bloody, wet with a sheen of fat and flesh, the dead animals were hung up by their hind legs, so that their front legs and heads dangled. Their teeth—the sharp teeth of carnivores—were bared, and lidless eyes stared. There must have been a dozen of them. They swayed a little on their ropes, ghosts in the dawn light.
I moved forward, like that would help me see better— like I even wanted to see them better—and leaned against the porch railing. They looked alien and terrible, so that I couldn’t identify them at first. Four legs, straight naked tails, slim bodies with round rib cages and narrow hips. Heads with narrow snouts and triangular ears.
They were dogs. Some kind of dogs. Canines. Wolflike.
I made a noise like a sob.
I had to get out of here, but I couldn’t, not yet, not until I’d gotten Ben through the full moon. But the walls were closing in. And there weren’t even walls out here. The dead eyes all stared at me. Get out.
“Kitty?”
“Who hates me this much?” I started crying. Tension, exhaustion, uncertainty—in the space of a few days my whole life had fallen apart, and I didn’t know what to do about it. It all just came out.
I stumbled back, away from the mess, and bumped into Cormac. Then I leaned into him. He was close, and I needed a shoulder, so I turned to his. Eyes leaking and nose dripping on his T-shirt, I let it all out, feeling profoundly embarrassed about it even as I did. I didn’t care.
He put his arms around me. He held me firmly without squeezing, moving one hand to stroke my hair. For some reason this made me cry harder.
I didn’t like being an alpha. For the last couple of days, I’d been pulling out alpha left and right. Now, though, Cormac was willing to take care of me, at least for a little while. I was profoundly grateful.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said softly. “After tomorrow, we’ll work on figuring this out.”
Tomorrow. After the full moon. After we got all that sorted out. I held on to him.
Arm around my shoulder, he guided me inside, shut the door, and set his gun on the desk. I stayed close to him. I didn’t want him to pull away, and he took the hint. We stood there for a long time; I clung to him, and he kept his arms around me. I felt safer, believing he could actually protect me from the horrors outside.
“You’re being very patient with me,” I said, murmuring into his T-shirt.
“Hm. It’s not every day a woma
n throws herself into my arms. I have to take advantage of it while I can.”
I made a complaining noise. “I didn’t throw myself into your arms.”
“Whatever you say.”
I chuckled in spite of myself. When I tilted my head back, I saw he was smiling.
“You’d better be careful,” I said. “You’re getting to be downright likable.”
I could kiss him. Another two inches closer—standing on my toes—and I could kiss him. His hand shifted on my back, flattening like he was getting ready to hold me steady, like he wanted to kiss me, too. Then the hand moved away. He touched my cheek, smoothed away the tears. He pulled back.
“I’ll start some coffee,” he said, and went to the kitchen.
Part of me was relieved. All of me was confused. I covered up the confusion with my usual lame bravado. “There, you’re doing it again. Being nice.”
He ignored me. Cormac, back to normal.
We discussed the situation at the kitchen table over cups of fresh coffee.
“Whoever’s doing this doesn’t want to kill me,” I said.
“But that’s some pretty twisted stuff out there. It’s all aimed at you, and it’s escalating.”
“What’s next, if I don’t listen to it now?”
“Listen to it? What’s it saying?”
“Leave. Get out of here. Someone doesn’t want me to be here. You’d think they could just write a note.”
“Just because they haven’t tried to kill you yet doesn’t mean they won’t. If you don’t leave, and if they get desperate enough.”
“Could it be that simple? They just want me to leave town?”
“That probably means it’s somebody local,” he said.
“Shouldn’t be too hard to track down somebody local who practices that sort of voodoo.”
Ah, the charm of the small town. Everybody knew everybody. We just had to find out which ones were the squirrelly ones. Besides, you know, everybody.
I smiled grimly. “I think I’ll give the sheriff a call. Have him clean up that mess.”
Sheriff Marks was not happy. In a really big way, he was not happy. He only gave the hanging carcasses a cursory glance, wearing a stone-faced tough-guy expression to prove he wasn’t grossed out or unduly disturbed.