Moon Dragon (14 page)

Chapter Thirty-five

I had Paulo alter our course and we headed out to Fullerton along the 57 Freeway.

Now, with the Lyft driver waiting for me outside—I might have compelled him to wait for me, I didn’t, after all, want to lose him—I found my daughter in Sherbet’s office, sitting before his desk with her head buried in her arms, as a female officer stroked her hair. Sherbet himself sat back in his desk and didn’t look too happy. Then again, I couldn’t remember the last time Detective Sherbet looked too happy.

“We found her in Hillcrest Park, drinking with her buddies.”

“Who found her?”

“One of our boys. We got a report of some kids drinking and smoking and making general asses of themselves. Turned out to be true. The others scattered like frightened fish. This one tried to scatter. Turned out she was too drunk to scatter, and instead, fell flat on her face. Don’t worry, she’s okay. Just a few scrapes.”

Tammy moaned, her face still buried in her arms.

I thanked the female officer, who gave Tammy a final pat, and gave me a consoling smile, then got up and left. I had a distinct impression that the officer had been there before, with her own kids.

I took the seat next to my daughter, except I very much didn’t feel like stroking her head. It was all I could do to not chew her ass out. I took a few deep breaths.

Easy, Sam,
came Sherbet’s telepathic words.

I’m too pissed off to be easy about anything,
I shot back,
and she can hear you, so be careful.

He nodded, then said aloud, “Should have figured.”

“Is she still drunk?” I asked.

“My guess: yes. We probably should have had her checked out at St. Jude’s.” He shrugged. “She didn’t look sick and responded well enough.”

“Can you leave us alone?” I asked him.

“You do realize that I’m a busy homicide investigator, right? And the
busy
part isn’t necessarily a good thing.”

Please,
I thought to him.

He sighed and his cop mustache fluttered a little. Then he hefted his thickish body from behind the desk and made his way toward the door.

“Thickish?” he said.

“You know what I meant,” I said.

He might have sighed again, and then left us alone, shutting his office door behind him.

Chapter Thirty-six

I checked the time...2:30. Less than four hours.

“Less than four hours for what, Mom?” asked Tammy, her face still buried in her arms.

“Never mind that,” I said, and threw up a mental wall about all things wolfish.

“You’re hiding something, Mo—”

“Never mind what I’m hiding, young lady. Do you care to explain yourself?”

“No. And quit shouting. My head...”

The stench of beer wafted from her as well as the blood from the scrapes on her face. Like a shark, I can smell fresh blood within a few dozen feet. Not always a good thing, especially in a room full of women.

“Gross, Mom,” said Tammy, obviously following my thoughts.

“Don’t change the subject, young lady.”

“Hey, you’re the one talking about—”

“Never mind that, Tamara Moon,” I said, using her full name, which meant that I meant business.

Instead, she giggled. “Relax, Mom. Sheesh. Everyone drinks a little—”

I moved her chair around to face me, dragging it easily with one hand over the carpet. Tammy, whose head had been propped up on the desk, pitched forward, “Hey!”

“Don’t ‘hey’ me, and look at me when I’m talking to you.”

She did, and for the first time, I saw her bloodshot eyes and puffy lower lip. I stood and paced in Sherbet’s office, glancing at the clock overhead. 2:45. I didn’t have time for this...and yet, I had to make the time.

“How long have you been drinking?”

She shrugged. “A few months now.”

“Where do you get the alcohol?”

“Friends. Friends of friends. Mostly we steal it from—”

I spun around and nearly yanked her to her feet...at a police station, no less. Inside a clear glass office, no less. Sherbet, who was talking on his cell phone in a nearby cubicle, raised a hand and lowered it, motioning for me to calm down. Good advice.

“Relax, Mom. Sheesh. We didn’t steal from stores. Just from parents, mostly.”

“Have you stolen from me?”

She looked away, “Maybe a bottle...”

“Tammy!”

“...or two,” she finished.

I sat again and ran my fingers through my hair and knew I was making a scene. I had to calm down about this. Then again, I’d never faced anything like this before—whatever
this
was. Teenage rebellion? Jesus, she was
barely
a teen. If this was a taste of what I was in for...well, I was in trouble.

“Relax, Mom—”

“You tell me to relax again, and so help me God, I will bend you over my knee right here—”

“No, you won’t. You would never embarrass Sherbet like that...and risk going to jail, even though I don’t think any jail could hold you.”

“Don’t talk back to me, young lady. And don’t tell me what I will and won’t do.”

“Okay, sorry, geez.”

“And don’t ‘geez’ me.”

“Okay, I won’t geez you,” she said, and broke into a grin, and for some damn reason, I broke into a grin, too. She knew she had me, and she knew how to push, too. “Who would ever want to
geez
you anyway.”

I laughed, and said, “Okay, stop. Now I’m looking really bad.”

“It’s no big deal, Mom. Everyone does it, and I like to do it. It’s fun to drink. I know why Auntie and you like to drink now, and all the adults in all of the commercials. It makes sense—”

“Just stop,” I said, holding my head and resuming my pacing. I looked at the time: 2:52. “How do you feel?”

“Buzzed.”

To hear my little girl tell me she felt “buzzed” was enough to drive
me
to drink. “We’re going to talk about this later. Get your stuff, let’s go.”

And we went, this time detouring toward my sister’s house in Placentia, which was next door to Fullerton. My sister was gonna be thrilled to see us. I texted her brief details and she texted back her confirmation to bring Tammy. Gotta love Mary Lou. She was my right-hand woman.

Meanwhile, my daughter slept it off, while Paulo, our Lyft driver, drove steadily, sometimes casting sideways glances my way, and in the rearview mirror at my daughter snoozing in the back seat.

We dropped off Tammy with a stern Mary Lou and then continued toward the original destination.

I checked the time: an hour wasted.

Chapter Thirty-seven

“This is it,” said Paulo.

“This is where you drop off Gunther?”

“Yup.”

“Every time?”

“Yup.”

“And is this where the others drop him off, too?”

“I wouldn’t know that.”

I briefly scanned Paulo’s thoughts and took a look at his aura. He was telling the truth. We were parked on a side road that had ended as soon as it began. Massive cement blocks, connected with thick cables, barred the way further. The drive had been speedy enough. We had, in fact, made decent time. I checked my cell.

5:20.

I had just over an hour to find his cabin, find him, stop him, and save Elise Stanley.

All in a day’s work, I thought, then turned to my driver. I commanded him to forget me, forget our conversation and forget about this tip. He would, I knew, still get paid for his efforts, even if he didn’t remember his efforts. My account would be charged for the trip, so he would at least get something out of this, even if it was a big hole in his memory.

When he was gone, I found myself alone at the end of the blockaded street.

We had very much gone off the beaten path. Indeed, we had taken at least a half-dozen roads to get to this one. In fact, the two roads before this road had both been dirt, including this one.

Few, if anyone, would have known about this spot.

I checked the sun, and knew instinctively it was about an hour before it set. The day was still warm, but I was wearing jeans and a gray tank top. I let some air in the tank top, and kind of wished I could let some air in the jeans, too, but decided that would be unseemly, even for me.

Additionally, I was not at full strength, but neither was I shrinking away from the sun. I felt, in fact, pretty damn good. In about an hour, I would feel pretty damn great.

I doubted Gunther—or Kingsley—would feel pretty damn great in an hour. I suspected they sort of lost their minds for a while, or shrank so far into the background that they might as well have been frightened children hiding in a closet from their abusive parents.

The air was infused with pine and juniper, scents I love. A small wind moved some of the branches overhead, where birds tweeted continuously, apparently
unaware of the 140-character limit.

I wasn’t what you would call an outdoorsman or a master tracker, but I could see footprints in the dirt with the best of them. And I saw them now. Boot prints. Men’s boots. How old, I didn’t know, but my guess was within the past few days.

I didn’t see another print, and certainly not a female’s. Which suggested that this was only  Gunther’s Lyft drop-off point. From here, he hiked. To where, I didn’t know. But to another vehicle, I suspected. And, of course, to a kill cabin.

With the sun now slipping behind the massive evergreens, I stepped over the cable barring the dirt road...and followed the prints.

At some point, I started jogging lightly, easily.

Not too much further, the footprints ended in a field of grass and I lost his trail. I looked for any telltale signs of beaten-down grass or a trail that might have picked up elsewhere. I didn’t find it.

The wind was blowing stronger now, flattening the grass. I spied the full moon above, creeping up from the distant horizon. It was getting darker, and I was losing hope, until I realized I had, of course, an ace up my sleeve.

Speaking of sleeves, I disrobed, bundled up my clothing, and summoned the single flame.

Chapter Thirty-eight

I was flying.

I also wasn’t too worried about being caught. After all, I was in a very remote part of the mountains, and the day was losing light rapidly, too rapidly for my taste.

Was there really a woman being held against her will, waiting to be feasted on? Even now, was she perhaps watching a man stalk and pace before her, slowly shape-changing throughout the day, and now, undoubtedly, much faster?

Hard to believe...but it was all adding up.

I didn’t need to know that I was down to the last twenty minutes. Hell, from up here and above the trees, I could see the sun slipping away to the west.

My clothing hung in a bundle below me on my talons, all stuffed into my purse, along with the gun and silver bullets.

I ranged far and wide, buffeted by wind, sometimes sailing, sometimes flapping hard. All while I searched with eyes that were a lot better than my own. From up here, I saw trash on the ground. I even saw mice scurrying. I saw rabbits and lizards, all while flying hundreds of feet above.

Still, I was losing hope.

Maybe Sheriff Stanley’s wife had been found. Maybe Elise really was missing in a traditional sort of way. Why did I jump to the conclusion that she had, in fact, gone missing for nefarious reasons?

The clues were all there. A missing hiker. The full moon. A werewolf on the run. It was all leading me to here. To where, exactly, I didn’t know, and soon, it wouldn’t matter. In about fifteen minutes, the werewolves of California would be fully transitioned and, from what I knew, out of their minds with blood lust. In fifteen minutes, all of this would be a moot point, unless I saw some sign of Gunther’s kill cabin.

And when the sun had gotten to the ten-minute mark, I saw something flash in a valley far below, a valley very nearly hidden beneath a canopy of trees. A flickering flame. I circled it, trying to get a bead on it, but it was mostly hidden at the bottom of two sheer rock walls.

And that’s when someone screamed.

I tucked in my great, leathery wings, and dove.

Chapter Thirty-nine

The canopy was too thick for my wingspan.

I alighted, instead, on an overhanging rock that afforded me a view into the narrow valley—and what I saw couldn’t have been more strange.

There wasn’t just one fire, but many. Most were attached to poles and scattered between the sheer cliff walls. There, to my left and what would be south, was a small cabin. Perhaps the kill cabin, perhaps not. I didn’t know.

Most interesting was the massive gate that sealed off entry into the valley—itself about as long as a football field. If I had to guess, the iron gate was a few dozen feet tall. The canyon walls that rose up starkly to the east and west were nearly sheer, difficult to climb, even for the most experienced mountaineer, and probably for a werewolf, too.

Most disturbing were the many, many men who now roamed at the bottom of the valley. All were naked, and all were very, very close to fully transforming into werewolves. I counted eight of them. Unfortunately, my weapon only carried six shots. And there, milling with the others, was Gunther. He, too, was nearly fully transformed. I didn’t recognize the others, but I was willing to bet Kingsley would have.

I thought I’d just discovered the source of their reluctance to speak with Kingsley. After all, a good representation of the werewolves of Southern California were here in this valley. My guess was, these were werewolves who preferred to consume live prey, unlike Kingsley who preferred the taste of the rotting and dead.

My eyes caught something else. There, staked to a pole in the center of the valley, was the object of the eight circling, partially-turned werewolves: a woman I could only guess was Elise. Her eyes were closed and she was weeping nearly uncontrollably. I didn’t blame her. After all, in a few minutes, she would be dead.

Behind me, out of sight, the sun was nearly set. I had, at best, five minutes.

The valley appeared to open beneath the thick forest canopy, as many of the trees grew straight out from the sheer rock walls. Perhaps there would be room to fly below, I didn’t know. But there was no way I was breaking through that tree canopy, not with this wingspan. No, from here, I would have to go at it alone as a human.

I closed my eyes, saw the image of my Samantha Moon self standing in the center of the flame, and a moment later, I was squatting there on the rocks, naked. But I wasn’t naked for long. One thing was for damn certain: I wasn’t going to fight eight werewolves naked. I dressed in seconds.

Now standing on the rock outcropping, fully clothed and holding the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum in my right hand, I considered my options. The partially-turned werewolves were much too far for me to squeeze off an accurate shot. Not to mention they were pacing and jumping and clawing the ground and their faces and each other.

They could smell me, too. Already, some of them were sniffing the air, and looking around wildly. The sun was just a minute or so from setting, and I knew what I had to do.

I closed my eyes...and saw the single flame...