Moon Stalked

by Aimee Easterling

  “Well, howdy, howdy.” Clarence’s eyes roamed across my breasts before skimming lower. He was a typical teenage boy with no veneer of politeness.

  Too late, I wished I’d taken advantage of the distraction my nakedness provided. But he was up there and I was down here and Grace was....

  “Looking for this?” Clarence’s foot nudged something. No, not something. Someone.

  The fact I could see Grace from the bottom of the cliff meant she was inches from rolling over. She lay still, hands lashed together with the end of the rope that the swing was still attached to. The wooden board pressed up against her skin.

  I clenched my fists, assessing the situation. Clarence had been more clever than I’d expected, finding rope to bind his captive then tricking me into heading to the bottom of Lover’s Leap while he hid on top. Still, he was alone and I had backup coming. The only question was—how long did I need to stall before my companions showed up?

  As if in answer, the still air was stirred by one last gasp of the storm’s energy. Clarence’s bitter aftershave wafted toward me followed by Grace’s fruity conditioner. My human nostrils shouldn’t have been able to catch the scents so strongly....

  Rather than skittering away from incipient wolfishness, I sank into it. Let my pelt seep partially into the skin of my shoulders as I strained for yet more information on the air.

  Yes, there it was. Luke’s delicious spiciness. A hint of gun oil. Backup was nearby, speeding toward us down the trail.

  So I raised my voice until it was loud enough to be heard even by distant humans. “You tied a fashion designer to a tree? Because...why? You thought she’d overpower you?”

  Grace had been so still up until this point that I’d thought she was unconscious. But now her eyes opened. The glare she pinned me with could have melted glass.

  She glared...then gasped as Clarence tugged on the rope that ran taut beside him. I hadn’t paid attention to the spiderweb of line after noting that it led to Clarence. But now I understood what he’d created while waiting for me to arrive.

  Because Clarence was a human spider. He liked to kill...and he apparently liked to build webs also.

  In this case, he’d taken the swing rope and wrapped it around tree after tree to create a pulley system. Clarence could walk the length of the cliff, leaving Grace behind but still threatening her. All he had to do was yank on the rope and Grace’s body would flip over the edge.

  THE WEBWORK WAS A CLEVER and effective threat, but I forced myself to ignore it. “She won’t hit the ground if she falls. It’s a swing. It’s meant to skim above the surface.”

  “You’re so right. How could I overlook that.” For a split second, Clarence’s face pinched in worry. Then he smacked his hands together, mimicking an explosion. “She’ll just slam into the side of the cliff. Pow! Fashion-designer puree.”

  The image of Grace’s body dangling by her arms as she splattered against the jagged cliff-face froze me. I had absolutely no answer, and my silence gave Clarence time to take the conversational lead.

  “Where’s my present?”

  That I could answer. “Bastion’s coming.” I hoped he was also on his feet and ready to grab for Clarence’s pelt. I hoped Luke’s werewolf senses had been sufficient to catch the drift of our conversation so he could utilize the element of surprise. If not....

  My fingers slid across my own fur, seeking comfort. And the motion backfired, drawing Clarence’s attention to something he was meant to overlook.

  “I’m sick of waiting.” He jerked his chin. “Toss that up.”

  “This? We talked about my fur already. It’ll only....”

  Up until this point, Clarence had been indolent. But now he dropped into a predator’s crouch, my dagger materializing in his hand so quickly he might as well have been lupine.

  He didn’t threaten again. Didn’t warn me. Instead, the blade flicked, left, right, left.

  Grace screamed. Blood spurted.

  Clarence bent his head, licking at the red fluid. And I didn’t hesitate. I wrapped my pelt around my back and was running before my forepaws hit the ground.

  THE SIDE OF LOVER’S Leap was too close to vertical for human access. Lupine, I could handle the slope, but rocks still skittered away from beneath my paws.

  Meanwhile, the rich aroma of iron rose like a bloody curtain. The harder my lungs billowed, the more I inhaled.

  Grace screamed a second time. I pushed my muscles faster. Off to my right, a more masculine yell boomed across the forested expanse.

  Luke was coming, but there wasn’t time to wait for him. I crested the rise. The clifftop was muddy. Bloody.

  Clarence and Grace were locked together. Between the rope and the dagger, I was afraid to attack them lupine. I shifted upward, mentally kicking myself as I rose.

  Why had I suggested drinking blood? It was a stupid, childish parry. My twin...

  ...broke free, hands still bound together. A jagged cut across the entire left side of her face oozed blood.

  The facial beauty she spent so much time perfecting had morphed into a Halloween mask of fury. Her eyes met mine. Piercing. Intense.

  I blanched. “Grace, I’m sorry....”

  My voice was little more than a whisper. But Clarence heard it. He swiveled, still crouching. His dagger arced upward, as if he might stab my sister next instead of taking another slice out of her.

  But he didn’t stab yet. Instead, he spoke with blood smeared across his mouth like a four-year-old’s attempt at applying lipstick. “Not so graceful now, is she?” Just like when we’d first met, he waggled his eyebrows...

  ...And Grace struck. Raising her bound hands above Clarence’s head, the trailing rope looped beneath his neck garrote-style. One yank and she’d pulled the rope tight. Another and she smiled as Clarence’s hands rose to claw at his throat, my dagger clattering to the rocks at their feet.

  Chapter 35

  Understanding hit me like a rock to the head. Grace hadn’t been requesting an apology. She’d been using twin-speak, begging me to attract Clarence’s attention.

  And I’d done so...but only through sheer dumb luck.

  It was clear my twin knew that. Clear that she resented my lack of faith in her abilities, my assumption that she’d be unable to strategize while a dagger was tearing away her beauty. Rather than meeting my gaze now, she averted her eyes, staring off into the dripping distance.

  Grace wanted me gone. I knew this as surely as I’d known where she was located during the DAR luncheon. But that wasn’t our only problem.

  Clarence was strong despite the rope cutting off his oxygen. He reached back, blindly but successfully. His fingers snagging in Grace’s hair...

  ...And I reacted without thinking. Right knee to his groin while my left hand slammed into his forearm. He folded in on himself with a gasp and a groan and I snatched the ragged pelt off his shoulders before it could splash into the mud.

  Lack of pelt deflated Clarence more than my blows had. His eyes squeezed shut; his face scrunched up as if a week of pent-up agony had released in a second.

  The rope connecting him to Grace was lax now, but I twitched it aside anyway. No need to give him a weapon. Speaking of which....

  I stooped, gathering up Uncle Reason’s dagger with bloody fingers. Looked up at my twin with questions in my eyes.

  I wanted to cut her free, but I’d have to touch her to do so. Unfortunately, her face was as stony as the cliff face. Her back might as well have been a razor-wire-topped fence.

  The dagger drooped in my hand. It was a relief when our cousins came pouring out from beneath the trees, and not because Grace and I needed backup.

  What we needed was an excuse to delay the conversation brewing in the air.

  I grabbed at the straw. Turned away from the twin whose face no longer resembled mine in even the most basic fashion. Strode over to Bastion—carried comatose between Luke and Justice—and wrapped our cousin up in his long-absent skin.

  NOTHING
HAPPENED. I held my breath until I could hold it no longer. And still Bastion lay unmoving beneath his ragged pelt.

  Meanwhile, out of the corner of my eye, I caught flickers of motion. Slim sawed through the rope binding Grace’s hands then ripped off a sleeve to press against her facial wound. Luke used the same rope’s bitter end to hogtie Clarence. After that, they joined us, hovering around the comatose form of my favorite cousin, five of us waiting for magic to bring Bastion back from wherever he’d gone.

  But even though Bastion breathed, there appeared to be no life left in him. His skin was clammy. His face was gray. I could barely see his chest rise and fall.

  “This is how he was before...” Justice closed his eyes. “You know.”

  I did know. I tried to drape my own fur across Bastion for an additional boost of energy, but the pelts repelled each other like similarly charged magnets. The ragged fur slid sideways, losing contact with Bastion’s body. Mine leapt back to smack me across the face.

  Grace’s eyes flashed as she rearranged the moth-bitten pelt across Bastion’s torso. “We don’t need you.” She twitched the pelt again to center it, in the process shouldering me out of the circle of watchers.

  Pushed aside, I glanced at Clarence to make sure he wasn’t creeping off to wreak further havoc. To my surprise, the boy lay flat on his back, his face even paler than Bastion’s had been.

  I stepped closer. “He’s barely breathing.”

  There was an empty spot in my chest where I should have felt pity. Yes, Clarence had killed three innocents. But he was a kid, dying of cancer. He’d been desperate, clutching at straws.

  And...the extenuating circumstances meant nothing. Clarence could die right now and I wouldn’t lost any sleep over it.

  Luke’s hand on my shoulder was what reminded me of my promise. The implicit one I’d made to the Smythewhites when I accepted their offer of employment. The explicit one I’d made to Luke when we thought Clarence was a young werewolf not yet aware of his lupine abilities.

  I cleared my throat. “We have to get Clarence to a hospital.”

  Grace spoke without looking. “Why are you still here then?”

  “My pelt. It might help you.”

  I reached out to hand over the item in question, but my twin failed to mirror the motion. Instead she shrugged. Ignored me as I hesitated then folded the fur atop a rock.

  Justice was too deep in concern for Bastion to countermand her. So Luke was the one to assess the Clarence situation by my side. “We’ll be faster if we trade off carrying him.”

  Slim nodded, reaching out to wipe incriminating blood off Clarence’s face with the one sleeve he had remaining. “There are clothes for you in my car,” he promised, joining himself to Luke’s plan, and to mine by proxy.

  So that’s how we went—a human and a skinless my only backup. The four of us survived an hour of exertion and sorrow. Forest, car, emergency room. The doctor’s question when we were finally admitted was clipped.

  “What happened?”

  I shook my head. There were no words to explain the horror.

  “We went hiking,” Luke interjected. “Clarence has cancer. He fell.”

  Such a simple explanation...and they bought it. No one asked about my bare feet, Slim’s one-sleeved shirt, or the too-large clothes that barely covered my blood-stained fingers. All they wanted to know was Clarence’s medical history, contact information for his parents, whether we had a copy of his insurance card.

  I found myself laughing hysterically at the final question. “Insurance? There is no insurance. What happens happens.”

  I could plan my entire life around regaining my self-name, could dive in to help my twin when she was being mauled by a serial killer, and she’d still resent me. Despite every effort, Bastion would fade until there was nothing left in his pelt to top his vitality up.

  Luke’s arms wrapped around me. “Shock,” he explained, guiding me out of the waiting room and into a unisex bathroom. The light stayed off as he clicked the door shut behind us. I didn’t resist as he pulled me close until my head pressed in the hollow beneath his shoulder.

  “You’re safe,” he promised, and still I stood with my whole body clenched like a fist that was unable to open. “You were honorable,” he added.

  And there, in the cinnamon-scented darkness, I finally fell apart.

  Chapter 36

  “Here.”

  Something soft slipped between my fingers as I drew away from Luke in the darkness. The offering wasn’t a handkerchief—just a wad of fresh toilet paper. Still, the gesture went further toward drying my tears than the absorbent material could by itself.

  “Thanks.” My voice quavered, so I covered the tremble by fumbling around in search of the faucet. Cold water splashing on my skin made me feel human enough to hunt for the light switch. Before I found it, the fluorescents above our heads flickered to life.

  I rubbed both hands across my face, swiping away stray liquid. Took a deep breath. Returned to task.

  “I need to make sure the Smythewhites know about Clarence. Slim is a knowledge bomb just waiting to detonate. And Bastion...”

  Luke was no longer perfectly groomed, but he was still perfect. “Will I be an alpha asshole,” he asked, “if I offer to fix whichever problem you least want to deal with?”

  Despite everything, I laughed. Well, barked out a tiny jolt of humor. “You’re not an alpha asshole.” Alpha protector maybe. I could still feel the ghost of his arms pressing warmth into my skin.

  Like an alpha protector, he didn’t take my words as an invitation. Instead, he awaited further instructions. And, after a moment of consideration, I gave him the task I most wanted but where I was wanted least.

  “Bastion. But....”

  As soon as the name came out of my mouth, I wanted to take it back. Was I really sending one of the skinless to watch over a cousin so sick he couldn’t shift and flee to protect his newly regained pelt? My exhausted brain tried to pull together a metaphor combining a wolf in sheep’s clothing and Little Red Riding Hood, the resulting silence stretching out so long that Luke’s jaw clenched.

  “I will do whatever you are most comfortable with,” he told me carefully.

  And the half-formed metaphor shattered into shards of melting sugar water. Whatever horror stories I’d heard about skinless, this was Luke. I trusted him with my cousin. I trusted him with much more than my cousin.

  Without glancing down, my fingers slid into his fingers. Squeezed. His return gesture was an electric paddle restarting my heart.

  “I don’t know what else can be done,” I murmured.

  Luke had an answer for that also. “We can make sure he’s comfortable. Hook up an IV. Force fluids. Provide stimulating music. Or calming darkness. Alternate the two, maybe.”

  Clearly we hadn’t done everything Luke could think of. Together, we’d get through this. Trusting Luke with my family left my brain clear to deal with the humans on my list.

  “Thank you,” I told him, fully meaning it this time.

  To my surprise, Luke shook his head in rejection. The corners of his eyes crinkled just a little.

  “You don’t have to thank members of your pack.”

  SLIM WAS NO LONGER alone in the waiting room when I returned to it. Instead, the Smythewhites hovered around a beleaguered doctor, peppering the young woman with questions they didn’t like the answers to.

  “But he was fine yesterday.” Mr. Smythewhite slammed one fist into the other, the force of his anger driving the slender doctor back a step.

  She was young, perhaps still in her residency. Inexperience might be why she gave the couple more information than they were emotionally equipped to handle.

  “That’s sometimes how it happens.” She clasped her hands together earnestly. “A blessing, really. No slow decline. Just healthy one day then a coma the next. It’s better than the alternative.”

  If we’d been in a cartoon, Mr. Smythewhite’s glare would have made the doctor’
s coat catch fire. Instead, she merely flinched as he threatened: “I’ll sue this hospital...”

  Mrs. Smythewhite placed a hand on her husband’s arm to silence him. Her voice was barely above a whisper when she asked, “Are you saying our son’s never going to wake up again?”

  “At this point, even hospice care isn’t indicated. We’ll keep him here until....” The doctor trailed off as Mr. Smythewhite huffed out something incoherent, turned on his heel, and left the room.

  The door slammed shut behind him and Mrs. Smythewhite didn’t try to smooth over her husband’s behavior. Just asked: “May I see Clarence?”

  “Of course. Right this way.”

  Then they were gone, leaving me alone with Slim. So I guessed I’d deal with that problem sooner rather than later. I sank down onto the next chair over, cracked plastic scraping my skin through the thin rain pants Slim had given me out of his car’s trunk. Perhaps if I....

  The previous owner of my pants broached the issue before I could come up with a game plan. “You’re getting ready to tell me that werewolves are a secret. I can’t tell anyone. You’ll start with a threat then move on to a bribe.”

  “Um, well, yeah.” Way to steal my thunder.

  “I’ve been thinking about Bastion’s stories.”

  Now the ground was firming up beneath me. Of course that was what it would take to silence the bounty hunter.

  I nodded and promised: “We’ll still make that happen.” If Bastion couldn’t—

  I swallowed, stopping that thought trail cold. If necessary, then I’d write a story starring Slim in larger-than-life glory. The result wouldn’t be as gripping as what my cousin could manage, but....

  Only, Slim was shaking his head. “Naw. Doesn’t matter.”

  Shit. I clenched my fists. This wasn’t the time or the place for an ultimatum.

  Only it wasn’t an ultimatum that Slim laid out on the magazine-lined table between us. “That’s what I realized,” he explained into the loaded silence. “I didn’t want a story written about me. I wanted to be part of a story.”