Witching Moon

by Rebecca York

  Once or twice he stopped. The witch woman’s scent was strong outside a Main Street shop that sold greeting cards. He stopped and dragged in a deep breath. She had been here. He was certain of that. But the trail ended in the parking area. Did she work in the store? He could come back during the day and find out.

  No. He could only come back at night until the witches were put out of action. The minute they knew he was off the park property, they might go after Sara. And he couldn’t take that chance. They knew where to find her, and he was the only thing that would keep them away.

  IN the warm glow of the table lamps, Sara looked around the small room where she waited for her man to return. It was rustic and simple, but she liked it. Maybe because it was where Adam lived. She felt his presence here, even when there wasn’t much to see of his personality in the room. He hadn’t set out any family photos. Or mementos of his assignments. Probably he’d lived in a lot of parks around the country. But you couldn’t tell it from looking at his house. He was a man who had lived a solitary life. And now he was reaching out to her. More than that, he had totally changed her perception of herself. He accepted her for who she was. What she was. And she hadn’t really thanked him for that, she realized.

  “Adam.” She murmured his name, partly because it filled the silence of the room. She supposed she could put on the television set or the radio. But she wanted neither distraction.

  Leaning back, she closed her eyes, opening herself to something that came from within. Inviting psychic energy to bubble up in her mind. It was a strange task, because she had no idea what she was doing. She didn’t have one shred of control over her special abilities. Long ago, she had worked hard to shut a door in her mind. She had taken her father’s word that the visions from her past or her flashes of insight into the present were strange or abnormal, bad elements to be rooted out of her life. And now Adam was telling her they weren’t bad. He was telling her they might even be the key to her survival.

  She tried to imagine where he might be. He had walked away from the cabin on two legs. He hadn’t exactly said so, but she was pretty sure it was the wolf who had gone into Wayland.

  A little frisson went through her. Going into town as a wolf was dangerous. But he had done it for her.

  She tried to imagine him now, a gray shadow moving through the darkened streets. A clear image formed in her mind. But she was still unsure of herself. The image was just as likely her imagination as anything real.

  ADAM waited at the entrance to an alley, his gaze darting up and down Main Street, probing the darkness between the overhead lights, his ears tuned to danger.

  No one moved on the street, and he trotted forward again, then stopped short as he caught another familiar smell.

  It was the hidden watcher he had spotted outside Sara’s house. One of the witches! It had to be.

  The man’s distinctive essence filled his head. It started outside one of the shops. The dry cleaners.

  That night at the cabin, the guy had escaped in his car. But now Adam had picked up his trail in town. Did he work at that shop? Or had he just been dropping off or picking up his cleaning?

  Riveted to the man’s odor, intent on the hunt, Adam followed the trail down the sidewalk, praying that the guy lived nearby, praying that he hadn’t gotten into a car and driven away, leaving another dead end. He trotted along one block, then another, his breath burning in his lungs from the tension of not knowing. Three blocks from the dry cleaners he came to a small house, a bungalow walled off by a low boxwood hedge.

  He went past, and the scent was less sharp. Turning back he stepped onto the front walk, breathing deeply.

  The guy lived here. Or he had spent a lot of time here.

  It wasn’t what Adam would have pictured for a witch’s lair. It was an ordinary house. But very well kept, he decided as he looked up at the porch which sat three steps above the walk. His gaze skimmed the white wicker furniture and the pots of impatiens. The wide porch roof was supported by massive stone pillars. The siding was yellow clapboard and looked newly painted. Stepping back, he took in the grounds. Even in the darkness, he saw that every inch of the front yard was planted with neatly mulched beds of flowers and vegetables set among paths of natural wood rounds.

  He made out beds of daylilies. Some yellow flowers he’d seen before but couldn’t name, tomato plants. Green bean vines. Hydrangeas. The front of the house was dark. He stepped around the side. Through a lighted window, he saw a man sitting in a leather recliner.

  He was totally focused on his quest, so intent on his purpose that the rest of the world had ceased to exist. A dangerous situation for a wolf on the streets of Wayland.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  SARA FELT A shudder go through her. Once before when Adam had prowled the dark streets of Wayland, she had warned him to run.

  Now it seemed like she was there with him again. Only the scene was more vivid. More real. This time it felt like she was standing right next to the wolf.

  He was in the side yard of a small house, looking up toward a lighted room.

  Someone was inside. And a shock of recognition went through her as she took in the man’s face.

  At any other time, he would have commanded her total attention. But she knew there was something else more important in the scene.

  She had caught a glimpse of the street in front of the house where a police car was gliding slowly and silently forward.

  It must be Delacorte. Or one of his deputies. And he must have seen the wolf.

  “Adam—Watch out!”

  She was sitting alone in the living room of the cabin. But her vision was focused on the garden of a house miles away. In that scene, she saw the wolf’s body go rigid, saw him raise his head and look around.

  “Run,” she shouted again into the empty living room. “Use the alley and not the street. Delacorte’s out there.”

  Her body was back at the cabin, but her mind was somewhere else. With Adam. With the wolf. At least part of her mind.

  A split second later, he faded back into shadows, then trotted off into the backyard and hurried through the alley.

  She saw the sheriff stop the car and get out, shining his light into the bushes and up and down the street. But the gray shape had made his escape. And all Sara could do was sit there on the couch, her arms wrapped around her shoulders, waiting for Adam to return.

  AS Adam turned the knob on the front door, he saw Sara through the glass. She was huddled on the sofa, her shoulders hunched and her eyes closed. When he’d left, he’d pictured her in his bed. Now he was glad that she was still up and dressed.

  The slight noise had her gaze shooting in his direction, and she was off the sofa and throwing the door open before he could get out his key.

  She flung herself into his arms, pressing herself to him, her hands locking over his shoulders. “Are you all right?”

  “Yes.” He waited a beat. “Because you warned me again.”

  He stepped through the open door and closed it behind himself, leaning back against the solid surface as he hugged her to him.

  “I was trying to do what you told me, trying to…to hook into…my powers. And then I saw you. Only I didn’t know if it was real. But…it…it felt real. And when I saw the police car, I knew you had to get out of there.” The words were high and shaky, and he realized she was near to hysteria. “Then I couldn’t tell if it had worked, if you’d gotten away.”

  “It’s all right. It’s all right,” he whispered, his fingers kneading the tense muscles of her neck and shoulders.

  He had come rushing back here to tell her something important. But now that she was in his arms, all he could do was hold on to her. She was the one who eased away so that she could meet his eyes. “Before Delacorte came, you saw the Blackberry Man,” she gulped out. “Inside the house.”

  He tipped his head to one side, trying to make sense of her words. “Who?”

  “Well, that’s the name I gave him.
I saw him in the woods a few times near my cabin.”

  “I think he’s one of the witches.”

  “He’s not!”

  “How do you know?”

  “I…” She stopped, made a helpless gesture. “I don’t know. I just think you’re wrong. He was always friendly.”

  “Yeah, he’d have to act friendly, wouldn’t he, if he didn’t want to seem like a threat? But we’re going to find out.”

  She goggled at him. “How?”

  “We’re going back to his house. I’d like to confront him on my own, but I’m not going to leave you in the park without protection.”

  She glanced from him to the darkness out the window, then back again. “You mean we’re going now?”

  “Yeah, now.”

  She gave him a panicked look, and he knew she was frightened. He could have told her that he’d rip the guy’s throat out if he tried to hurt her. But he kept that insight to himself.

  “Wouldn’t…wouldn’t it be better to wait until the morning?” she stammered.

  He shook his head. “This is the perfect time. It’s so late that the witches may not be watching the park entrance. I think the guy’s alone in the house. I want to confront him while he’s not with his buddies.”

  “But what…what if you’re right about him? What if he attacks us?” she gasped out.

  “I’m hoping he keeps up the pretense that he’s friendly. And if he doesn’t, we can handle him together,” he said, projecting confidence because that was the only way to deal with the situation.

  He hurried her into the car before she could marshal another protest. Then, as a precaution, he took the alternate route out of the park, using the road where she’d come in that first day. It was only a quarter mile from the main entrance, but it might fool the witches.

  He drove with his headlights off down the narrow gravel lane and didn’t switch them on until he was a mile down the highway. As far as he could see, there was nobody following them. But, of course, the coven, or whatever they called themselves, could be using the same tactics that he was employing, driving in the dark with their lights off.

  Sara sat rigidly in her seat, and he wished to hell he didn’t have to drag her to this confrontation. But leaving her alone was not an option. A few minutes later, he pulled up in front of the small house, then went around to open the passenger door.

  She stepped out, and they both stood on the sidewalk, staring at the residence.

  “It looks so normal,” she whispered.

  “Yeah.”

  When a flash of movement caught his attention, he turned his head and saw a police cruiser rolling to a stop beside them.

  Shit! He should have driven around the block, looking for the cops. He should have realized that if Delacorte had been here earlier, he might have staked the place out, checking to see if the wolf came back. Unfortunately, his mind had been focused on the guy Sara called the Blackberry Man.

  Now they were going to have some explaining to do.

  The lawman got out, walking stiffly toward them.

  Adam cursed again under his breath.

  “What’s up?” Delacorte asked.

  He stuck with a version of the truth. “The guy who lives here was the man I saw lurking around Sara’s house. I want to talk to him, but I don’t think it’s safe to leave Sara by herself. So I brought her along.”

  “How do you know it’s the guy?”

  It was then that Adam knew he’d made another bad mistake. What reason could he give now, a reason that wouldn’t tie him to the werewolf?

  He was a good talker. But he’d jumped in with an explanation before his brain was fully engaged.

  He realized Sara was speaking. “I asked him to bring me here,” she said.

  Delacorte’s attention focused on her with the intensity of a laser beam. “And why is that?” he asked.

  He saw her swallow, wondered what in the hell she was going to say. “The other night you asked why the witches might be after me. I didn’t want to tell you then because…because it was too personal.” She dragged in a breath and let it out in a rush. “What I didn’t want to tell you then was that I’m Jenna Foster’s daughter.”

  The sheriff gave a tight nod. “I was wondering if that might be true.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re the right age. Because it looked like somebody wanted you back in that house.”

  Adam moved to Sara’s side and put his arm around her. “You don’t have to tell him any more,” he muttered.

  She turned to him briefly. “I think I do.” Addressing the sheriff again, she said, “When I moved into the cabin, I started having memory flashbacks. I didn’t know what was happening to me, so I went back to my adopted parents’ house and made my mother tell me some things she’s kept hidden all these years. That was last night. I was on my way back to the park to talk to Adam about it when the witches forced me off the road.”

  “And when she told me about the guy hanging around her house, I figured he was one of them,” Adam jumped back into the conversation.

  Delacorte looked doubtful. “The man who lives here?”

  “Yes,” Adam answered, hoping the sheriff wasn’t going to question the logic gap in their explanation.

  “I’ll be surprised if he’s one of them,” Delacorte said.

  THE clan gathered in the shadows under the trees. Falcon and his band of followers. Willow. Water Lily. Grizzly. Razorback. Copperhead. Raven’s Claw. Greenbriar. Water Buffalo. And Starflower. He was glad the rest of them were here. He needed to feel their presence. They had become part of him in a way that he couldn’t explain. All of them. But the one he needed the most was Starflower.

  She was the strongest of the women. Almost his equal. And she would play a key role tonight.

  They were all naked—except for loincloths. And they would shed those later.

  All of them except Starflower were wearing bright designs of paint in streaks and circles all over their bodies, the way they’d been on the nights of the ceremony. Because tonight was another special occasion. This was a crucial test of their power. And a time for celebration, because they were finally turning the tables on one of their enemies. More than one if everything worked out the way it should.

  They came through the swamp, drifting like brightly painted birds through the fog that rose from the cooling ground.

  A large bulk loomed in the background. The house. But Falcon knew his way around. Which was why he headed for one of the guest houses. Through the window, he saw a man sitting in an easy chair.

  “Go get him,” he said to Starflower.

  She smiled, thrusting out her magnificent naked breasts before she stepped up to the door and knocked.

  ADAM shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “If you don’t think the man who lives here is one of the witches, then who is he?”

  “Dr. Montgomery didn’t just move to town. I remember him when I was a little kid.”

  Sara looked stunned. “He told me his name. He didn’t say he was Dr. Montgomery.”

  “Well, he was the botany teacher at the community college until he retired a few years ago.”

  Adam felt a shiver travel down his spine as he remembered an item from the newspaper he’d seen. “The botany teacher…” he repeated. “Back in the year Barnette bought the land for Nature’s Refuge, Dr. Montgomery was starting a course on herbal remedies at the community college.”

  THE night air was cool, but Sara felt beads of sweat break out on her skin. She backed away from the two men and darted quickly up the walk. Before she could give herself time to think, she rang the bell. She was aware of Adam and the sheriff climbing the stairs behind her, but all her attention was focused on the slim man with salt-and-pepper hair who had turned on the porch light and was peering through the front window.

  When he saw her, his wrinkled face went pale.

  But she wasn’t seeing him exactly as he was. She was seeing his face without lines. Seeing hi
m with dark hair. Seeing him come striding toward the cabin with a jaunty step, like he was escaping from his everyday existence into a world of magic.

  The lock clicked and he opened the door, his eyes fixed on her.

  Something she couldn’t name passed between them, and in that moment she was sure.

  “You figured it out,” he said in a raspy voice.

  “Yes. You’re my father.”

  He stepped back, and she followed him inside. Adam and Delacorte were behind her, but she didn’t take her gaze from the old man.

  “How do you know?” he asked.

  “I guess I was a little slow. But I finally got it.”

  He nodded, studying her face. “You look just like your mother, you know. I saw you at the cabin that first time, and for a few moments, I thought it was her, come back from the dead. I’ve missed her every day since that night. I’ve missed you.”

  She fought a choking sensation. It was hard to keep standing in front of this man who had betrayed her and had chosen to keep lying to her. “You abandoned me.”

  “What choice did I have?”

  “You could have taken me to live with you!” Somehow she managed not to shout the words.

  “I found you a good home. I sent you money.”

  “Money. Yes, money,” she whispered, her eyes blazing. “Did that help salve your conscience? Did that make up for your being ashamed of me and my mother?”

  “I wasn’t ashamed of you!”

  “You only came to our house when you could sneak away from town.”

  “You don’t understand how it was.”

  “Why don’t you tell me?” she shot back, unable to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

  He looked at her pleadingly. “I used to go off into the swamp gathering plants, just like I do now. That’s where I met your mother. She was a ray of sunshine in my life. I couldn’t believe that someone so sweet and beautiful could be interested in me.”