Melee

by Kristy Tate

  “Stop it. You didn’t kill Jason!”

  “How do you know? I woke near his house! I saw the police cars and ambulance. I watched them load him into the coroner’s van. I had to make my way home—naked—through the woods without being seen!” He pointed at his chest. “I don’t even know whose blood this is!”

  Lizbet stared at the muscles rippling across his torso. She couldn’t meet his eyes. “That’s bad.”

  “Yeah. I can’t live with this.”

  She bounced from her chair to take both his hands in hers. “You have to! There isn’t an alternative.”

  “Really? Because I can think of a few.” He sucked in a deep breath. “You said you cured Tickles.”

  “I’m not going to feed you silver dust and raw meat. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Oh—and running through the woods and killing people isn’t?”

  “Stop it.” She slapped his arm. “You did not kill Jason.”

  “What about the other girl? Courtney Derringer. I probably killed her, too.”

  “No. I don’t believe it. They say that a person under hypnosis wouldn’t do anything that breaks their moral code and being under hypnosis is probably a lot like being a werewolf.”

  “Declan the teenager has a high moral code, but how do I know what kind of animal Declan the wolf is? Do you think wolves are vegetarians?” He scooped out the eggs onto two plates, pulled two forks from the silverware drawer, and sat down at the kitchen table. He pointed his fork at her. “You have to do to me whatever it is you did to Tickles.” He took a few bites of eggs and chewed on the bacon. “Could I talk to him?”

  She blinked. “You could try, I guess.” She watched Declan shoveling his breakfast into his mouth. Carefully, as if the plate were fragile, she picked it up and sat down at the table across from him. Studying him, she tried to imagine how he must be feeling. Worried. Guilt stricken. Confused. She was all of those things, too.

  Lizbet pushed her eggs around her plate, trying to summon up hope or at least an appetite. As hard as it was to believe that Declan could be a werewolf, she found it even harder to believe that he could have anything to do with Jason’s death or Courtney’s disappearance.

  AFTER DECLAN SHOWERED and dressed, he got on the back of Lizbet’s motorbike and rode with her to Baxter’s house. If Mrs. Dresden was surprised to see him so early in the morning, she was even more surprised when Declan asked if he could take Tickles for a walk. She wore a fluffy pink bathroom and a pair of furry bunny slippers. Tickles wiggled beside her, wagging his stub of a tail.

  “I was hard on Baxter the other day on the basketball court so I thought I’d make it up to him by doing his chore,” Declan lied.

  Mrs. Dresden blinked. “That’s really kind of you, but you must know that Baxter hasn’t taken Tickles on a walk for at least a year.”

  “Well, then he probably really wants to go, don’t you, boy?” Declan knelt beside the Schnauzer and rubbed between his ears. Tickles whimpered.

  Mrs. Dresden raised her eyebrows. “It’s hard to argue with altruism. Just a minute, let me find his leash.”

  Baxter shuffled down the hall wearing a pair of Star Wars pajamas and a white T-shirt. He looked rumpled and sleepy. “What are you doing here?” he asked.

  “Walking your dog,” Declan replied.

  “Why?”

  “It’s National Walk a Dog Day.” Declan fondled Tickles’ ears and wouldn’t meet Baxter’s eyes.

  “Then why aren’t you walking your own dog?” Baxter asked.

  “Who says I didn’t?” Declan straightened. “Do you have a problem with me walking your dog?”

  “Yeah. It’s weird.” Baxter shrugged. “But it’s your picnic. I’m sure Tickles won’t mind.”

  But the dog did mind.

  “I don’t really want to talk about that painful episode,” Tickles told Lizbet as soon as they were away from the house and in the shelter of the woods.

  “But the cure worked, right?” Lizbet pressed.

  “Yes, it did. Sort of.”

  “What’s he saying?” Declan asked.

  “What do you mean, ‘sort of’?” Lizbet asked the dog.

  He gave a doggy version of a shrug. “Maybe it worked, maybe it didn’t. Because of the electric fence, I no longer leave the property, but sometimes I still find myself outside in the morning without knowing how I got there.”

  “He still has episodes that he can’t explain,” Lizbet told Declan. “But he knows he doesn’t leave the property because of the electric fence.”

  “Great. All I need is an electric fence.” Declan stared out at the trees and lifted his chin. “I still want to try it.”

  “Fine. I’ll make it, but you can’t eat it until you’re a wolf.”

  “What are we going to do all day while we wait?”

  “Why don’t we try to figure out if there’s any connection between Jason’s death and Courtney’s disappearance?”

  Tickles looked from one to the other. “Why don’t you join Courtney’s search party? That’s what I would do if I were you.”

  THE MID-AFTERNOON SUN backlit the tops of the grove of aspen trees. The tall yellow grass pricked Lizbet’s legs as she and Declan waded toward the patrol car parked at the edge of the woods near Carlton Field. There were police officers, firefighters, and a collection of community volunteers. Many had dogs on leashes and a few carried rifles. Overhead, drones flew, skimming the tops of the trees.

  “We should have brought Rufus,” Lizbet whispered. The guns made her nervous. Why bring them? Was everyone as concerned about the wolves as she was? Or did they think the kidnapper was still around?

  Declan put his hand to his forehead.

  “What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Lizbet asked, worrying about his pale color and the faraway look in his eyes.

  He shook like a dog trying to shake off water.

  “What is it?”

  “So weird,” he muttered. “My sense of smell...it’s making me nuts.” He put his hands on both sides of his head. “I’m going insane.”

  Lizbet wrapped her arm around his waist and tried to steer him away from the woods and fields. “We don’t have to do this. We can just go home.”

  Declan shook himself again. “No. I want to be here. I want to help. I have to know...”

  “Your heightened senses should be an advantage, right?”

  He blinked, and told her about his basketball game with Baxter and McNally and his increased strength.

  “Maybe there’s an upside to being a monster,” Lizbet said.

  A slight man with a German Shepherd on a very short leash climbed from a Range Rover and also headed toward the patrol car. The dog spotted Lizbet and whimpered. “I don’t want to be on this leash.”

  She sent him a sympathetic glance.

  “I want to run. Why won’t he let me run?”

  Lizbet ran her hand over the dog’s head. “He’s beautiful,” she told the man.

  “He’s really strong,” the man said, tightening his hold on the leash. “I keep telling my wife he’ll be more manageable as he matures, but it’s not happening.”

  “How old is he?” Lizbet asked.

  “Nearly two.”

  Lizbet smiled. “He’s a teenager and you know what they say about those.”

  The man grinned. “You’re a teenager, right? I don’t see you bucking on a leash.”

  “Oh, I definitely would if anyone tried to put one on me.” Lizbet scratched the fur between the dog’s ears. “You’re a good boy, huh?” she addressed the dog.

  He whimpered. “It doesn’t matter how good I am, I never get treats.”

  “Have you tried giving him Cheerios?” Lizbet asked the man. “Dogs love Cheerios.”

  The man snorted. “I don’t want to make him fat!”

  Lizbet sent the teen-dog another sympathetic look as the man pulled on the leash.

  The search party had obviously been in full force for a number of hours, but the officer standin
g near the patrol car looked pleased to see them. “Nicole Gunner last saw Courtney Derringer in this vicinity. We have an article of her clothing—” He held up a letterman jacket for the dog to smell.

  Beside her, Declan flinched and Lizbet noticed.

  “What is it?” Lizbet whispered as soon as they were alone in the woods.

  “The letterman jacket, it’s Nicole’s.”

  “Are you sure? How can you tell? It looked like she had a tennis patch.”

  “They’re both on the tennis team. Or they were, but the smell...”

  “Maybe they both wore the same perfume, or used the same shampoo.”

  Declan shook his head. “No. That smell. It belongs to just Nicole.”

  She slid him a sideways glance. “It’s kind of creepy you know that. How do I smell?”

  He grinned. “Like something I want to eat really, really badly.”

  She stopped and stared at him. A shaft of sunlight broke through the trees’ canopy and landed on his hair. “Really?”

  “Really, really.”

  “Well, please don’t.”

  He grinned and turned and marched toward a grove of aspens. As they walked, the grove of aspens began to thin. A rugged path snaked along the edge of the cliff that lined the acres of swamp.

  “Declan?” Lizbet asked. “Are you intentionally heading toward the slough?”

  “Seems like a good place to hide a body,” Declan said.

  Lizbet shivered as she studied the thick marsh when they reached the edge of the cliff. A sheer thirty-foot drop marked with rocks and clusters of ferns bordered the slough. Small streams cut through the wetland’s patches of pussy willows and reeds. Ducks floated in the brackish water, and Lizbet noted several beaver dams.

  Above her, a squirrel chattered. Lizbet glanced around. No one else seemed to be in earshot. “Hello,” she called to the squirrel. “We’re looking for a missing girl.” She paused, realizing that she didn’t even know what Courtney looked like. She elbowed Declan. “Describe her.”

  Declan stared at the squirrel. “Are you telling me he can understand me?”

  “Of course she can.”

  “She speaks English?”

  “No. She chatters.” Lizbet folded her arms. “How did you think I communicate with them?”

  “I don’t know. I guess I thought it was telepathic.”

  “Telepathic? That’s just silly.”

  Declan raised his eyebrows. “Silly is no longer relevant. Anything is possible.”

  She considered him. “Maybe so.” She nudged him again. “Go ahead, describe Courtney.”

  “She’s tall, has reddish-brown hair, and she usually wears tennis shorts.”

  Lizbet smirked. “The squirrel doesn’t know what tennis shorts are.”

  A sudden low growling stopped their argument. A patch of diffused morning light shone through the canopy of trees, illuminating the unruly German Shepherd they had seen earlier. He stood erect with his head lowered and his tail pointing straight behind him. His vicious stance made him both terrible and beautiful. Men, guns, and barking dogs followed. The fur on the back of the German Shepherd’s neck rose like a mohawk as he lunged toward the squirrel.

  Lizbet stood helplessly at the edge of the cliff watching the slight man try to control his dog. Someone bumped her from behind.

  On her descent over the cliff, Lizbet felt nothing but surprise on finding herself airborne. She called for help, but the report of a shotgun drowned out her voice. Her hands frantically clutched at the ferns and rocks protruding from the cliff wall as she sailed past, but nothing stopped her fall until she smacked into something large, warm, and furry.

  Supernatural is a dangerous and difficult word in any of its senses, looser or stricter. But to fairies it can hardly be applied unless super is taken merely as a superlative prefix. For it is man who is, in contrast to fairies, supernatural (and often of diminutive stature); whereas they are natural, far more natural than he. Such is their doom.

  J.R.R. Tolkien

  From Lizbet’s Studies

  CHAPTER 5

  Above her, a woman screamed.

  The German Shepherd barked like he’d treed a raccoon and bucked on his leash while his master swore and fought for control.

  “Lizbet!” Declan called as he started to scramble down the incline.

  Two burly men each grabbed one of his arms.

  “Don’t do it, son,” a man in a black and white flannel shirt said.

  Lizbet glanced up at the big black bear holding her gently in his arms. “I’m okay, Leroy, you can put me down,” she whispered.

  The creature carefully set her on the ground. The loose dirt slipped beneath her feet and she grabbed a nearby huckleberry bush to stop her from sliding any farther.

  Leroy roared and those gathered at the cliff’s edge all flinched. A man raised his gun.

  “Don’t shoot! You’ll hit the girl!” a woman cried.

  “I’m okay,” Lizbet called to the crowd above. “I’m not even hurt.”

  She felt Leroy’s gaze on her back as she scrambled up the hill.

  The man with the gun at his shoulder took aim at the bear. Lizbet grabbed the gun barrel and pointed it at the ground. “Don’t be stupid,” she said through clenched teeth while Leroy disappeared into a thicket of trees.

  Declan grabbed her and folded her into his arms. “What happened?”

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled into his shirt. “Someone knocked into me.”

  “On purpose?” He pulled away from her to gaze into her eyes while running his hands over her arms.

  She shrugged, feeling sick and shaky.

  “That bear.” A woman pushed forward and pulled a tiny notepad and a pencil out of her breast pocket. “He saved you. Remarkable.”

  “Yes,” Lizbet said, trying to sound as surprised as the people gathered around her.

  “Did you have any prior experience with him?” the woman with the pad and pencil asked.

  Lizbet blinked at the woman and tried to come up with a response. “How could I?”

  “Well, maybe he was trained or domesticated...somehow,” the woman pressed.

  “Not by me!” A nervous giggle escaped Lizbet’s lips.

  “Those Russian dancing bears are supposed to be really tame,” the man with the German Shepherd said.

  “You can’t even control your dog,” a man in a black cowboy hat scoffed. “What makes you think you could tame a bear?”

  “I didn’t say I was going to tame a bear,” the man said. “I’m just saying not all bears are vicious.”

  Declan ran his hands over Lizbet as if searching for broken bones or torn skin. “Let’s go,” he said in her ear.

  LIZBET’S AUNT JOSIE slammed through the front door, and shook her finger at Lizbet and Declan sitting on the living room sofa before stomping into the kitchen. Declan raised his eyebrows in question. Lizbet answered with a shrug. Moments later, raised voices came from the next room.

  Josie emerged and Elizabeth, wringing her hands in her apron, followed.

  “Tell me about the bear.” Josie planted herself in front of Lizbet and crossed her skinny arms. Even though it was Saturday, Josie still wore a business suit, as if she had a board meeting to attend.

  Lizbet and Declan exchanged glances.

  “It was no biggie,” Lizbet said.

  A vein in Josie’s neck throbbed. “That’s not what I heard.”

  “I didn’t hear anything about this,” Elizabeth said, and she settled down in the La-Z-Boy rocker across from the sofa.

  “Like I said, it wasn’t a big deal,” Lizbet said. “I didn’t think either of you would be interested.”

  “You had a run-in with a bear!” The vein in Josie’s neck looked ready to burst. “This never would have happened if you lived in East End!”

  “I don’t see how Lizbet’s little incident has anything to do with where we live,” Elizabeth said.

  “Don’t you? Really?” Josie sat down
hard in a chair beside Elizabeth and pulled some brochures featuring grinning senior citizens involved in a host of outdoorsy activities out of her purse. After fanning them out on the table, Josie said, “Mom, I want you to consider these. Living out here in the backwoods is dangerous. You need to stop thinking only about yourself. Look at what happened to Lizbet!”

  Elizabeth eyed Lizbet. “She looks fine to me. How are you feeling, sweet cheeks?”

  “I’m totally fine,” Lizbet said.

  Josie groaned and pushed her hand through her severe haircut. “Where’s Daugherty?”

  “She’s with my dad,” Declan said.

  “Does she have a phone with her? I bet she doesn’t have a phone with her!” Josie huffed.

  “Did you try calling her?” Lizbet asked.

  Josie didn’t answer but gave Lizbet the stink eye before turning back to Elizabeth. “Mother, this is no longer a safe place for you.”

  “Josie, this is my home. It’s my whole world. I’m too old to create a new one.” Elizabeth stood on wobbly legs. “You had something of an argument before Daugherty and Lizbet came, but now that they’re here with me, you have to stop fussing.”

  “But Lizbet and the bear!”

  “You make it sound like they’re a comedy routine! And...” Elizabeth’s voice faltered as curiosity got the better of her. “What really happened with the bear, dear?”

  “We were helping with the search party for Courtney Derringer,” Declan began.

  “And I bumped into a bear,” Lizbet finished for him. “Like I said, no big deal.”

  “A bear, Mother,” Josie said.

  “To be fair,” Lizbet said, “I was walking in the woods. Sort of trespassing on his property.”

  “The bear doesn’t get to have property!” Josie said.

  And this is how we differ, Lizbet thought. “My point is, even if I had been living in town, I still might have encountered the bear if I had wanted to help with Courtney’s search party. Meeting the bear had nothing to do with where we live.”