Crescent Moon

by Bevill, C. L.

  The were shook his head. “I’m going to smell like fish for hours. Have you tried talking to the were?”

  “I’ve tried talking to him,” Ula gritted. “He’s all like me-protector, you-outsider, go away. It’s not like they have a website with directions and a call-in line.”

  “Oy, squidface,” the were said, “I can get you a shiteload of fresh fish.” Ula nearly laughed.

  Pitch wailed again. Tentacles waved agitatedly.

  Ula jumped again and came down hard on her injured leg. Her weakened ankle bent awkwardly and she fell heavily. One black tentacle didn’t hesitate. It wrapped around her body and pulled her upward.

  The were snarled in fury. Clearly he was tired of mucking about. He leaped toward the eye, and a half dozen more tentacles blocked him, slamming him into another wall.

  The tentacle around Ula began to squeeze, and she grunted in pain.

  “Hold on, woman!” the were bellowed.

  Ula almost sighed with impatience. She yanked one arm free and pulled the cane apart. The inside was a sword made from the same silver as the wolf head and the tip. The wood exterior fell away and clattered on the stone floor. The gleaming edge of the metal slashed once and then twice and she fell to the floor, twisting nimbly to avoid the splash of blood the color of tar. She caught herself gracelessly and looked up at the gigantic were staring at its severed limb.

  “I wasn’t joking, Gatekeeper,” she said. “I’ll take every one before we’re done.”

  Pitch finally found his voice again. The contained area reverberated with his anger and pain. The other were allowed his cat’s claws to emerge from his hands. The curved ivory claws slashed ruthlessly at the tentacles, and the great were began to withdraw into the single exit from the room, squeezing his undulating shadow-filled form into the staircase.

  Ula and the were panted with exertion as they watched the were retreat.

  “Are you hurt?” the were asked.

  “That was too easy,” Ula said as she reached for the wood exterior of her sword cane and replaced the sword into its holder. “Bruised. It’ll heal quickly enough.”

  “You should have had a were doctor fix that ankle,” he said with a frown.

  “It can wait,” she muttered. “It has waited.”

  “This can’t,” he muttered right back. One hand grasped her shoulder. The claws had retracted into his body, leaving human fingers to hold her. He spun her toward him and pulled her into the line of his body. There was a long moment of purest pleasure as she could smell the scent that was uniquely his, and the strong, lean muscles of his body pressed against hers. Momentarily, his eyes stared down at her, full of nameless demand, and Ula didn’t resist. She didn’t want to resist.

  The were’s head dipped, and his lips caught hers. There was pressure and sensitivity and unadulterated feeling. His mouth moved on hers, and she wrapped her arm around his neck, using the cane to pull him closer.

  There was only a moment to be had, and Ula would have it.

  Her senses were screaming with demand. She wanted to rub her hands over his body. She wanted to touch the silkiness of his hair and learn the lines of his sensual lips. She wanted.

  But there were other things to worry about. Ula pulled back from the embrace because someone came into the room from the doorway entrance. She blinked at the were holding her, and he shifted them away, tucking her neatly behind him.

  In that split second of lovely longing and fulfillment, a bomb could have gone off, and Ula probably wouldn’t have noticed. No wonder mates are nuts, she though inanely. And no wonder Pitch fell back. His reinforcements have arrived.

  “We’ll take this up later, love,” the were said.

  Without responding, Ula looked toward the entrance and saw Micah standing there. He had taken Emma’s knife from Ula and she idly wondered if Emma had ever gotten the German steel back.

  “Micah,” the were protecting Ula said. “What the feck are you doing here?”

  The younger were smiled broadly. “What the feck do you think, Killian?”

  “Killian? Your name is Killian?” Ula said.

  The were spared Ula an apologetic glance. “Did I forget to mention my name, too?”

  Chapter 10

  Curiosity killed the cat.

  – Folk Saying

  ~

  Now

  Ula moved in front of Killian so swiftly that he couldn’t begin to stop her. Killian started to step around Ula, but Ula blocked him with the cane, never looking away from Micah. “He works for them,” she said. She could smell the wererat on him. The little were that had tried to warn her at the exit of the metro. Warning me or testing me or worse?

  Killian froze into place, and the emergent snarl was a tiny rumble from his chest, the bare-bones beginning of the larger earthquake to come. “Micah?”

  Micah shrugged. “The Council’s got to have eyes in the back of its head. They have sleepers in many clans. You’d have to be a chump not to realize that.”

  “You told them about the humans in Wyoming,” Killian said. “You told them about my search for Ula.”

  “Which was fine and dandy until the wolf started messing around with what she’d been warned of.”

  Ula saw there were other weres behind Micah, more of the Council’s special team members. Pitch had left because he hadn’t needed to be there any longer and because he needed to reattach a tentacle.

  “Don’t be a fool,” Killian said in his thick brogue. “There’s more afoot than mere kidnappings of weres.”

  “I’ve got something the Council wants,” Ula said.

  Killian jerked behind her, and she felt the movement. He said swiftly, “That’s possible, but it’s more likely you are something that the Council wants. Just like your sister. They’re not to be dallied with, love.”

  “I’m aware of that,” Ula said carefully. “Claire’s not dead. I scented her as soon as the door to the Catacombs opened. It’s older, but she’s been here, and she’d never been outside the country before we were kidnapped.”

  “Micah,” Killian said. It was almost a plea, but the were wouldn’t go that far. Ula suspected Killian wanted vindication before he tore the younger were’s throat out. Not if I don’t beat you to it. “Tell me you’re not involved in that business in Wyoming. They took Emma, that bastard, Martinez, deliberately changed innocents in order to give them more. They…tortured our kind. There’s nothing that can be worth that. Nothing.”

  “It’s just business,” Micah said with a shrug. “The Council’s got bills like any other big corporation. The humans are big fat piggy banks. It won’t be long before we don’t need them anymore.”

  “Are we having the big denouement now?” Ula asked with interest. “Because I would like to see my sister first.”

  Micah motioned toward the spiraling staircase. “There are some weres who would like a word with you, Ms. Bennett. Something about a flash drive and your father.”

  “Lovely,” Ula said. “Killian, what’s your last name?” She offered her arm to him. She wasn’t sure when they would try to take the cane, but it was only a matter of time before they did.

  Killian took her arm and wrapped his large hand around it, supporting her. “O’Donnell, and I would have preferred a nicer restaurant for our first date, love.”

  “I would have preferred many things to be different in my life,” Ula said tenderly, “but I’m not regretting the mate I’ve been given.” She smiled at him because for a single moment in a difficult time, her soul had been warmed. It didn’t matter that he was a cat or that he wasn’t the wolf her father would have wanted. He was there, and he supported her unconditionally. No woman could ask for more.

  Micah groaned theatrically. “Just go down the staircase before I throw up, and we put you both in silver chains.”

  * * *

  After the long descent into odd shadows cast by the strange blue lights, they came to a bone-laden tunnel. Micah directed them to one side, leading the way. T
hey walked for a long time, passing occasional weres and things that ducked into blackest shadows. It made Killian’s skin crawl because not all the weres they passed smelled right. They seemed full of rot and corruption of the worst sort.

  However, the feel of Ula’s hand on his forearm was enough to give Killian the strength of a thousand weres. After a while, she began to limp heavily, and he easily braced her weight on his arm.

  “Look,” he said, indicating the wall on his right, “the humans got very creative in bone design.” The walls were decorated in herringbone style using femurs for the zigzag pattern. There were also names made from smaller bones as if some long-ago individual had desired immortality in a way that few others had sought.

  “Maybe they got tired of throwing the bones down a hole,” Ula said, gawping at the swirls of jawbones on the other side. The whole section was a crashing wave of bones surging into a granite beach.

  The decorative bone sculptures had begun in earnest as soon as they had stepped away from the spiraling staircase and continued throughout. “You should see what they show the humans in the tourist tunnels,” Micah said conversationally. “There were lots of leftovers to do stuff with.”

  “Shut up, asswipe,” Killian said antagonistically. “Wheeler’s going to eat you for breakfast in a black pudding. I’ll be manning the butcher’s knife. Emma will probably be holding the cup.” And I’m going to be happy to help. In fact, I have a fine design in mind for your lower intestines.

  Ula glanced back at the Council weres behind them. One of them was the werebear from Wyoming, Shade. Killian glanced back, and the bear’s expression became grim. Shade’s eyes rapidly shifted right and then left. Killian looked forward again. There was some message in the were’s eyes, but Killian didn’t know what it was.

  Finally, they ended up in front of a chamber with doors constructed out of wood and bones. The doorknobs were craniums. The rest were tibias, fibulas, and ribs. They had been meticulously attached to the wood in ornate patterns. The ivory color of the bones shone with the repeated touch of those who had passed before them.

  The doors opened before they got to them. Two weres stood there slightly to the side to allow them to enter. Their demeanors were forbidding, and they were armed with silver weapons, ready to protect whatever was inside.

  Micah motioned Ula and Killian inside. The open chamber there was similar to an oversized courtroom of the darkest nature. The ceiling was wide and arched. Great columns rose up to support the area, keeping the room from collapsing in on itself. Like the walls outside, each column was covered with bones. The bottoms of the arches started with leg bones. The bones got smaller in size as they climbed. The ornate décor at the top of the columns was all skulls, set in double lines around the thickened part where it met the ceiling. A line of bones ringed the walls, a pattern of skulls that weren’t all human. More of the eerie blue lights dotted the area, placed between a half-dozen other mysterious doors, making the shadows dance and leap with their gamboling brilliance.

  * * *

  Ula knew that all of the bones didn’t date from the great excavation of the cemeteries the Parisians had incurred in the 18th century. The Council had been in place for a very long time.

  She leaned on Killian for a moment, considering the circumstances. This was what she had wanted. She was here facing the Council. The scent of her sister was present in this very room, and there could be no mistake. Claire had stood here in this place, long after she had been kidnapped from Canada, long after she had been removed from the pens in which they had been kept. Ula’s younger sister had stood here and faced the weres that sat on the opposite side of the room.

  There was a slightly raised platform with three chairs placed regally upon it. It was the Council’s actual chamber. The three weres sitting there coldly looked upon Killian and Ula and held them in as little regard as they would have an errant pair of cockroaches.

  One of the Council was the little girl, the wererat. Her dirty blonde hair hung limply, and she was in the same plain cloth dress. Her tiny ankles were crossed, and one slipper hung off a foot as she swung them back and forth. Either age didn’t have a factor, or the little were wasn’t what she appeared to be.

  Ula bet that it was the latter. She was rapidly learning to expect the unexpected.

  Someone shoved against her and snatched the silver cane away from her fingers. Ula wasn’t surprised to see that it was Pitch back in his human form. Some of his fingers were missing. Blood dripped from his hands.

  “It’s a weapon,” Pitch growled in French to the Council. He threw it to the far side of the chamber, and the weapon rattled to a stop against a wall. “She’s got a silver blade in there. A sword cane,” he added derisively in English.

  Ula shrugged even while Killian pulled her away from Pitch’s proximity. “Don’t you have a gate to guard?” she asked with an evil smile. Her hands hooked into claws just in case she had a shot at slicing at the gatekeeper.

  Pitch said something under his breath. She didn’t know what it was, but she guessed it was vile. It sounded vile. He held his hand up with the missing fingers. “These don’t grow back overnight, you know?” he hissed at her.

  “I won’t need the cane to take a few more,” Ula snarled and lurched toward him.

  Killian caught her shoulder with a chuckle. “Bigger fish to fry, love,” he said warningly. He jerked his head at the Council. Pitch slithered away, cradling his mangled digits under his arm.

  Ula broke free of Killian’s grasp and stalked forward toward the Council’s members. Pitch threw himself at the exit and went out without looking backward. More guards moved rapidly to block Ula. “I only want to know where my sister is,” she said. “That’s all, and you can have the flash drive.”

  The wererat laughed. “I would have been happy to let you go on your way had you not…persisted. Too bad for you,” she trilled. “However did you end up with the flash drive?” Details were beginning to come to Ula. Everyone knew about the Council and their draconian ways. The wererat’s name was Scarlotte, the only female on the Council, born of were and witch. Reputedly, the were had powers that most didn’t appreciate until it was far too late.

  “The human had it in his office,” Ula said. She looked derisively at Micah. “Didn’t your mole tell you? He saw that I had it when I fled the compound. What a jackpot! A half billion dollars funneled into offshore accounts. That’s a lot of money for weres. I didn’t think you were into money so much. Doesn’t the Council have some obscure Latin motto inscribed on their letterhead? In gremio legis, isn’t it? Do you remember what it means? The Council was created to protect the weres who needed to be protected. In gremio legis means in the bosom of the law. I looked it up yesterday so I could be certain about the definition. It means you no longer have the interests of the weres in your hearts.”

  “Where’s the drive?” a second Council member asked. Ula directed her attention to him. He was much older with gravely lined features. His long gray hair spilled over his shoulders, and his eyes glittered at her. His expression wasn’t carefree. It was intent and cruel. The Elderly One, the pundits called him, where no one else could overhear. His name was Renard to those who wanted to be formal.

  “I did want the human,” Ula said, “because I thought he would tell me what happened to Claire, but I can smell that she’s been here.” Her eyes went to Scarlotte. “Not dead to me. The Council has gone corrupt. My father tried to tell me.”

  “And your father?” the third were said. He was another male not much older looking than Killian in appearance, but Ula realized that their world was more mysterious than she had suspected. His hair was the color of decayed maple leaves. His black eyes shone in the dancing blue lights. He smelled like some sort of cat, just as the second Council member, Renard, smelled like horse. His name was Quincy. There was a trailing name that had gore and intestines in it that she was drawing a blank on. “Where is the Bloodletter?” he asked coldly.

  Ula frowned.
“My father,” she repeated.

  “He’s not interested in Council politics any longer,” Killian said abruptly. He had approached her from the rear, and she hadn’t noticed. Ula jerked, and he drew her body closer to his. Her good leg was shaking from the effort of maintaining the weight there. It had been used to the point of collapse, and it would be used much further than that. “Why else withdraw to the ends of the world?”

  The wererat considered them. “The Bloodletter plots against us. He seeks to destroy the Council. We will not have that.”

  The royal “we”. And Dad never mentioned that he was called by a two worded name during his time in Europe. Not once. “Oh by the way, sweetie, they used to call me the Bloodletter, and it wasn’t because I had paper cut boo-boos when I opened envelopes.” Killian’s words came back to her. Bigger fish to fry here. “You financed the human group. You paid them to experiment on us, on the ones you culled. You told Martinez to target my father’s family?”

  Quincy shrugged. “It was a venture. A very profitable venture. Some of the science involved with interpreting the genomes of weres should keep them occupied for decades. In the end, they’ll probably find a cure for cancer or something. We’ll likely make billions of dollars.”

  Killian’s hand smoothed over Ula’s shoulder and squeezed lightly. Warningly. Ula didn’t care for the caution.

  “And some pitiful human stole from you,” Ula laughed shortly. “A half billion dollars, and the information related to it contained on the flash drive. All the account numbers, all the access codes. He probably told you where it was and you couldn’t do anything about it because the facility had been completely destroyed by your own orders. You could no longer control its results, so it had to be eliminated. It must have galled you.”