A Feral Darkness

by Doranna Durgin

  As if you know him so well.

  There were trees in back, and a fenced-in yard. Nothing that looked like rows of kennels or outbuildings, although her view was almost completely obscured by the house itself and the one strategically placed evergreen at the back corner of the house. She wouldn't get a better look in the back without sneaking around, and she'd had enough of that for one day.

  This time, she would walk right up to the front door. Pound on it, if necessary.

  She had the feeling it wouldn't be. He'd called someone, fully expected whoever it was to be here. And since there was a vehicle in the driveway—a sporty little miniature Jeep kind of vehicle, not Masera's SUV at all—Brenna pretty much expected that whoever-it-was was there right now.

  So she pulled in the long driveway and marched up the walk and reached out to stab the doorbell—and stopped, following a wicked little impulse to make sure her hair ran under her vest and stuffing the end into her jeans at the small of her back. The most identifiable thing about her, hidden. Then she rang the doorbell.

  She heard footsteps within the house almost right away, but no barking. No young pit bulls gamboling around in this house. Maybe there were kennels out back after all.

  The door opened, and she knew right away she was looking at Masera's brother through the storm door between them. His younger brother. Not as tall as Masera, he had the same features in different proportions. Masera had a sharply defined nose, vaguely hawk-like, with distinct planes at the high bridge—side, top, side. This man had that...and more of it. And his jaw, although it followed the same straight line, didn't have the same amount of chin to balance it. But his eyes were a familiar deep, clear blue, and his lips, though thinner than his brother's, had the same built-in wry quirk at the corners of his mouth. "Egun on," he said, and then, "Help you?" as though it had been an entire sentence.

  "I hope so," Brenna said. "I saw Mr. Masera at the pet store, and I wanted to talk to him about private work with my dog. He's big, and lately he's been growling...I'm getting worried. But I haven't been able to get an answer on the phone number on his card." She waved it briefly and re-pocketed it with a shrug. "I was in the area, so I decided to stop by instead."

  The man made a face, the exaggerated face of someone communicating in a second language he doesn't quite know. "Forgot the battery. Again. Very busy most days, Iban is." Ee-BAHN, he said, and for a moment Brenna didn't realize he was referring to Masera at all; she just gave him a puzzled stare. And then as she realized he referred to Masera, that this was another name for Masera and it fit so much better than Gil to her ear, it was the man who gave a laugh at himself and, still grinning, said, "Gil, I mean. Iban is his first name, but here in the States he uses the Gil name, his second name. Easier, he says."

  "In the States?" Brenna said, and then, although she already suspected, added, "As opposed to...?"

  "Euskal Herria," the man said. "You know, the Basque?"

  All that guessing she'd done...not so far off the mark after all. Masera was Basque, his brother lived here, and he barely spoke English. She smiled. "I don't know much, I'm afraid. Though I never would have guessed that Mr. Masera's first language wasn't English." Not quite true.

  The brother shrugged. "Him and I, we are different. Older brother, younger brother, you know? I am Eztebe. Steven, you would say in Ingelesez, but I prefer Eztebe. And I'll answer you what I can."

  She didn't even try to repeat his name. His was a slippery accent, never coming down hard on any of the syllables, just skimming over them like touch and go. "About my dog," she said. "I was wondering if Mr. Masera could take him, maybe evaluate him here. Do you have kennel facilities?"

  "Small," he said, holding up three fingers. "Full, right now. Gil knows if there will be room soon; I do not."

  "Do you suppose I could see them?"

  He gave a rueful shake of his head. "Best for Iban to show you. I know too little. When I visit, I feed them, I try not to like them too much. I have his list of classes—maybe you want that, so you can find him at the store? What, Pets! is the name, I think? Like calling a garden store Tree!, you think?"

  She did, she decided, like Masera's brother Eztebe quite a bit more than Masera himself. "I've always thought so," she agreed. "If I want an exclamation point after a word, I put it there myself. They've got lots of good supplies there, but if I want my dog groomed, I'll do that myself, too." An opening, big and juicy.

  He took it. More or less. "Iban says—" and then he stopped, as if realizing sudden discretion. "He says they are very busy, and to think about this when choosing where to go. Some people want a quieter place for their dogs, yes?"

  Well, whatever he'd been about to say, what he'd actually said wasn't anything but the truth.

  "He says go to the woman Brenna if you go there," Eztebe added. "He says she cares."

  Well, huh. "Thanks," she said, realizing she'd taken this about as far as she could. "I guess I'd like one of those class lists." More to avoid Masera than to find him.

  Eztebe nodded, and left the door open while he fumbled in some papers on a small secretary not far from the door. She had the chance to look through the neat house and right out the back window of the small kitchen—yellow, wasn't everybody's kitchen yellow?—to the greening back yard. She'd only managed to sort out the edges of some kennel runs from the visual jumble when Eztebe filled the doorway again. "I'm kind of surprised," she told him. "I thought a trainer would have his own dogs running around the place."

  "He lost the old one not long before," Eztebe said, and then corrected himself. "Not long ago. No new one yet. Maybe one of the little Welsh herding dogs, he told me."

  Well, double-huh. More truth from Masera. But what about those pit bulls? She was willing to bet that two of those three kennel runs were occupied by the pits, and not by customer dogs. He'd as much as admitted he had them.

  Eztebe rustled the papers he held out, looking for her attention.

  "Sorry," she said. "Just thinking about my dog. Worried, you know?"

  "Talk to Iban," Eztebe said, and then gave her a sudden grin. "But don't tell him I told you that name, okay?" He held the papers out again, and this time she took them. He said, "Class list, price list. You can't find him at the store, use that phone number. Tonight, I put it in the charger myself."

  She smiled at him and thanked him and folded the papers up to stuff in her back pocket on the way to her truck. So much for that.

  She wasn't sure she'd learned much, at least not much of true relevance. Masera's houseguest was his brother, and his brother didn't know much about much when it came to the dogs. Didn't seem to consider the pit bulls to be Masera's even though Brenna was just as sure they were there behind the house; didn't seem to be so tight-lipped he wouldn't have said if he did consider the dogs to be Masera's. After all, he'd told her Masera's secret first name, and more or less told her that their family was Basque, but that they'd had very different upbringings. And that Masera was very busy, but she'd known that. Though she winced at the recollection of her glimpse of his fee list; she'd had no idea he charged $75 an hour when she'd called him, or when she'd insisted that he bill her. Maybe he wouldn't.

  Eztebe hadn't said, My idiot brother is obsessed with a woman who lives on a hill, he gets beat up on a regular basis, he knows something about Rob Parker that you don't know, and here's what he's hiding from you.

  For he was hiding something, of that she was sure.

  All the same, as she started the truck and backed it down the drive, she found herself smiling. As little as it was, she probably knew just about as much of Masera's life as he knew of hers. It was a start. And with any luck, this was as far as it would go.

  Any of it.

  ~~~

  The phone pealed inside as Brenna headed for the house from the pole shed garage, muffled but definite enough so she ran for it, throwing herself through both doors and across the kitchen counter to grab it just as the machine kicked in. "Hold on, hold on," she said br
eathlessly, waiting for the machine to realize someone had picked up. Finally her recorded voice and its blase message clicked off and she was able to say, "Hello?"

  She didn't have to ask who it was. The dogs barking in the background gave Elizabeth away before she even had a chance to open her mouth. "Brenna," she said, sounding just as breathless as Brenna had been. "How's your hand?"

  "I sense ulterior motives," Brenna said, infusing her voice with high suspicion and stretching to toe the kitchen door closed.

  Elizabeth laughed, but there was a hysterical edge to it. "Brenna. Seriously. We shifted half of today's dogs to tomorrow, and when I called to ask Kelly if she could work a couple of extra hours, she...well, she—"

  Brenna had seen this one coming. Kelly had her own small shop at home, and worked at Pets! for the assured income—for Pets! groomers, unlike most, were paid by the hour. Not paid enough by the hour, but the lower salary was a trade-off. Brenna had secure winter hours no matter how many dogs scheduled, when most groomers worked slow bookings and racked up credit card debt during the off season. Now that spring grooming had hit them, it was inevitable that Kelly would get sick enough of Pets! management to—

  "She quit," Brenna said flatly, interrupting Elizabeth as a mercy.

  "Yes," Elizabeth said, relieved to have the news said. "Roger doesn't know yet. I figured if I at least got tomorrow covered before I told him..."

  "It's his own damn fault," Brenna said, lashing out not at Elizabeth but at Roger, and instantly backing off when she realized what she'd done. "Sorry. It's just that—"

  "I know," Elizabeth said. "Between the two of us, you'd think we'd have convinced him what it takes to run a good shop. But if he hasn't learned by now—oh, damn, he's coming this way. Can you cover, Brenna? Work a ten to six? I'll be here from eight to four, and we're supposed to have a bather until two—"

  Brenna flexed her hand. Ow. Dammit, this was going to hurt. "Yeah," she said, and told the clench in her stomach that this was for Elizabeth, not Roger. "Tell him I'll be there. But tell him I want the bather till three. I don't want this hand trying to hold on to soapy wet dogs."

  "Oh, smooch!" Elizabeth said. "I'll bring you some peanut butter cookies. Gotta go!"

  Brenna spent some time wondering where Elizabeth would find the energy to make cookies after a Saturday's grooming, but she needn't have. When she arrived at work the next day, thinking dire thoughts about who they'd have as a bather—for DaNise was off on Sundays—and just how many times she'd have to get her hand wet to handle situations the bather couldn't, a paper-towel covered paper plate of bakery cookies waited for her under the front counter.

  "The one with a bite out of it is mine!" Elizabeth sang out from the back. A crate clanged closed and she came out to the counter area. "Ooh, check it out," she said of Brenna's hand, which was barely swollen anymore but which Brenna had creatively wrapped in colorful Vetrap—a flexible, coated gauze that stuck to itself and that couldn't be missed.

  Brenna did an automatic scan of the sales floor and lowered her voice anyway. "It's for Roger more than anything," she said. "I plan to wave it in front of his face if he tries to book any more dogs today."

  "Good plan," Elizabeth said, and reached under the counter. "Here. Start the day with a cookie and I'll bring you up to date on our customers." She reached for the 4x6 index cards and started flipping through them, dishing out quick information on their status—two almost done, three started, a handful more on their way in. "And three to come in early this afternoon—those are all yours. Well, and this fourth, which is just a Dal in for a bath. José should be able to handle her."

  A Dalmatian? Brenna snared the card from Elizabeth and said around a big bite of cookie, "José? Handle Darcy Dalmatian? That'll be the day. She'll lick him to death and then make her great escape when he's lulled to complacency."

  "Probably," Elizabeth said, cheerfully enough.

  And why not—she'd be gone by the time the Dal arrived. Brenna gave made a face at her, and Elizabeth shoved another cookie at her. "Here," she said. "That should cheer you up for a while."

  Brenna followed her into the grooming room, slipping her arms through the sleeves of her smock. "I could have had really important plans for the day, you know," she said, unsnapping the lock to her personal equipment toolbox, the expensive shears that tended to walk away for use in the small animal section. "I could have had a hot date."

  "Yeah, or you could have been washing your hair. That takes about a day, doesn't it?" Elizabeth gave Brenna's doubled braid a tweak on her way by with a sullen-looking Lhasa Apso.

  "Hey," Brenna said, aggrieved. "It could happen, you know. The date thing, I mean."

  "Uh-huh," Elizabeth said, entirely unconvinced as she selected and set aside a cat muzzle that would fit the snub-nosed dog if he followed up on his expression. "Most guys like a bit of sweet-talking, Brenna. We'll have to practice that sometime."

  Brenna grumbled something not at all sweet, and Elizabeth grinned, unaffected. "Why don't you check on that Newfie mix? We've got most the day to dry him, but if José didn't use the high-velocity dryer on him before crating him, even that won't be enough."

  Wonder of wonders, José had indeed used the high-velocity, and the Newfoundland mix was drying as quickly as could be expected of a dog with that much hair. Brenna found several crates missing, and chalked them up to PePP; the group would be setting up for pet adoption day on the sales floor right about now, right by the inevitable aproned dog food rep trying to give away samples. The Schnauzer wasn't quite dry enough to clip—that one had gone a while without visiting a groomer, that was for sure—so she opened the crate holding a half-dry Shepherd mix and invited the dog out. Might as well get the nails done, and trim up the only long-haired features the dog possessed—several exceedingly silly wisps of hair coming from its ears. He could dry when she was done.

  She returned to the grooming room and hoisted the dog onto a low table, thoroughly dampening herself in the process and spotting Sammi from PePP in the doorway to the counter area as she straightened. "Hey," she said. "I hope you're not here for another crate, because we can't spare 'em today."

  "I know, I saw the appointment book," Sammi said. But she stood there, hesitating, her plump face a strange combination of paled skin with brightly flushed cheek patches.

  Brenna hesitated, the big nail clippers in hand. "Are you all right? Do you feel all right? Maybe you should sit down." Sammi's breath seemed to be coming a little fast, but that wasn't unusual for her. What was unusual was that she hadn't said anything other than the one acknowledgment, and hadn't come bursting into the grooming room with a freshly soiled young dog who needed a quick bath to be presentable to the families who would flock around the PePP area as soon as church let out. No, Sammi was alone, bringing only a strange look on her face.

  Sammi took Brenna's suggestion and sat on the folding chair just inside the door, ignoring the tufts of hair already residing there. Brenna, as concerned as she was for Sammi, let her questions rest while she worked through three feet before reaching the fourth. The Shepherd mix whined as soon as she picked it up. "Oooh," Brenna said. "Is this your favorite foot?" Clip, clip, big chunks of overlong nails went flying through the room, and the dog made a pathetic sound and yanked on her foot. A series of gooey-lovey noises distracted her long enough to get the other two toes and the dew claw, and then Brenna took a moment while hunting up her thinning shears really to pay attention to Sammi.

  Sammi looked back at her and said quietly, "One of our members died this morning."

  That got Elizabeth, too; she looked up sharply from the Lhasa, turning her clippers off.

  "Who?" Brenna said.

  "Janean. You probably haven't seen her. Takes in the hardest cases, but doesn't do the adoption day stuff. Too shy."

  But Brenna had seen her, in to buy supplies with one of the PePP dogs at her side, an old dog that PePP was having a hard time placing. A young black woman, lots of amazing hair, quiet feat
ures, quiet manner. "Janean," she said numbly, and shook her head. "A car accident?"

  Sammi shook her head. "Rabies."

  "Shit," Elizabeth said in shock. "Rabies?"

  "They're sure?" Brenna said, right on top of her. She'd meant to tackle the dog's waving, wispy ear hair...but she couldn't bring herself to move. Rabies. And in her mind, a sudden jumble of voices, things that had come to her in the past weeks, voices she'd ignored because they'd made no sense, because they didn't belong in her head. Voices that usually presaged distress from Druid. No survivors found on the farm...another entire family lost to this new rabies. Shedding Rabies is the common term being used for the mutated virus...local groomer Brenna Lynn Fallon succumbed today—

  She jerked herself away from the voices and back to the grooming room, clenching her jaw tight for a moment and picking up a brisk pace with the dog before her. Thinning shears applied to the ear hair, just so, just enough to take it down and yet keep the ears looking natural—

  "How?" Elizabeth asked. She, too, was trying to work again, but her heart wasn't in it and the Lhasa was sprawled on his plump bottom, neatly—and deliberately—sitting on the legs Elizabeth needed to trim. "Not from one of the rescue animals!"

  Sammi nodded tightly. "No one knows what else it could be. But the ones that came from families had a history of rabies shots, and the ones we took in from the street all went through quarantine at Lakeridge. If it was one of them, we have no idea which."

  "Oh, God," Elizabeth said. "It could be one that was adopted out, you mean?"

  "Are they ever like that?" Brenna said sharply, finding a cute place for a little bow just below the dog's ear, and for the first time running into trouble with her injured hand as she tried to apply it, wrapping a tiny rubber band around a tinier tuft of hair. She tossed the ruined bow on the floor with the morning's accumulation of hair and groped in the bow jar for a bigger one. "Like Typhoid Mary? Carrying the disease around and spreading it, but not showing it?"