Silver and Shadows: A Halfmoon Investigations Urban Fantasy

by Tracy Sharp

  I’ve got other plans, buddy. She peered at him from beneath her lashes.

  He reached around toward his back and removed a gun from the back of his waist band.

  Shit. But wait a minute. That wasn’t a real gun. It was a pellet gun. She almost laughed.

  It wouldn’t kill her, but it could do some real damage.

  All at once Candace raised her arms, pushed his gun hand toward his face, and pulled down on the trigger.

  The screams. Oh, the screams. “Music to my ears, scumbag.”

  She almost reached for her handcuffs but realized she no longer had them. Or her badge. Or her gun. Damn.

  Still, she could have fun with this guy.

  His left eye was a bloody mess. She stood over him as he wailed, staring at the blood on his hands from touching his empty eye socket. “My eye! You shot out my eye, you bitch!”

  “That’s the least of your troubles, Skippy Jim.” She booted him in the chest.

  He made a WHUFFing sound as he fell on his ample ass.

  There was movement to her left, out of the corner of her eye. She turned and her breath caught in her throat.

  A huge, silvery wolf walked toward her, its head dipped down as it eyed her.

  Candace grabbed the pellet gun from Skippy, who was still crying and screaming on the ground, and brandished it, backing off. The last thing she’d want to do is hurt the gorgeous creature in front of her, but she would if it came after her.

  She continued walking backwards, the pellet gun trained on the wolf.

  But the wolf turned its majestic head toward the spectacle on the ground. When the guy finally noticed the wolf standing over him, he stopped screaming, his one good eye bugging out with fear. “Oh, darn. Oh, no.”

  The wolf stopped, standing still, watching him, and she thought she saw a gleam come into its eyes, under the bright moonlight.

  The man waved his arms, trying to scare it away. “Shoo. Shoo.”

  The wolf raised his head and howled at the moon, the sound mournful and beautiful, and then it jumped at him, its huge, muscled body gleaming under the moonlight, and tore into his throat.

  Candace watched, unable to move. What she was seeing was surreal. She didn’t think this was typical wolf behavior. And what happened when the wolf finished with the scumbag?

  She decided she wouldn’t stick around to find out. She took a careful step back, and another, and another before the wolf raised its head and looked at her.

  Candace stared into the wolf’s amber eyes, and when it began its approach, she was frozen in place.

  Ezra

  “What’s the matter, Ezra? Aren’t you happy to see me?” Candy came toward me, and her smile didn’t seem to quite fit properly on her face.

  Looking at her, I had a serious case of the willies. This wasn’t Candace. It had to be the shapeshifter that Candy had told me about. I took a step back and grabbed Sally from my holster. I raised it, aiming at the Candace thing’s face.

  She kept coming. “That pee shooter won’t work on me, Ezra.”

  “You’d tell me that anyway, wouldn’t you?” I shot her in the chest. The silver and iron bullet went into her but her skin swallowed it up, closing the bullet hole instantly, as if it had never been there.

  I dug around for another weapon. My fingers found my knife belt holding my iron bladed throwing knives. I whipped one into her forehead.

  She stopped, staggered back, and yanked the dagger out. “Now you’re just pissing me off.”

  I stared at her, momentarily astounded. This wasn’t the regular shapeshifter. Silver or iron should have done the trick. This thing was some other underworld species.

  And it was still coming.

  I needed magic. I prayed to whatever God might be listening that I could summon some up. Fear and desperation raced through me as I raised my hand. I felt rage gather with the fear, rearing up as I leveled it straight at her. Sparks flew from my fingertips and a whirling ball of light and moving color blasted into her, vaporizing her Candace form.

  It melted away, leaving a bubbling, blistering, vaguely humanoid shape. The thing fizzled and cried out in pain; strange yellow eyes bulged with shock. This was one of hell’s lower demons. Sent to get rid of any threat to the demon infiltration.

  I moved toward it, hand still raised like a weapon.

  The thing, now crackling, shrank back.

  I stood over it. “There’s more where that came from, dill hole. Where is Candace?”

  The thing no longer sounded human. The voice was raspy, like a corpse long dead, trying to speak. “I left her on the doorstep of a killer of women. He has her now.”

  Fury gathered in my belly and I leveled it at the thing again, pointing my fingers toward one of its arms. The arm lit up, and then disintegrated, fizzling and popping, and leaving a horrible stench. I gagged.

  Its shriek was so high that I felt my eardrums pop. As my stomach settled a little, I took a few breaths through my mouth. “Tell me where she is.”

  The thing pointed a shaking hand down the road. The whisper sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a deep well. “The house at the end of the street. His brain is full of snakes. Your friend is surely dead by now.” This was followed by a whispered chuckle, like the crushing of dead leaves.

  I gathered up my rage and intent and felt the heat of it racing up from my belly, then my chest, and down my arms. My arms vibrated as the power bulleted down and out through my fingertips, creating another swirling ball of murderous anger. I held it in my hand, smiling down at the thing jittering on the ground.

  It did a slithery one-armed crab walk backward, too weak to change into any other form, and I whipped the ball at its head.

  It wailed, the sound of it unbelievably loud in my ears, and then the sound faded just before the thing vaporized, leaving the body to crumble into ashes and sink into the earth.

  As I pulled out of the driveway I thought about what the demon said. A house at the end of the road. A killer with a head full of snakes. Candy had a killer living down the road from her. How long before he would’ve come knocking at her door?

  Maybe he was afraid of her. She was a cop after all. Or had been. Still was, as far as the psycho was concerned.

  I peered into the darkness, switching on my high beams, searching both sides of the street and the road ahead for any movement. If Candy was hurt, she might be trying to make her way back on this road. Why didn’t she call? Had she lost her cell phone? Had her battery died? Mine was always dying. I always forgot to charge it. But Candy? Never. She never forgot details like that.

  There was movement up ahead. My heart beat in my ears.

  It appeared to be a female figure. I hoped to hell it wasn’t another shifter. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with another one.

  The slow swagger told me it was Candy. Relief flooded my system, leaving me feeling light headed. There was another figure walking beside her.

  Was that a dog?

  Yes. Of sorts. Definitely canine. It was a wolf. A big-ass wolf. What the hell?

  I pulled over to the side of the road, shutting off the high beams but leaving the headlights on.

  I didn’t mind wolves. It was the wolf weres that gave me pause. I’d had a bad experience with them. Which species was this?

  As I climbed out of the car, the wolf turned its head to me. The eyes glowed, flashing weirdly in the night, like those of any nocturnal animal. Blood stained it’s muzzle, and the fur on its neck and chest. Something or someone had come to a bad end. It was an unsettling sight. I hoped it was the killer the shapeshifting demon had served Candace up to.

  “Hi, Ez.” Candace sounded tired, but strangely cheerful. “I met a new friend.”

  “I see that.” I wanted to hug her, but the wolf gave me pause. “How did you meet your new friend?”

  “I was kicking a serial killer’s ass, and this big fella walked out of the woods and finished the job for me.”

  I nodded at the wolf, and it low
ered its head in a nod back to me.

  Human understanding. He was a were. Shit.

  Candace had made friends with a wolf shifter. “Are you going to keep him?”

  She shrugged. “I’ve grown kind of attached to him in the last half hour or so since I met him. I figure I’ll let him stay if he wants to. Or he can go if he wants to leave. I’ll kind of leave it as an open ended relationship.” She looked down at the wolf with obvious adoration and ran her fingers through the fur on his head.

  Double shit.

  The wolf’s eyes seemed to smile at me as he nuzzled her hand.

  Great. He was stealing my girl. Well, the woman I dreamed on an almost nightly basis would one day be mine. I looked down at the wolf, speaking under my breath, low enough for only his canine ears to hear. “You dog.”

  A wolfish smile split his face and his eyes shot an amused flash at me.

  16

  Candace

  They were walking toward Ezra’s car to go to the lunatic’s house up on the hill, about a quarter of a mile away, when Candace spotted her. She was in her early twenties and her long, dark hair clung in wet, tangled strings around her neck. There were a couple of leaves stuck to her face, and others on her neck and arms.

  As Candace looked down at her legs, she felt a deep sadness as she noticed the bleeding scrapes and dirt on them.

  Candace headed toward her. “Are you all right?”

  Ezra stopped and followed Candace’s eyes, baffled. And then he seemed to see her all of a sudden, and his eyes widened. “She’s a ghost, Candy.”

  Candace turned back toward her, and noticed then that if she looked hard enough she could see through her. “How can I help you?”

  Her new wolf friend walked beside her, ears twitching as he watched the ghost woman. Ezra had once told her that animals see ghosts all the time. They straddle the line between the regular world and the supernatural.

  She turned and pointed back toward the woods, to the area she’d walked out of.

  Candace’s face saddened. “You’re in there, aren’t you?”

  She nodded, her face sad.

  “Show me.”

  She turned and walked back into the woods and Candace followed her.

  “Wait, I have a flashlight in the car.” Ezra called to her.

  But Candace didn’t stop. She continued following, because if this girl disappeared she may never find her.

  Candace felt the big wolf brush past her, moving ahead of her, as if checking for dangers. His senses were far better than her own. It was nice to have a bond with him. She hoped that he’d stay near her.

  “Wait up.” She heard Ezra’s feet moving through the grass and snapping twigs. He was like an elephant in a China shop. But his boyishness was endearing. He had an innocent vulnerability, and a guilelessness that made it possible to trust him. He made her feel safe. Not physically, but more importantly, emotionally. He made her feel calm. At peace. Strange... for a guy who fought monsters. She was glad he was there right now. And was also thankful for the wolf. Because if she was right, this ghost girl was going to lead her to something that would be hard to take.

  The ghostly figure, now glowing white in the darkness of the woods, led them through a thick expanse of trees and bushes. The smell of dewy earth and autumn rose around her. An owl hooted somewhere above, and other sounds of startled wild life unnerved Candace, letting her know that they were trespassing here. They didn’t belong.

  But her wolf friend did. He loped along, nose to the ground, sniffing like he was on a mission. He’d caught a scent. Whether it was the scent of the killer or of a victim, she didn’t know, but either would lead them to where the body of this sorrowful ghost lay.

  “This is beyond creepy.” Ezra’s voice was hushed.

  Candace thought, this, from a guy who exorcised demons from the possessed. “Yeah, well, it’s been a creepy couple of days.”

  The sound of moving water rose above the chirps of crickets and frog calls.

  The ghost floated over a narrow stream, lighting the area around her.

  “Is there a bridge? Shine your flashlight over there.” Candace squinted into the darkness.

  The wide beam of Ezra’s flash light swept slowly over the stream. There was no bridge that they could see.

  The wolf walked carefully through the water, following the ghost, and then his nose went back down to the ground, and he resumed sniffing.

  Again, Candace felt a wash of gratitude that the wolf was with them. But where was his pack? Were they looking for him? If they found them, would they be as friendly as he was? She hoped so. That would be a problem she didn’t need.

  “Damn.” Candace had worn her trooper boots because she loved them and felt oddly protected in them, but they would get ruined in the water. The ghost was moving away from the stream, Candace ran to keep up with her, splashing through the water, her boots slipping on rocks as she made her way to the other side.

  Ezra splash-splashed behind her, staying close. He huffed out, “Whoever put this girl here, definitely wanted her to stay hidden.”

  “I think I know who did this to her.” Candace thought of the lunatic ranting about drunk whores, and a shudder moved through her.

  The ghost hovered in front of a huge old oak tree. The wolf caught up to her and sniffed the area, moving through her and jumping backward as if splashed with icy water. He resumed sniffing the ground, and by the time Candace stepped up to the spot, he was digging at the ground.

  “He’s found something,” Ezra came up beside her. His voice was tinged with regret.

  The girl who floated a couple of feet away, watching the wolf dig at her burial spot, her eyes sad. She’d been so young. The dress she wore might’ve been a party dress. It looked like it had once been light pink, but was now stained with dirt. It was hard to tell.

  Within minutes, the wolf had uncovered the body. He sat back and let out a mournful whine.

  Candace turned to the ghost girl. “I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

  The ghost girl gave her a sad smile and then faded into the air.

  Ezra moved forward, looking down at the dead young woman. He slowly shook his head. “If the bastard wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”

  Candace felt a hot tear slide down her cheek. Then another. She swiped at them with the backs of her hands. “You know who did this?”

  He brushed dirt away from the mound in the shallow grave. She lay there with her hands crossed over her chest. Candace’s heart ached for her, imagining those final, horrible moments of her short life.

  “The same asshole whose doorstep the shapeshifter tossed you on. She boasted about what she did,” Ezra said.

  “What happened to the shifter?”

  “I disintegrated her with my new-found magic.” Through his disgust and sadness over this girl’s murder, Candace detected a bit of wonder and burgeoning pride. She was happy for Ezra. He’d been working his balls off, using whatever weaponry and gifts he had at his disposal, but it seemed he was just now learning what he was capable of.

  So was she. And she wasn’t sure if she liked it.

  Her eyes stayed on the dead girl, and a sadness so profound it made her cover her face with both hands. This was too awful.

  “Candy, are you okay?”

  She pushed out a long breath. “Not really. This girl had parents.” Who was she?

  The wolf loped over and sniffed the shallow grave around the girl. He pawed at the earth near her head, and tugged something that looked like a light colored strap out of the dirt with his teeth.

  It was a purse. White or light pink. He walked over and dropped it at Candace’s feet. “Thanks, boy.”

  Ezra’s eyes flashed under the bright shine of the moon. “So, you going to name it?”

  “It?” Her exhausted mind was confused. For a bizarre moment she thought Ezra was referring to the ghost girl. Or to her body.

  “Your new doggie.” His voice was edged with sarcasm, which for
some reason hurt her feelings. She wasn’t given to being easily hurt or sensitive. But the discovery of this dead girl had left her feeling raw. Two dead teens burned alive in their car had stripped her feelings, too. It had been a sad day.

  Too sad for his petty jealousy. “Cut the crap, Ezra. We have the remains of a murdered girl in front of us.”

  He dropped his gaze, and if it hadn’t been night, Candace might have seen his cheeks redden. “I know. Sorry. I’m just tired.”

  Why he’d be jealous of a wolf, she couldn’t imagine. “What is your problem with the wolf, anyway?” She opened the purse and took a small wallet from it. She flipped it open and looked at the young woman’s driver’s license. Emma L. Pearson. Twenty-one years old. In life She’d been a bright eyed girl with a warm smile. The smile of a girl who had her entire life ahead of her. A life that had been viciously cut short by a maniac with mommy issues.

  Candace was so glad he was dead.

  She reached out and ran a hand over the big wolf’s silvery head. He was beautiful, with darker fur nearer to his skin. His almond shaped amber eyes gleamed with intelligence. He pushed his head against her hand and sat closer to her. Candace had always preferred the company of animals to people. They didn’t lie and scheme. And they were far more loyal.

  “You don’t know, do you?” Ezra’s voice broke the moment.

  “Don’t know what? I’m not in the mood for riddles, Ezra.”

  “Your new friend is a wolf shifter. He’s a supernatural.”

  She blinked, turning back to the wolf. The wolf gazed back at her, as if studying her response. Candace was speechless. There was a person in this gorgeous animal? Surprise radiated through her. She didn’t know how to react.

  “I see by your reaction that you didn’t know that.” There was a bit of a smirk in Ezra’s voice.

  The wolf turned his head toward Ezra, lowered it, and growled deep in its throat.

  Ezra lifted a hand. “Down doggie. How long were you planning on hiding in animal form? I’ve heard of interesting ways of picking up women, but your technique is the most creative I’ve ever seen, I’ll give you that.”