Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2

by Cecilia Dominic

  I brought my attention back to the scene: the white sand glittering in the sunlight with a million little refractory rainbows, the clear blue-green water caressing the shore with waves, tropical trees and plants behind me and nothing but ocean in front of me. I was alone except for a seagull digging in the wet sand a few feet in front of me. It glanced at me with intelligent eyes and went back to hunting for food.

  “Not much here, is there?” I asked it. “Not that I want there to be. No other people, no music, no memories… Perfect.” The sun in its cloudless sky warmed me, but the memories had pushed to the surface, green shoots from the bulbs of pain beneath.

  “What the hell?” I asked the seagull. “Maybe saying these things out loud will purge them and make them go away. Not that the therapy I did in college helped much, but she was more of a ‘tell me about your week’ therapist, not someone who actually did anything.” I sighed and closed my eyes. The negative image of the ocean and sand stayed in my eyelids and made the beach look dark and the water white. It’s how I’d always imagined the afterlife: the reverse of life with more darkness and sorrow than joy.

  “My parents were killed in a car accident when I was a freshman in college. My Aunt Alicia took over the finances and helped me manage my money through school, but we weren’t close. My main support during that time was Joanie, whose parents were divorced. She was well on her way to being estranged from her father, and her mother was batshit crazy. Pardon my language.”

  The seagull had stopped picking at the sand and just watched me. Its eyes judged me.

  “It’s my dream. I can use whatever vulgarity I want. See? Fuck. Fuckity fuck fuck fuck.”

  The bird shook out its feathers.

  “Oh, did I offend you? Man, you’re the worst therapist ever, even more than the lady in college.”

  “Tell me more about your parents,” it said in a voice with an accent I recognized.

  I tried to crab-crawl over the back of the beach lounger, but something held me in place. I pondered running but knew he could find me anywhere here in this world of his making.

  “What do you want, Fortuna?” I asked.

  A cool breeze ruffled my hair. Sand swirled around the seagull, and I put a hand in front of my face and closed my eyes to protect them from the stinging grains. When the breeze stopped, I opened my eyes, and he stood at the foot of the chair dressed in a pair of khaki pants ripped off at the knee, a white shirt open to show his tanned and toned chest and stomach, and a wide straw hat. He wore no sunglasses, and his eyes echoed the color of the ocean. The comparison came unbidden to mind: Peter’s ice-blue eyes versus his warm sea-blue ones.

  “What do you want?” I asked again and attempted not to show fear since he had the advantage. I hoped he couldn’t hear the sound of my heart pounding in double time to the surf. “I was enjoying my little beach therapy session with the seagull. He was easy to talk to until he got offended at my language.”

  He sat on the end of the chair, which sank a few inches into the sand. So rather than being a ghostly form like Peter, he was solid and real and there. I became acutely aware of my almost-naked state. He still hadn’t said anything but watched me with a half-smile on his lips. One of the principles of assertiveness training came to mind then: the less you say, the more power you have.

  I crossed my arms and sat back. The silence stretched between us. Finally, he closed his eyes, and I heard his mental voice.

  “Something here is keeping me from being able to change completely, and so I am unable to physically speak. I have been trying, but this shape cannot move its mouth.”

  “So change back into a seagull?” I grinned. “You were less threatening that way. And kinda cute.”

  “I am not here to threaten you. I am here to watch you. And I am not cute.”

  “That doesn’t help me feel better, especially considering what happened after the last time you ‘watched’ me. Seriously, dude, what happened?”

  “You were torn. Your fylgia was in conflict with your rational mind, and the tranquilizer made her go underground in your psyche. If you want to find her again, you must accept who and what you really are.”

  “Was it the ingredients in the trank or the trauma of losing control again?” I shuddered as the memories of the emotions that lingered after I’d been kidnapped swelled in my brain. I pushed them down.

  He reached toward me, and I shrank back, not sure what he would do. He grabbed one of my feet, forcibly pulling my left leg, and the bruise from where I’d hit the desk while trying to slap Peter twinged. I sucked in my breath.

  “There has been another,” he said, his eyes narrowing, and this time the breeze chilled me. Goose bumps raised on my exposed flesh, which was most of it. He started to draw something with his fingertip on the sole of my foot, which tingled.

  Something nearby growled, and he dropped my foot and stood, looking around.

  “There should not be others here. Go. Keep your doctor’s appointment next week, and I will explain all.”

  “Why should I trust you?” I shook my foot to dispel the sensation, which was similar to the feeling when a limb has been asleep and is waking up. “And what the hell did you just do to my foot?”

  “Your language,” was all he said in reply, and I woke in my bedroom sitting up in bed, my left foot still tingling. The complete darkness outside said it was early morning, and I rubbed my eyes. Standing between two worlds I had no control over entering or leaving unsettled me. First the encounter with Peter’s whatever it was—he was still alive, so it wasn’t a ghost—and then the beach dream with the strange wizard/doctor/stalker Max Fortuna. There was obviously a third force at play keeping him from being able to change completely, which seemed to disturb him.

  Good, let him be freaked out. It’s not fair for me to be the only one. And what did he do to my foot?

  The alcohol had found my bladder, so I got up on unsteady feet and groped my way to the bathroom. I hadn’t recognized until I lost them just how much I’d come to rely on the stronger senses my wolf self had given me. Previously, going to the bathroom in the dark wouldn’t have been a problem. Now I had to feel my way along like a blind person, and on top of that, I heard voices. Not that I could make out what they were saying, but it sounded like a conversation just beyond my ears’ perception.

  When I got into the bathroom, I turned on the light, but no one was there or in the bedroom. I looked at the bottom of my left foot, but there was nothing to show where Max had touched me. Just a dream… I frowned. Am I being haunted by something else? Screw it, I have to pee.

  While I took care of business, the voices started up again, this time through the vent over the sink. Joanie and Leo were having a discussion, probably in their room. If I stood on the counter, I could make out what they said.

  “I know she’s your friend.” Leo’s voice was patient but exasperated. “But she can’t stay here. It’s too dangerous.”

  “She has nowhere else to go.” Joanie’s tone was similarly tired, like they’d been through these points several times.

  “I’m not saying you can’t help her. In fact, I want you to! She’s part of our pack even if she didn’t appear physically here for months. I just want you to help her remotely so whatever’s looking for her doesn’t accidentally get one of us instead.”

  “But you said Matthew will be fine. He’s still able to change. She can’t, so she’s more vulnerable.”

  “The point isn’t whether they can hurt us if they try, the point is that he didn’t need to be in the line of fire. What if it had been you? What if whatever drugs were in there hurt the baby or made you lose it?”

  “It wasn’t me, and I’ll be extra careful. I really want her here. I need her here.”

  His tone changed to tender. “I know you’re lonely, and you want your best friend with you. You’re still reeling from your grandfather’s death, and you don’t need any more grief…”

  “Well, it would help if you wouldn’t stay up work
ing until all hours of the night. Did you not think I’d wait up for you? You’re not a bachelor in residency anymore.”

  With the conversation turning toward more personal matters, I slipped off the counter. I knew Joanie well enough that she wouldn’t back down, and whatever she needed from me, she needed to be in accord with her mate more. They had a lot to figure out between them, and my being there was a distraction they didn’t need. I lay on the bed and waited for the murmur of the voices to stop coming through the vent and for the house to settle.

  At some point I must have fallen asleep because I woke to faint light, the first hints of sunrise, coming through the blinds. I rubbed my cheek, where I was sure someone caressed it as I traveled through the borderlands between wake and sleep. The crick in my neck told me I’d slept with my head cocked, one ear toward the bathroom for Joanie’s and Leo’s arguing voices.

  Whatever my purpose for coming here, I didn’t mean to drive a wedge between them. I was happy she’d found love with someone, and I knew things would settle down for her once she adjusted to her new life and finished mourning her grandfather and their missed opportunities. I massaged my shoulder and gathered up the things Joanie had kept for me in the overnight bag I’d grabbed from Giancarlo’s place.

  My cell phone had been charging overnight, and I was surprised to see a missed call and voicemail when I turned it back on. The area code was unfamiliar, but the voice that left the message wasn’t, nor was its syrupy sweet Southern accent.

  “Lonna, sweetie, it’s Gladis Ann. Give me a call on this number when you get this. It’s about your Aunt Alicia.”

  The time on the phone said 7:15 a.m., which meant it would be 8:15 in Georgia, and Gladis Ann would be up.

  Did talking about Aunt Alicia to the seagull scare up this situation? I couldn’t help but wonder. I knew it wasn’t true, of course—that there couldn’t be any connection between the old memories bubbling to the surface and hearing from Gladis Ann. Still, I hesitated before I called. Aunt Alicia had been my one connection to my past, whether I wanted it or not. Sure, most of my memories associated with her and the time around my parents’ death were negative; she certainly hadn’t given me the warm fuzzies, but I’d always hoped we would eventually grow closer. With a resigned sigh, I called Gladis Ann back.

  “Lonna, honey, how are you?” she asked without even saying hello. I imagined her sitting in the nursing home cafeteria in her scrubs, her lovely dark eyes shadowed by a long night, but her smile ready for anyone who needed it.

  “I’m well, Gladis Ann. How are you?”

  “Well, honey, I’ve been better, but this isn’t about me. Your aunt’s heart disease has taken a sudden turn for the worse, and she’s just barely hanging on. She’s asking for you.”

  Chapter Seven

  A chill shimmied up my spine, and the resulting shudder landed me ass-first on the bed. “How long does she have?”

  “The doctors don’t know. They’re saying to notify her next of kin. Well, honey, that’s you. She says she’ll hold on for you to come.”

  I’d fisted my left hand like I could hold on to my aunt and all she represented—all that was left of my family—through sheer force of will. “Tell her I’ll be there as soon as I can. If I leave now, I can be there by this evening.”

  “Just be careful. You won’t be doing anyone any good if you get into a car accident.”

  I promised her I’d be careful and hung up. I barely noticed my surroundings as I tiptoed down the hall and the stairs, intending to sneak out without waking anyone. The red light on the alarm panel beside the side door stopped me.

  Of course they’d have an alarm.

  A noise startled me, and the smell of coffee alerted me to the fact that I wasn’t the only one up.

  Ghosts don’t make coffee, do they? I walked into the kitchen through the living room. The couch was made up with a rumpled pillow, sheets, and blankets like someone had slept there.

  Leo sat at the table looking a bleary-eyed, disheveled mess. His dark curls stood straight out from his head like he’d been running his hands through them, and my overnight bag was nothing compared to the luggage he sported under his eyes. By my calculations, he’d likely not slept more than three or four hours.

  “Well, good morning to you,” he growled, then shook his head. “Don’t mind me. Rough night. Would you like some coffee?”

  “Do you have a Styrofoam cup or something so I can take some with me?” I asked.

  He lifted his head, eyes alert. “Look, if you heard us talking last night, I’m sorry. I know the vents in this house sometimes carry conversations. She’ll be pissed if she thinks I chased you off.”

  “Even more so than she is already?” I inclined my head toward the living room.

  He shrugged. “She’s right. I’ve been trying to dampen my workaholism, but I obviously need to try harder, especially with a baby on the way.”

  “My leaving has nothing to do with you,” I told him. At least not anymore. “I got a call that my Aunt Alicia is dying in Georgia, and I need to go to her.”

  “Shit,” he said, “I’m sorry. Joanie told me how she took care of you when your parents died.”

  “In a sense. So about that coffee?”

  He stood and walked to the coffee maker. From the cabinet above it, he pulled out a stainless steel travel mug with black lettering that said UAMS— University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where Leo had been in residency when he’d been infected with the viral vector that caused him to develop Chronic Lycanthropy Syndrome.

  “Seriously, a plastic or Styrofoam cup would be fine,” I told him. “You don’t have to give me one of your nice travel mugs, especially not one with so many memories attached.”

  “I need to give up more of my past,” he said and poured coffee into the mug. “As Joanie reminded me last night, I’ve been holding on to more of it than I should. I’ll let you fix this how you want it. Do you need anything to eat?”

  With coffee and a bagel with cream cheese in hand, I was on the road with Maddie in less than fifteen minutes. Leo promised he would relay my regrets to Joanie and have her call me when she got up. Although I was still trying to figure out how much of a friendship I would have with him, I felt more comfortable now. He really did love her, and I knew he’d protect her and cherish her like she deserved. Plus, he’d hooked me up with coffee and kept me from having to lie to her face that their discussion had nothing to do with me leaving. From the classic, “It’s not you, it’s me” to “No, I’m not leaving due to you and your mate disagreeing over my being there since I apparently almost got you shot in the woods,” it was always easier to lie by telephone.

  I reached Saint Albeus’s Hospice in north Georgia a little after 8:00 p.m. The miles had flown by under Maddie’s tires. Or maybe my mind had kept me from noticing the length of the trip. I’d stopped for gas a few times and had used those breaks to get little bites to eat—water and caffeine as well. I called Gladis Ann when I got through Chattanooga, and she’d told me where to find Aunt Alicia. She met me at the car when I drove into the small parking lot of the converted antebellum mansion.

  “How is she?” I asked and stretched. My jeans would likely be permanently stuck to my butt and legs, but it would be worth it if I hadn’t missed my one last chance to talk to my aunt.

  Gladis Ann enveloped me in a hug. “It’s good to see you, honey. She’s as ornery as ever. You’d never know she was…” She took a deep breath. “You and I have a lot to talk about after—”

  The last word caught in her throat. “I know,” I said. “Take me to her, and then we’ll talk. It’s good to see you too, by the way.”

  My aunt’s companion, Gladis Ann was the same age as my aunt, but sturdier. She stood almost as tall as me at five-ten, and she outweighed me by a good thirty pounds. As my aunt had gotten frailer in the past few years, Gladis Ann had gotten certified as a nursing assistant and became Aunt Alicia’s caretaker. I’d ended up talking to her more often than
to my aunt, who liked to keep her phone conversations to questions about school and money, nice concrete topics. As I did well in school and was good with money, they were usually short phone calls.

  Aunt Alicia sat propped up in her bed by pillows and gazed out of the windows at a tulip tree that had decided it was time to bloom even though it was only February. I stopped at the door of the small room and studied her, wondering if that was what my mother would have looked like at that age had she lived. My aunt was eight years my mother’s senior, so she was sixty-eight. Aunt Alicia’s features were more severe than my mother’s had been, but she had aged well with barely a wrinkle on her face and only a few threads of gray in her dark hair, which she still kept knotted in a bun behind her head. Like me, she was tall, although it was difficult to see with her new frail state. Her formerly olive skin had a distinct gray tinge to it, and her lips were pale and lined with blue-white. When she turned to me, I saw the oxygen cannula in her nose.

  I forced a smile and entered the room. I ignored the small but familiar stab of insecurity in that moment before she noticed me. When she turned her face to me, fear flickered through her expression, but she relaxed as I got closer, and a small smirk came to her lips.

  “Lonna,” she said. “Thank God. I thought you were Julia come to take me to Heaven.” She pulled one of her hands from under the covers and squeezed mine briefly. Her fingertips traced the scratches on my palms, souvenirs from my last run as a wolf. She then gestured to the tulip tree.

  “In a few nights, the air will freeze again, and the blossoms will be robbed of their beauty and turn brown. This tree and I, we are ghosts of what’s to come. I tried to spare you the same.” She closed her eyes, and a tear left a wet streak down her right cheek.

  “Why me? I’m fine, Auntie.” The lie that I had scratched my hands during a fall stopped at the end of my tongue.

  She held a hand up like she’d heard what I was about to say. “I’m dying, Lonna, as you probably know. The time for pretending and polite conversation is past.”