Mouse slid further down until she lay flat out on the ground, and Jolie realized she couldn’t hold her wolf shape any longer. She had drained every ounce of energy in her small wolven body and now had no option but to turn back to human form. Kudos to the kid for lasting so long, Jolie thought, and hunkered down beside her.
Okay, go for it, kid. She patted Mouse clumsily with her huge claws. Then she sat and kept guard as Mouse slithered and squirmed her way back into the body of a grubby, mud-caked little girl. Again, the almost painless ease of her mutation amazed Jolie. She supposed Mouse had been transmuting since she could crawl. A sure sign of a wolven thoroughbred, and Jolie could only watch and admire.
Jolie was exhausted herself. She could go another couple of hours if necessary, but she didn’t see the point. She lowered her head and grunted out the discomfort as her bones ground together and her ligaments stretched to the popping point. When she raised her head many minutes later, Mouse had already recovered and was poking around the immediate area.
“Luc was here,” she said excitedly.
“Luc is here.” Jolie stood and stretched her cramped muscles, shaking out her human shape. The scent of Luc was overpowering. This was an inhabited hide, not some long abandoned bolt-hole. Everything about it was too fresh, too urgent. Energy bounced off the very fabric of the place, and it made Jolie’s skin prickle. She did not like being in another Were’s den uninvited, and especially not Luc Garoul’s.
“So what is all this?” She pointed at the tree.
“Told you. Initiation tree. It’s what you do if you got a new Were to bring into the pack. I’m hungry.” A whine had entered Mouse’s voice. “And I’m cold.”
Jolie had to admit she was also hungry and cold. It was not the best idea to be wandering around naked. It might have been a sunny day, but here in the depths of the forest, the shadows were long and the air held a late springtime chill. She dragged her thoughts away from the tree and its strange meaning for the moment. It was more important to keep Mouse warm and get her fed. Now that she was in human form, she was a small child and a vulnerable one at that, and Jolie felt an inarguable urge to protect her.
“Okay. Let’s get you warm,” she said. The most obvious thing was to dress them both from whatever they could salvage from the tree. Some of the garments hanging there were in a pretty sad state. Most were chewed to bits. Whatever was going on with Luc, she was expressing it in the weirdest way. Jolie had no hope of understanding it. She had no idea what an initiation tree was. As far as she was concerned, if you wanted to introduce a new pack member, you brought them home for dinner and to meet the family. You didn’t have a garage sale in a tree.
She took a running jump and grabbed at a low-hanging branch, heaving her way up into the tree in an ungainly scrabble.
“Can I come, too?” Mouse called up.
“No, you can’t,” she barked down. “Stay there.” There was a shiver of branches and leaves all around her, and Mouse appeared beside her.
“Whatchya doing?” Mouse asked.
“Getting us some glad rags,” she growled. Would this kid ever do what she was told?
“Get me that T-shirt.” Mouse pointed. “The one with the horses.”
Jolie grabbed the garment and thrust it at Mouse.
“Now get back down,” she ordered. She wanted to crawl a bit higher and look at the platform she could just make out several feet above their heads. It was well camouflaged, and Jolie was certain it was important and might contain more clues to what Luc was up to. But, trouble magnet that she was, Mouse was already scrambling toward it. With a tsk of frustration, Jolie grabbed the nearest shirt and a pair of overalls and followed her.
The platform was bigger than she had at first thought. In fact, it was quite cozy. To one side was an assortment of swag that was no doubt destined to litter the tree. Where had Luc acquired all this stuff? Mouse was already poking through the odds and ends strewn all about.
“Cool,” she said. “A Were nest.” She picked up a well-chewed scrap of what used to be a backpack. With a quick sniff, she tossed it aside and moved on to the next bit of junk.
“A Were nest?” Jolie echoed her. “What the hell is a Were nest?”
“It’s what we use back home when we go away for long hunts. It’s so we can sleep nice and safe,” Mouse said.
“You mean you’ve been in one of these before?” Jolie was amazed.
“I love sleeping in nests. Though this one’s full of garbage.” She sounded very disapproving.
The wind gusted and the tree swayed. The nest creaked and moved under Jolie’s feet making her stomach lurch.
“Doesn’t feel so safe,” she said. “It’s weird to be up this high.” Her stomach was swirling now, and she felt dizzy. She didn’t dare look down. She was certain she’d puke even though there was nothing inside her to throw up.
“Nests don’t have to be in trees,” Mouse said. “They can be on the ground if you want them to. They can be anywhere.”
“Someone should tell Luc that.” Jolie decided she had developed vertigo. Who knew? She had never been this high up a tree in her life and wasn’t going to again if she could help it.
“Put on that T-shirt,” Jolie said, dragging on her own plaid shirt and well-worn overalls. The pants were far too short and swam around her hips. Mouse obeyed for once and slid into her top. It was a small adult size but still managed to hang from her slender frame right down to her knees.
“Here.” Jolie picked up a belt and cinched it around Mouse’s waist. “That’s better. Looks sort of like a dress, I suppose.” Mouse did not look impressed, and Jolie gave her shoulder a brisk pat to compensate for the fashion faux pas. It was the best they could do, and at least they were clothed.
“Hey.” Mouse spied something from over Jolie’s shoulder. “A wallet!” She pounced on it “And it’s got dollars in it.”
“Give it here.” Jolie waved Mouse to hand it over. She counted the bills. There was more than enough for what she had in mind.
“I’m hungry.” Mouse chimed in again, and Jolie could hear her stomach rumbling from a yard away.
“Okay,” Jolie said, snapping the wallet closed. “Time to get some food.”
“Burgers?” Mouse said hopefully.
“Maybe burgers. Lost Creek is near here. It’s got a sort of coffee house thingy.” She took one last look around. “Let’s get out of here.” She would inform Marie of Luc’s loopiness once they got home. If they got home. It would be hard to go back without Tadpole. Jolie sent up a quick prayer to Luna for the return of the pup, not that Luna gave a damn about stupid dogs, and pushed the problem away. She had more than enough to contend with for the moment.
Mouse went on ahead, scrambling down the tree as agile as any monkey. Jolie swung her legs over the edge of the nest and felt an uncomfortable surge of wooziness that made her overly defensive and angry. Trust Luc to get her into a situation she wasn’t comfortable with. Luc was a pain in the ass and nothing but trouble.
“Nests are for the birds. But then your mom always was a cuckoo,” she muttered.
“My mom?” Mouse’s voice traveled up from the ground below. Jolie had forgotten the pin-drop precision of her hearing. “Luc is my mom?”
Oh freakin’ hell no! Panic shot through her. She had just made a monumental error. She had breached a confidence she’d been told in the highest secrecy and a terrible sense of shame overwhelmed her. Her foot slipped. Jolie grunted, she grappled for purchase, her eyes bulged…and then she crashed through the branches to land in a heap by Mouse’s feet. Leaves and twigs, a baseball cap, brassieres, a tampon, and a lot of dead insects showered down on her. She lay winded, listening to the blood thump through her. And then Mouse’s wide-eyed face was hovering over hers, and above the blood thundering in her ears she clearly heard Mouse say, “Luc’s my mom!”
*
The RV smelled like…Luc sniffed. It smelled like…like…secrets, she supposed. Yes, secrets. But were they
her own or Emily’s? That’s what she had to work out, which was probably why the RV had become her new thinking place.
The little orange vehicle had sat beside the house under the shade of a cedar all afternoon. Sunlight winked off its chrome, teasing her, beguiling her. No one had come near it for hours. Emily was inside doing Emily things, and Luc could not resist sidling closer for a quick look through the RV windows.
It was lucky that Emily didn’t lock it, though the skitter of Luc’s claws on the paintwork around the door handles looked suspiciously like a break-in. As if someone with shaky hands had taken a screwdriver to the locks. Still, she was inside now, and delighted to find the heap of blankets still on the floor where she and Emily had slept…before the Garouls came and ruined it all.
But first, she had to make the place just right for thinking. The RV was old and stunk of cheap plywood and brittle plastic. Even the brown upholstery with its horrible, knobby texture reeked of fabric cleaner. Luc rubbed her damp muzzle on the bench seat to wipe off the yuckiness and replace it with sexy werewolf. Then she lay down in the makeshift nest and sucked up Emily smells and let her mind drift. She had felt a little bit bad about all the stuff she had stolen, so she had returned to bring a few gifts of her own. But it was her secret. No one must ever know she had done it. She had a bad reputation to maintain.
Secrets.
Hers and Emily’s.
She considered her own first. Namely, why did this human affect her so much? At least she could dissect her scent now, separate out the woman from the chemicals that polluted her. Luc remembered the first time she had encountered Emily’s scent with its stink of antidepressants and sleeping pills. She had stolen her backpack and pulled it inside out to get a nose for her hunter. The true essence of Emily’s scent had eluded her then, pungent with her anxieties and medications. No matter how intrigued Luc was, she could not interpret the telltale odors of Emily’s body. At first, she had worried that the virus had decimated her sense of smell. The hunter in Luc studied scent the way a human savored wine. Luc tasted scent. It flavored her sinuses, exploding on her tongue with a million messages, impressions, directives. Sly suggestions swilling around her teeth until she snapped them away like flies. Sometimes, from the corner of her eye, she would make out a shadow, a fleeting vision that, if she held her breath might manifest itself into her quarry and she would know where and what it was and how to kill it.
She squirmed further into the nest, each rustle of the blankets releasing a waft of Emily’s skin scent. Luc wanted to wrap herself in it. Her collar dinged against the linoleum floor, and she rubbed the metallic edge against the soft fur of her neck until the flesh underneath protested. This was her secret. The collar was the cure. The collar had contained the virus, and all her stunted wolven powers had flooded back, and she’d bet anything that had not been Emily’s intention.
What was her intention? Luc lay back and stared at the stained roof liner. To cut out my gizzard, that’s what. Her muzzle creased as she rumbled out a growl, but her heart wasn’t really in it. She liked that Emily was after her gizzard. Luc demanded one on one attention. So let’s look at little Emily’s secrets.
Emily wanted a werewolf, a live specimen to cut up. Luc remembered the vicious surgical instruments. But not any old werewolf. Emily had captured a Garoul. She knew about the Garouls. She had studied them and blamed them for her father’s death. Luc’s ears flattened. She knew about this hunting incident. She had been a witness to it. It had been a catalytic moment in her life, and in the lives of her immediate family. Emily’s secrets weren’t so secret after all; they were all about revenge. Revenge for a death Luc had already paid for.
Luc flopped over onto her belly, and the small RV rocked on its springs. Her snout was level with the fridge vent, and she idly picked the dust from it with her fore claw. She should have killed Emily. There had been countless opportunities. Okay, so she had needed things from her, like cell keys and collar keys. She had even planned to use her as a human shield to drive her out of Garoul territory and on to the border. Then she would have killed her. Or would she? And this maybe was the biggest secret. Luc couldn’t kill her.
Instead of destroying the almanac and its human owner, she was sneaking into bedrooms stealing scent. Luc flicked the dust bunnies from her claws and rolled back to stare at an oblique sliver of blue sky through the RV window. Yes. She was drawn to Emily in a way she couldn’t understand, and could never harm her. And that was the biggest secret of all.
Chapter Twenty
“Em. Have you seen my glasses?”
“No.” Emily had to work hard not to snap back her answer.
“Can’t find my car keys either. Can’t find a danged thing without my glasses,” Norm muttered to himself more than Emily, and went back to shoveling around inside the kitchen drawers, his nose inches from the opening, squinting in at the jumbled contents.
Emily was having enough frustrations of her own. Her own reading glasses had gone missing. There was a trail of hairclips all the way down the stairs, and another pair of shoes had disappeared. A quick look around the garden did not produce any clues as to what Wilbur had done with them. They were well and truly hidden.
“What about my wallet, Em? Did you see my wallet anywhere yet?” Norm asked for the umpteenth time.
“No.” She did snap this time. “Stupid dog’s a magpie. I can’t find anything.”
“Dang,” Norm muttered again, and shuffled off to water his vegetable patch with his danged dog in tow while Emily stomped back upstairs to put away the laundry.
“Em?” Another holler followed her up the stairs. “There’s clothes missing off the line. Did you bring any in?”
“I’m putting the laundry away now,” she called back, disinterested. Without his glasses, she was surprised he could even find the clothesline. The whole house is in an uproar since that stupid dog arrived. She lifted the clean laundry from the foot of her bed and took it to the dresser. It was madness to bring him here. I should have taken him straight to the pound. She yanked open the top drawer. Lord knows how much of our stuff is buried in the garden. If I ever—
Emily froze. Her sweater drawer was in chaos. She picked up a woolen Aran sweater. It had been a favorite. Now it was in tatters. A huge hole gaped at its side, and broken threads of yarn stuck out in all directions. It looked as if a great white shark had taken a bite out of it.
A quick rummage showed that nearly all her sweaters had been damaged in some way or another, either holed with huge chunks missing or plucked to bits as if a million chickens had attacked them. Emily slammed open the next drawer and found the same carnage in her underwear drawer. Everything had been folded away but now lay in an unruly mess, tattered and torn. This was not the dog’s doing. Emily’s blood ran cold. Something had been snooping in her room. Throughout the whole house in fact! Was it a Garoul after the almanac?
“Em! Em!” Norm’s shout brought her to the top of the stairs anxious that something awful had happened.
“What? What is it?”
“There’s a goose on the doorstep,” he called up.
“A goose? Is it dead?”
“Of course it’s dead.”
“Well, did the dog kill it?”
“It’s bigger than the dog.”
“The damned squirrel was almost as big as the dog and he killed it.”
“Well, okay then.” With that, Norm turned around and wandered outside again leaving Emily on the verge of tearing her hair out. We’re all going mad.
She went back to her room to recheck her desk. Uncle Norm said he’d picked up her books when they’d toppled over. Emily riffled through her collection. No books were missing. Nevertheless, she was relieved she had already removed the almanac to safety. But her reading glasses were gone, and now she noticed her pen, the gold one Uncle Norm had bought her for graduation, was not where she’d left it. What the hell was going on? Why were things going missing? And why were other weird things appearing, like
dead geese and squirrels?
Emily sat on the edge of her bed and tried to arrange her thoughts. She sniffed. There was a musky, foxy sort of smell. She checked the soles of her boots. Nothing. She sniffed again. It was still there, definitely an earthy, muddy sort of…oh no! Emily buried her nose in the bed sheets and breathed deeply. No! It couldn’t be. She pulled back her bedclothes to find a second dead squirrel and several acorns. Werewolf gifts! Luc’s werewolf gifts.
“That bastard’s been in my room.” She couldn’t believe it. “In my house. In my uncle’s house!” And the sneak thief had pilfered its way from room to room stealing anything that caught its fancy. It was all so obvious. She recalled Luc’s bizarre habits of acquisition; her little piles of loot, her need to grab at anything that caught her eye. Rage streaked through Emily like hellfire. How dare she come into my home and steal from my family!
She reached under her shirt to touch the silver key where it nestled on her chest. Her hands shook. She’d hidden the almanac and burned her notes. The only link left was the key to the collar. That had to be what Luc was after. Emily had to thwart her and hide it. She had to hide it well, in a place Luc would never want, never mind think, to look.
A snuffle came from the doorway and an inquisitive Wilbur stuck his nose through the gap and pushed the door open all the way. He came into her room slowly, as if aware he should not be upstairs. Emily noticed Uncle Norm had been gifting the dog again. He wore a brand new collar. She knelt and held out her arms.
“Come here, boy. Who’s a good boy?” she crooned. “I need your help with something.”
Seconds later, Emily wandered over to the window. She was more relaxed now. Her problems were piling up and she was dealing with them as best she could, one by one. But the biggest problem was still out there. She glared at the forest. Somewhere out there Luc Garoul was laughing at—
Something was wrong with her RV! Emily zoned in on her vehicle. Something was different. She had parked it under the big cedar. The narrow driveway only had room for Norm’s truck so she used the clearing beyond the house. And she knew she hadn’t left the side door open a crack. And she knew she hadn’t pulled down the back window blind either, especially not at that lopsided angle!
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