Ah. Shamanic Journeys. There it is. Finally.
The sign in question led to a strip mall where cardboard-cutout Indians curled away from the inside of a grimy window. “Really, this is it?” I murmured, rolling down my window to make sure the glass wasn’t playing tricks on me.
Nope, still there.
I hesitated for a moment then crossed the cracked concrete to enter tchotchke-ville. The door opened onto blaring New Age music. Mass-produced dreamcatchers dangled above a huge half-geode.
No wonder Justine had been able to book this guy on such short notice. This wasn’t the office of a shaman. This was the Native American version of a fortuneteller’s den.
Unfortunately, the guy who put the sham in shaman was expecting me. “Dr. Olivia Hart.” His voice emerged from behind a beaded curtain, English accent redolent with feigned wisdom.
My father would likely demand a full report as soon as I was finished here. My heart rate rose. My wolf woke within my chest.
Hunt? she asked, her one-track mind strangely seductive at the present moment.
Shush, I told her, reluctantly admitting that I couldn’t blow off this meeting. “Mr. Redhorse,” I said aloud, pushing through the beads and into the dark.
Wolf-assisted eyes eased my progress. The air was so full of burnt sage and incense that I pressed fingers against my nose to prevent a sneezing fit.
My animal half was even more impacted. She wriggled inside me, her discomfort magnifying my discomfort. My socks chafed as hairs began sprouting on our shared feet.
I held my breath, trying to stop the transition. But that just made matters worse.
The air inside our lungs muddied. Outside. Run, my wolf tempted.
Absolutely not.
She wasn’t listening and I didn’t blame her. Something about this space was strange, electrifying.
My toenails pressed against my shoe tips. I gave up on words and instead gripped human flesh with both hands.
Usually when my wolf and I battled for bodily dominance, the change began discretely. I had time to fight it.
This time, though, my ears popped as if I’d driven up the side of a mountain. My teeth ground together as my jaw lengthened. I clamped furring fingers across my face to hide the effects of the shift.
At least it was dim in the shaman’s back office. As long as he didn’t possess infrared vision, Benjie Redhorse wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between human and not-so-human....
Which is when the shaman flicked on the light.
WE STARED AT EACH OTHER for one long moment. I knew what he was seeing because I’d shifted once in front of the bathroom mirror. When my eardrums popped, they’d grown into cupped triangles. A stretching jaw meant I had less of a chin now than a lupine snout.
The shaman’s visage was not so profoundly problematic but it was equally unexpected. Benjie Redhorse turned out to be a tall, lanky redhead, whose skin was milk-pale except for a generous dusting of freckles. Young enough to be one of my students, he looked nothing like the Native American shaman pictured when I cyber-stalked his business while riding in the van.
But his eyes were sharp as he considered my furriness. I half expected him to run screaming. Instead, he raised both eyebrows.
“Explain.”
“It’s a mask. I was at a party and forgot about it...”
Of course, my wolf didn’t always pay attention to spoken English. Belatedly, she must have realized that it wasn’t cool to shift in public. Just at the wrong moment my ears tickled as they popped back into my head.
Now my teeth ground in the opposite direction. The fangs that were pricking against my lips a moment earlier receded into my gum line. Invisible inside my shoes, my toenails pinched as they turned human-flat.
“Nope. Try again.”
“Why haven’t you run screaming?” I didn’t need wolf eyes to peer at him now that the office was illuminated. Benjie didn’t look scared...he looked excited.
“Because you’re my employer. You clearly have a problem. I can help you.”
We were at an impasse. Benjie Redhorse wasn’t the shaman I’d expected or hoped for. I really didn’t want to take him with me. But—
“Just to be clear. If I fire you and leave right now, you’ll...?”
“Call back the nice lady who set up this meeting and blow your cover.”
Then Justine would tell my father. Dad was the last person I wanted to know about my fur problem....
In my belly, my wolf grumbled. But I didn’t have time to bother about her hurt feelings. Instead, I peered at Benjie, who looked as relaxed as if we were sitting on his porch eating watermelon. I cocked my head. Sniffed the air.
Benjie didn’t smell scared, but there was something wiggly underneath his show of dominance. He was hungry for something. Needed...what?
While I pondered, he rose to his feet, holding out one hand as if he expected me to shake it. When I didn’t reciprocate—who exactly shakes on a deal with a blackmailer?—he shrugged.
“Look. I know we got off on the wrong foot. I’m not what you expected. You’re not what I expected either. But my connections are good. With me along, we can access tribal lands tomorrow. I understand you’re working under a deadline?”
“Yes....”
“Like I said, I’m your man.”
Before I could accept or deny him, my phone buzzed. Not Darth Vader’s theme, but a chirping cricket.
Patricia, who’d been left in charge of the rest of the students.
I glanced once more at Benjie. “You’ll have to excuse me for a moment.” Then I accepted the call.
“DR. OLIVIA? THANK GOODNESS!” Patricia’s words hit me so fast I had no time to offer a greeting. “I messed up. I really messed up. The Madisons are acting crazy....”
Distant, muffled, a male voice interrupted her. “I told you. It’s a bad trip.”
Was that one of the Noahs? Before I could ask Patricia to hand over the phone to someone who clearly had more information than she did, the boy swore, his voice trailing off as he moved away from the microphone.
“Not into traffic!” Patricia must have forgotten I was on the other end of the line because her voice grew distant. There was a screech of tires and she shrieked so loudly my wolf woke with a vengeance.
Our pack, she demanded.
Our duty, I agreed.
Neither of us was sure exactly what was happening to the Madisons, but we were united in the certainty that our students needed our help. I wrestled in my jeans for the car keys, pushing through the beaded curtain and out the door.
Vaguely, I noted that Benjie Redhorse was following me. But 99% of my attention was focused on trying to decipher the scuffling sounds emerging from the cell phone.
Finally, Patricia’s voice reemerged from the confusion. “Okay, okay, okay. Hold onto them until the ambulance gets here,” she told someone. Then, breathless and terrified: “Dr. Olivia, what do I do?”
“You’ve called an ambulance?” I asked, trying to get a handle on the situation.
“Suzy did.” Her words tumbled out in a cascade of confusion and contrition. “We were playing poker in McDonalds with Emily, Jacob, and one of the Noahs to kill time while we waited on your boyfriend. Madison was super upset about being assaulted. We thought it was okay to let her talk to her friends a few tables away. I dropped the ball so bad!”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” I assured her, trying to unlock the SUV without losing the thread of our conversation. I was the one who’d ignored my responsibilities and left an upset student under the care of people who had no idea what had happened to her.
My fingers shook, the key refusing to find the keyhole. Then a male hand covered mine, stealing the keys and fixing the problem. Benjie pushed me gently aside so he could slide into the driver’s seat.
“I’m driving,” he said when I stood there and glared at him. My brow furrowed. I was still certain there must be a way not to take Benjie Redhorse with us to Yellowston
e...
...I just hadn’t worked out the specifics quite yet.
Until I had time to juggle parental disapproval and blackmail, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to let the not-really-shaman pilot the vehicle. Decision made, I took shotgun while Patricia sank into a morass of self-recrimination.
“I can’t be trusted to take care of children!”
I made soothing noises while struggling to make the mental leap alongside her. Right. The nanny gig. Harming a student under her care wasn’t the best endorsement of her abilities. Campus was such a rumor-mill, the parents in question would know about the Madisons before the day was done.
Still—“Patricia, listen to me. Things happen. As long as nobody dies, the Emersons aren’t going to fire you before you start.”
Then I frowned as the SUV turned, not onto the highway, but toward a side road. “What are you doing?” I mouthed at Benjie, catching his eyes in the rear-view mirror.
“Only one hospital in the county,” he answered, a deep country twang sliding into his voice. “Don’t worry, ma’am. I’m in this for the long haul. Can’t return a deposit I’ve already spent.”
This was getting better and better. Benjie Redhorse was not only a shyster and a blackmailer, even his upper-crust accent had been fake.
Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I tuned back in to the phone conversation as Patricia howled out loathing of her missteps. “And listen to me,” she moaned. “I’m so self-centered. I’m worried about my future when I should be worried about the Madisons. I mean, they’re really messed up. They’re talking about werewolves.”
I jolted, suddenly doubting the bad-trip hypothesis and dropping the issue of Patricia’s future entirely. “What are they saying?” I demanded, only to be drowned out by the wail of sirens.
“I’ve gotta go,” Patricia cut me off. “The ambulance is here.”
Then she hung up.
Chapter 15
We flew down hospital corridors. Me and Benjie, united by a need to find the Madisons before they could tell anyone that werewolves existed.
“No running!” a nurse scolded us. But our destination was in sight, and we didn’t falter. The waiting room opened off the corridor, full of students and shifters. My gaze, despite every effort to the contrary, flew to Claw.
He was bruised and scratched yet full of animal grace as he turned away from the window to face me. I smelled Theta and Harry guarding the entrance, but I didn’t bother glancing in their direction as I passed between them. Just raised my eyebrows at Claw, questions written in the furrow of my brow.
He didn’t speak in my brain the way he had at the gas station—he didn’t need to. Instead a single head shake said everything. No, Madison hadn’t done anything unfixable. No, we didn’t yet know if the troubled girls would be alright.
And then...we did. “Is anyone here for Madison and,” the middle-aged doctor who must have entered through the other door while I was lost in my eye-lock glanced down at his clipboard, “Madison, and Madison?”
“We are.” Patricia rose, and at the same moment my back warmed as someone came up behind me.
Someone? my wolf countered. She and I both knew that sensation of strength and protection could emanate from nobody except for Claw.
Then the huddle included Suzy, Val, and the remaining students. Even Benjie had pushed in closer, only Theta and Harry hanging back to guard the outer door. This had better be good news or there would be a group meltdown any minute now....
Thankfully, the prognosis was as positive as could be expected.
“It appears the young ladies in question took ecstasy. Molly,” the doctor elaborated when a couple of the students looked confused. “They’ll be alright in a few days, but the drug appears to have been cut with something problematic. It would help if we had a sample to test.”
He glanced around the group, waiting. Gray-haired and short-bearded, the doctor smelled entirely human. But he exuded the single-minded purpose of a wolf on the hunt.
His patience paid off too. First came foot shuffling, then beady-eyed glances. Finally, one of the Noahs caved.
A shaking hand reached into his pocket to pull out a bottle of what looked, to me, like colorful candies. “Unicorn Madison was so bummed out, I thought this might cheer her up,” Noah muttered at the toes of his flip flops.
“And the provenance?” The doctor snagged the bottle, letting it slide into one pocket of his lab coat. Taking in Noah’s confusion, he elaborated: “Did you buy them from a friend? On the street? Where did they come from?”
“They were on the van seat.” Noah glanced up, eager to please and relieved he wasn’t being berated. “I guess the last people who used the van left them behind.”
The doctor appeared satisfied, but I jolted in reaction. That made no sense. Kids might lose track of their inhaler or allergy medications, but they didn’t leave party drugs lying around to be used by whoever came along next.
Had the van been open last night after all? Had the same person who pawed through my files dropped ecstasy where a student could pick it up?
If so, then my not-really-a-dream begged further questions. Who would do such a thing? And why?
I opened my mouth...then lost my train of thought as Claw’s hand settled at the curve of my waist. The distraction was enough that I barely heard the doctor’s mention of twenty-four hours of observation before discharge. I tuned out the subsequent chatter of student discussion—who wanted to stay and wait, who wanted to go on to Yellowstone. I barely listened as Patricia and Suzy launched into a contest of politeness revolving around the issue of who should oversee students at the hospital if our party split up.
Instead, my attention was attuned to the werewolf whose scent was even sweeter than I remembered. “We need to move up our exit time,” Claw murmured as I turned to face him.
“To when?”
He was so close, I could have pushed up on my tiptoes and kissed him.
“To now,” he answered, dropping his hand away from my waist.
DESPITE MY FRUSTRATION, I followed Claw to the nearest window. Something about the tension in his neck suggested he wasn’t being evasive just to get my goat.
Sure enough, Claw nodded with his chin toward the parking lot. “Enemy territory.” Together, we peered out at the bustle of the main hospital entrance, the flood of humanity resembling ordinary chaos until my wolf crept up to peer through my eyes.
There, she murmured, fixating on a thirty-something guy leaning against a lamp post. And there. This was a woman in an idling car, eyes on us just as ours were on her.
“Who are they?”
Claw’s eyes closed as he inhaled, then his gaze slid sideways as the lids reopened. “This is my fault,” he admitted. “I went overboard with the scent marking. Pissed off the locals.”
“Can we get past them?”
“Do you still want to transfer your wolf?”
Claw’s gaze bored so deep into my skin I could have sworn he was examining my inner animal’s intentions. Whatever he saw there made his mouth purse in disappointment. I wasn’t sure why I was so reluctant to explain my need to carry on with my quest.
I forced words out through lips that felt like rubber. “The students....”
Claw’s eyes averted; his voice turned business-like. “So we’ll find a safe way out of the hospital and keep driving west.”
His inner beast was no longer evident. I was surprised to find myself missing his wolf.
“I need...” I started. Then I spun around as I realized what had been nagging at me for the past several seconds.
The chills and erect hairs hadn’t been a response to Claw’s displeasure. No, those were clues that I was being stalked, not by a predator but by a redheaded fake.
You need a shaman,” Benjie Redhorse declared, eyes bright with interest. “I’ll help you ‘transfer your wolf.’” Yes, this part came complete with air quotes. “Then you’ll write me a glowing review for the website. My career will be l
aunched.”
CLAW GROWLED. OR, RATHER, his wolf growled. Okay, time to get this party moving. The trouble was—I couldn’t tell the human contingent that we were fleeing from enemy werewolves. So I’d have to think of another excuse for rushing them past the danger outside.
Ignoring Benjie’s presence—after all, he already knew far more than was comfortable—I pointed at a third strange shifter who was sauntering back and forth in front of the hospital’s main entrance. “There’s another one. Will they come into the hospital?”
Claw shook his head in silence.
“If my students go out....?”
“Alone? Tomorrow?” Claw’s nostrils flared. “That’s been dealt with. The problem is here and now, near you and me.”
“They’ll stop us if we try to leave, you’re saying,” I clarified.
“They’ll try,” Claw ground out.
His wolf was back and angry. The electricity of incipient fur was strangely invigorating...and it also gave me an idea as I turned to face the students who had to be my first priority.
“There’s been a tornado warning one county over,” I lied, voice loud enough to catch everyone’s attention. “Anybody who wants to keep going to Yellowstone needs to gather their stuff immediately. If we’re still in the area in fifteen minutes, we might not be able to leave for hours. When we reach the parking lot, we’ll have to run.”
Theta and Harry came alert instantly. Even Val stiffened and straightened, as if she could sense Claw’s protective streak and my urge to flee while we still could.
But Suzy remained calmly efficient. “Noah M. wants to wait with the Madisons,” she told me. “I’m going to stay with them just in case.”
Something wordless passed between Claw and Theta, sending the latter angling toward the department secretary. Meanwhile, the wolf whined within my belly. She didn’t like leaving any members of our party behind.
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