Ghost Moon

by Rebecca York

  “There’s a sheath under there. Get it.”

  Pinder got down and wriggled under the vehicle, no easy task considering that the deflated tires had lowered the van a couple of inches.

  He emerged grasping a leather sheath, which he held up to the light, his eyes narrowed.

  “What?” Bowie snapped.

  “There are teeth marks on it.”

  “And?”

  He pointed. “Animal teeth marks.”

  Bowie stared at the marks. They definitely weren’t human.

  He heard an indrawn breath from behind him and saw Spencer standing there. His face had gone white.

  “You know something about this?” Bowie snapped.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then what the hell is the matter with you? Have you turned chicken on me?”

  Spencer swallowed, then began to speak in a strained voice. “We saw wolves in the woods, where we left Reynolds.”

  “And you failed to mention that fact?”

  “It didn’t seem relevant at the time.”

  “But you noticed it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He’d like to march the man to the punishment ground, strip off his clothing, and give him enough lashes to make him faint. But he didn’t have time for that now. He had to think. He was poised to pull off the greatest act of patriotism in the historyof the United States—Operation Eagle’s Flight—and he had encountered a setback.

  Something had happened. Something he didn’t quite understand.It had started a couple of nights ago. First the dogs had been barking. Then they’d stopped. And when he’d returnedto his quarters he’d seen an animal go out the window.

  Was someone using trained dogs to spy on him? A man with a German shepherd partner, like a K-9 team. Or could it be a man working with wolves?

  He thought he’d prepared for every contingency. Everythingwas ready to go. And now they had a problem.

  Pinder cleared his throat.

  Bowie glared at him.

  “Permission to speak, sir.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “I think I winged the wolf.”

  “Ah! Good work. Too bad you didn’t drill the man.”

  PAIN stabbed through Jacob’s right front leg. When he spared a glance at it, he saw that it was bleeding.

  Damn! The shooter had gotten him.

  He kept moving, making for the pile of clothing he’d left in the woods. But one of the colonel’s troops had gotten there first and had picked up his T-shirt, shaking it to see if anything fell out.

  Jacob turned and faded into the underbrush, listening to the man shout and another guy answer.

  “Hey, over here. Look at this.”

  “Somebody stripped out here.”

  “Why the hell would he do that?”

  “To change clothing?”

  “Yeah. Maybe he has on a uniform like ours. Maybe he thinks he can blend in.” The first speaker riffled through Jacob’s belongings. “Here’s a cell phone. And car keys.”

  “Radio the colonel.”

  “Yeah.”

  Shit, Jacob silently muttered. His wallet was hidden in a special compartment in the car. But the cell phone was bad enough.

  He could hear the soldier talking, but not the answers.

  “We’ve found a pile of clothing—with a cell phone and car keys.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Should we press redial?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shit! What if they got Ross?

  Jacob curled into the underbrush, wishing to hell he could contact the other Marshall men. That was out of the question now. But he had a pretty good idea of what they might try to do, and there was one way he might be able to help them.

  Eyes closed, he sent his thoughts toward the two dogs still roaming Flagstaff Farm.

  Could he reach them? He didn’t know, but he had to give it a shot.

  My friends are coming. My friends are coming, he said, over and over, praying that the message was getting through. The distance might be too far. But he’d already made contact with the dogs twice before. Maybe that connection would let him do it again.

  IN the front seat, Ross stared at his cell phone. “I don’t like it. Jacob hasn’t called in.”

  “You think he’s in trouble?” Logan asked.

  “Yeah. Unfortunately. Otherwise we would have heard from him.” Ross pulled off the road into the woods. Then he called Lance. “You on your way?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “I’m parked about a quarter mile from the entrance to the farm. Logan and I are going in as wolves.”

  “I’ll join you,” Lance answered. “But then what?”

  “We look for Jacob. And we try to figure out how to disableBowie’s men.”

  In the back of the vehicle, Quinn cleared her throat.

  “What?” Ross asked, and she could tell she’d broken his train of thought.

  “I have an idea,” she said. “Maybe it won’t work. But I think I should tell you.”

  BOWIE clicked off. They were making progress. They’d found enough to identify the guy who’d left his clothing in the woods. And his vehicle had to be nearby.

  They were also bringing his phone, which should give a list of incoming and outgoing calls.

  But top priority was finding the intruder. So was he still on the farm? If so, he was either wearing a uniform like the troops had on, or he was hiding out.

  Bowie pulled out his whistle and blew—two short blasts and a long one, summoning the troops to the parade grounds.

  When they were standing at attention, he said, “Able team goes into the woods.” He gestured in the direction where Pinder had been firing. “Look for a vehicle. Disable it. Shoot out the tires. Then look for a man and a wolf. I want them brought back here. Go.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Eight men moved off. He addressed the rest of the troops. “Grady and Hover will guard the vehicles. Maxwell, you change the tires. The rest of Baker team, search the area near the buildings and vehicles. Shoot any intruders you see. Shoot to wound. I want to interrogate the man.”

  THE phone rang, and Lance answered.

  “This is Ross again. Put this on the speaker.”

  Lance clicked the button.

  “Quinn has a suggestion, and I need you in the loop.”

  Ross told them the plan, and Caleb wanted to shout at him to leave Quinn out of it.

  But he knew she wasn’t going to back down, and he knew they needed her help. Quinn and everybody they’d brought along.

  “We’d better get some details straight,” Lance said, and Caleb felt his stomach clench as he listened to him making plans with Ross.

  Werewolf plans. Well, that didn’t apply to him, and he’d better stop wishing things were different.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Quinn watched as Logan, Sam, and Ross got out of the car and headed for the woods.

  Just before he stepped into the trees, Ross turned and gave them a thumbs-up sign. She knew that was to say good luck.

  Still, as he disappeared from sight, Quinn swallowed. She’d come up with this plan, but now she was wondering how well it was going to work.

  She and Olivia moved to the front seat and Olivia drove up the road, closer to the edge of the farm. When they reached the fence that Jacob had described, they stopped. Olivia pulled the hood release, and both of them got out. After raisingthe hood, they both peered inside, then stood talking and gesturing and looking at the engine.

  COLONEL Bowie pressed the redial button on the captured phone. The instrument called someone named Ross. Bowie could see the number, but nobody answered.

  Well, he’d worry about the intruder’s friends later. Right now, he had to figure out who was on the compound, screwing up his plans. Slipping the phone into his pocket, he strode off to search the farm.

  QUINN and Olivia kept up the act for five minutes, and Quinn was sure her plan wasn’t going to work.

  Finally, two
men in uniform came out of the woods and walked rapidly toward them.

  “This is private property,” one of them called.

  Olivia eyed the machine gun slung over his shoulder. “And it looks like you’re on guard duty. I’m so sorry to . . . uh . . . interrupt your work. But our car stopped. We don’t know what’s wrong. Could you possibly help us?”

  He tipped his head to the side, looking at them with a smirk on his face. “Don’t you ladies have Triple A or something?”

  Quinn had heard of that. You paid a yearly fee, and they helped you out if your car broke down. She smacked her forehead.“I knew I shouldn’t have let my membership expire.”

  She was wary of the guns as the men came closer. From their behavior, she assumed they didn’t see two young women as a threat. But she couldn’t be sure.

  “We’d really appreciate it if you could tell us what’s wrong with the engine,” Olivia said.

  One of the men gave his companion a look and rolled his eyes. “If it will get you out of here.”

  She and Olivia were standing close together. Now they brushed shoulders and sent the message that they had worked out in the car.

  We are no threat to you. We’re just two dumb women. The other militiamen at Flagstaff Farm are the threat. We are no threat. The militiamen at Flagstaff Farm are the threat. You must eliminate the threat. You must shoot the other militiamen.You must go back and shoot them.

  One of the men looked at her and blinked. “What?” he said, his voice puzzled.

  Quinn glanced at Olivia. The man had heard something, so the women sent the message again.

  We are no threat to you. We’re just two dumb women. The other militiamen at Flagstaff Farm are the threat. We are no threat. The militiamen at Flagstaff Farm are the threat. You must eliminate the threat. You must shoot them. You must go back and shoot them.

  She held her breath, wondering if a message so contrary to all their training was going to work.

  She dared to give Olivia a quick look, but the other woman was standing with her eyes staring straight ahead.

  Maybe she was thinking the soldiers might turn their weapons on them.

  It could happen, if the message got garbled.

  One of the men slid his hand toward the machine gun slung over his shoulder, and Quinn tensed, ready to duck underthe weapon and attack him.

  Then, to her vast relief, both men turned and walked stiffly away. She watched them until they disappeared into the woods.

  “Nice work,” Olivia murmured.

  “I hope so.”

  They drove slowly up the road again toward the other side of the farm. If the trick had worked and they could pull it again, they could get more of the militiamen shooting at each other.

  LANCE stopped a quarter mile down the road from the farm. “I’m going to change to wolf form now,” he said to Caleb.

  “Go on. I’ll be all right.”

  They’d talked about Caleb’s plan, and he knew Lance thought it was too risky. But there wasn’t a real alternative. The other Marshalls had the advantage of the wolf. And he had the advantage of already being dead.

  Too bad there hadn’t been a lot of time to coordinate their efforts. But Bowie had forced them into attacking before they were ready.

  They both climbed out and headed for the woods. Caleb found the fence that circled the property and ducked under it. When a dog came racing toward him, he stopped short.

  “Good boy,” he called softly, holding out his hand.

  The dog stopped and sniffed, then licked his palm. It recognizedhim. Well, not him. Wyatt Reynolds. But that was good enough.

  Wyatt had gotten what he wanted—death. Once again, Caleb wondered if he’d inherited the man’s goal. Or was he tempting fate on his own account?

  Quinn had made him want to live. Yet he couldn’t be sure that was the best outcome—for both of them.

  And now he had the opportunity to let destiny determine if he lived or died. Whichever way it came out, he’d know he’d helped the Marshall family. That made him feel good. He’d started out hating them, then realized they were nothing like the werewolves of his generation. Well, that was going a little too far. They still harbored their animal aggressions. But Ross had pulled off a kind of miracle in getting them to work together.

  His machine gun at the ready, he started toward the center of the compound—until the sound of automatic weapons fire had him turning quickly to his right and moving at a dead run. Ross and the others had gone in as wolves. So they weren’t the ones shooting.

  THEY’D gotten the bastard in the woods, Bowie thought. In the next moment, he wasn’t so sure. The clattering sound of machine guns continued. What the hell was going on? It sounded like his men had encountered an invading force and were returning fire.

  Was the guy named Ross coming with reinforcements?

  From the corner of his eye, he saw a flash of movement and stopped short.

  One of the dogs. No—not a dog—a wolf. It was coming toward him, a purposeful look on its face.

  What the hell? He drew his sidearm, just as a voice to his right called out.

  “That wolf isn’t your enemy.”

  Bowie jerked toward the sound of the voice. His jaw dropped open when he saw Wyatt Reynolds standing in front of him.

  “You’re dead,” he managed to say. “Portland and Spencer buried you alive.”

  “That’s right. But that doesn’t do you much good.”

  Bowie raised his gun and fired, hitting Reynolds in the middle of the chest. He saw the bullet go through his shirt.

  The man staggered back, but he didn’t go down. Before he could fire again, a gray shape leaped forward. Then another.Two wolves brought him to the ground, and he fought to get his weapon into position.

  GUNFIRE still sounded nearby, and Jacob had no idea what was going on. He’d thought they were looking for him. It sounded like they were after someone else, too.

  Then he saw a man in a beige uniform coming toward his hiding place, gun drawn.

  Oh, shit.

  It looked like they’d found him. He gathered his strength, ready to spring. But before he could climb to his feet, a wolf leaped on the man’s back, bringing him down.

  Logan.

  Jacob would have shouted his relief if he could have talked. He staggered up, forcing his injured body to function,but he could barely move.

  Logan bit down on the man’s shoulder, and he screamed but still held on to his machine gun.

  Another soldier came running out of the woods, his own weapon in firing position. Jacob gathered the last of his strength, ready to go for the militiaman’s gun hand.

  Before he could leap, the newcomer shot his comrade, and the guy went still.

  For a moment, the shooter’s eyes registered confusion. Then he firmed his jaw, turned, and headed back the way he’d come.

  Logan was wearing a pack and a whistle around his neck. He blew into it, making a call like a bluejay to tell the other wolves that he’d found Jacob. Then he trotted into the thicket and shrugged out of the pack.

  Jacob grimaced before managing to silently say the chant that changed him from wolf to man.

  He knew Logan was doing the same thing.

  As soon as he could talk, he asked, “What the hell was that?”

  “I guess the women’s plan worked. Quinn and Olivia were going to try and lure a soldier to them by looking like they had car trouble. Then they were going to tell him to start shooting at his friends,” he answered as he climbed into sweatpants and a T-shirt.

  “Sounds like the guy is doing it,” Jacob answered as he tried to pull on the pants Logan handed him. Finally, he gave up and lay back as Logan pulled out his cell phone. Again, he could only hear half of the conversation.

  “Olivia?”

  “We’re fine, but Jacob is wounded,” he said. “Bring a first aid kit. I’ll use the bluejay whistle so you can find us.”

  “Mind putting on my pants before the women get her
e?” Jacob asked when Logan had finished.

  “Yeah.” Logan bent down and helped Jacob pull on the sweatpants. Then he blew the whistle, repeating the action again in a couple of minutes to signal their location.

  Jacob was woozy, but he realized there was something he needed to say. “They got my clothes and cell phone.”

  “Not good,” Logan muttered.

  “They took the phone to Colonel Bowie, I think.”

  Finally, he saw a slender figure running toward him.

  One of the women! But where was the other one?

  Then another burst of gunfire made them all stop in their tracks.

  BOWIE struggled with the wolves. Neither one of them had gone for his throat. One of the animals clamped down on his gun hand. The other crunched his left arm, and he screamed as he felt bone shatter. Then it did the same thing to his right leg.

  The two wolves kept him cornered, until one of his own men came running toward him. It was Spencer—firing like his colonel was the enemy.

  “Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” he shouted. “The bomb’s right in the van in back of me.”

  CALEB recognized the man running toward him. It was one of the bastards who had buried him in the woods. The one named Spencer.

  His chest hurt like a son of a bitch from where he’d been struck in the bulletproof vest. But he slid behind the edge of the van where the two wolves had taken down Colonel Bowie.

  The colonel was still shouting. “Stop. No. Stop. The bomb is in that van.”

  The two Marshall wolves sprang away from Bowie, one leaping to the right and one to the left, circling toward Spencer.

  Caleb held the gun the way Lance had taught him, in a two-handed grip. As Spencer ran forward, firing, Caleb beganshooting. And the satisfaction of hitting the man in the chest was sweeter than he could have imagined.

  “You won’t stay dead,” Bowie gasped.

  “You wish.”

  His eyes glazed with pain, the colonel looked from Lance to Ross. “Did those wolves save you?”

  “Yes,” he answered, his throat so tight he could barely speak. It wasn’t literally true, not the way Bowie meant it. Quinn had dug him up, but the Marshalls had saved him from himself. “They’re my brothers,” he answered.

  “Your brothers? I don’t understand.”

  “You wouldn’t.”