As we reached the parking lot, Tony leaned against the side of Eliza’s rental car and waited for us. His expression revealed no tension and I gave a small sigh as I relaxed in response.
“Took you long enough,” he said as we approached.
“Two feet are slower than four,” Newt said.
Eliza and Newt spent the walk back planning our approach to the Salamanders at the Medford fire. They agreed we should all work together to capture one of the Eclipsers before dealing with the blaze itself. We needed more information: how many Eclipsers in the area, the location of their headquarters, and their targets for tomorrow if this conflict wasn’t resolved. Newt reminded us friendly Salamander reinforcements should arrive any time and could help with fire control. As Eliza briefed Tony on the plan, I walked away to make a quick phone call and check on Carson.
Dana reported he took a bottle, ate a quarter of a banana, and lapsed into a food coma, so all seemed well. I reminded her my phone was on silent—since we were allegedly in meetings with the insurance company over rebuilding my house—and told her I’d check in again soon.
When I re-approached the group, everyone seemed in fine spirits, so I guessed Tony hadn’t put up any fuss over the plan. He seemed to have a hard time remembering Eliza was in charge, but I hoped we’d avoid an actual fight for dominance.
“We ready?” I asked.
“Yup,” said Newt. “Bring it.”
I smiled back at him. We piled into the cars, me and Eliza in Sheila’s car and Newt and Tony in the rental, and headed to Medford.
****
Eliza turned on the radio to hear the latest on the blaze they’d named the Roxy Ann fire. No closer to containment, which proved Eclipsers were at the scene egging on the flames. Roads in the vicinity remained closed. I pulled a local map out of Sheila’s glove box and tried to find an alternate route that might get us closest to the blaze without detection. Eliza detoured through a coffee kiosk while I figured things out, so we stocked up on lattes and muffins. I was lucky enough to find a bottle of ibuprofen in Sheila’s glove box and helped myself to three.
“Julie,” Eliza said, “the way Tony looked at you back there…”
I shot her a look meant to stop her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“And the way he talked to Newt. Possessive.”
I shook my head in denial.
“He’s strong, you know. Powerful. The latent wolf in you—your dark moon side—well, I understand why you’re drawn to him.”
“Wow,” I said. “I am not having this conversation.”
Eliza frowned at the road and shot me a glance.
“I mean it. We are not having this conversation. There’s nothing to talk about, because I’m not some lovesick idiot controlled by her latent dark moon wolf.”
We lapsed into uncomfortable silence and I forced myself to focus on the task at hand.
“Turn here,” I said. “Okay, this road winds around some orchards and takes us close to the far side of the fire.”
Eliza rolled down her window, even though it was in the upper nineties, even though the air hung with the brown haze of smoke.
“Let’s skirt as much of the fire as we can, while I try to scent an Eclipser,” she said. “If we can’t sense one from the road, Tony and I will scout as wolves, but I’d rather get us all close enough for an ambush.”
“Right,” I said.
I pored over the maps, trying to find roads that came as close to the fire as possible—not the easiest thing in the world, since roads were sparse in the area and the firefighters closed some to the public. The Eclipsers had thankfully avoided major population centers when they set the blaze. That wouldn’t hold true for the next fire they set, if we could believe Ma’at’s threats. At the thought, I glanced at the clock and saw half the day was gone. Tonight, the council wanted to take Carson into their custody. By tomorrow morning, if his powers weren’t stripped, people would start dying.
My phone rang. I fished it out of my purse and answered eagerly when I saw Tim’s name.
“Hi!”
“Hi,” Tim said, sounding tired.
“How is she?”
“She’s doing well, considering.”
“What does that mean? Is she in pain? Is she awake?”
“I’m sure she’s in pain, but you know Sheila: she’s not complaining. I’m out in the hall right now. She’s awake and I know she wants to talk to you, but I wanted to warn you that she’s still a little out of it.”
I nodded. “I’d like to talk to her anyway.”
“Okay, hold on.”
After a moment’s pause and some muffled noises, I heard Sheila. The sound of her voice forced tears to my eyes—I knew her well enough to hear the pain behind her words.
“Jules?”
“Hey, Sheila. It’s me. How are you feeling?”
“Okay. They’re taking good care of me.”
I winced. “I’m sorry I’m not there with you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“It’s okay, Jules. I know you’re…busy. Tim told me.” Her voice cracked slightly and I heard her taking a sip of water.
“Yeah. We should have things cleared up by tomorrow, though.” God, I hoped that was the truth. “I’ll come up to Portland then, for sure.”
“All right.”
There was a pause. Too much to say and no words to say it.
“You’re being careful, right?”
I dashed tears from my eyes. “Of course, you idiot. Really careful. Eliza, Newt, and…uh, Tony are all here, too.”
After a moment of silence, Sheila said, “Tony. Dave’s brother. Do you think we can really trust him?”
“Yeah, I do.”
I’m not sure what emotion she heard behind my simple sentence, but her voice suddenly rose, became clearer through the haze of pain, exhaustion, and drugs.
“Julie Hall?” Sheila drew out my name with particular emphasis. “Tell me about Tony.”
“Jesus, Sheila, nothing to tell.”
“What’s he like?”
“He’s—I don’t know. I think we can trust him and you don’t need to worry about any of this right now. We’ll take care of the Salamanders and get up to Portland as soon as we can. You just need to listen to the doctors, do everything they tell you, let Tessa White do her thing, rest as much as possible, and get better. Okay?”
I glanced over at Eliza. She smiled, damn her.
“Okay,” said Sheila. “Just don’t—don’t do anything stupid, Jules.”
“I promise I won’t do anything stupid.”
“Yeah, right,” said Eliza. “That’ll be the day.”
I gestured for her to shut up and turned my back to her as much as possible in the confines of the car.
“Sheila? You go rest and take care of yourself. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll talk to you soon, BFF.”
I stared at the phone for a minute and wiped my eyes again.
“Hey,” Eliza said, gently. “She’s strong. She’s going to be all right.”
“I know that. But I—” I shook my head to clear it and pushed my hair behind my ears. “Let’s just do this.”
Chapter Twenty
In the end, we lucked out. As we drove down the two-lane county road, Eliza suddenly slammed on the brakes and came to a stop on the gravel shoulder.
“Got one,” she said with narrowed eyes. “One of the Eclipsers from the woods near the reservoir. Not the blond one, the other one.”
“Mr. Average? Where is he?”
“Not close, but between here and the fire.”
I stared in that direction. From the road, we couldn’t see any flames, just dark smoke billowing up from the back side of the wooded peak a good distance from the road. Newt and Tony pulled off the road behind us.
Eliza and I got out of the car as they approached.
“Okay,” said Eliza. “Tony, call darkness for you and Newt. I’ll cover Julie. You
two get behind the Salamander on the peak side. Julie and I will hang toward the left flank. If that rocky bluff there,” she pointed, “is twelve o’clock, he’s at the eleven, probably half a mile in.”
I took a bearing and nodded. Eliza went through the plan and assigned tasks, while the rest of us listened attentively. With no debate, we moved.
****
I stood with my gun ready, wreathed in Eliza’s darkness. En route from the road to our current position, I realized Newt wasn’t by my side to siphon heat away from a fire attack. I fought away the resultant terror and banished the image of Sheila’s charred flesh dancing behind my eyes. I would be just fine.
Eliza led in wolf form, ears cocked and muscles taut with anticipation. We both focused on the Salamander thirty feet in front of us. Eliza’s Were senses had been right, of course. He was the one I’d called Mr. Average: clean cut, dark hair, middle-aged, and nondescript. We were at least a hundred feet from the true blaze and Mr. Average was in the process of burning a wide swath of trees. He walked quickly and touched each trunk, leaving gouts of fire snaking up into the branches in his wake. I frowned: he was probably creating a new hot spot for the fire to jump containment. Hopefully, his actions proved he couldn’t call fire without a physical link. The Salamander paused for a moment to watch a plane circle the area before it moved farther toward the fire line and dumped a load of…something. Some fire-fighting chemical, I guessed, because it wasn’t water. From the serious look on Mr. Average’s face, he calculated how quickly he ought to move on to another area.
Suddenly, fire blossomed on Mr. Average’s far side: not called by him, but purple flames called by Newt. Mr. Average whirled with a shout I barely heard over the roar of the fire.
The signal!
I moved in quickly, darting between trees. Eliza became a blur of speed as her buff-colored body hurtled through the brush to close on the Eclipser. Right before she reached him, she disappeared into a writhing mass of shadow and then emerged in human form to crash into the Salamander. I trained my gun on the two of them.
Newt and Tony emerged from the shadows. Purple flames wreathed Newt’s hands and Tony’s dark wolf form drew my gaze like a black hole, like barely covered danger. I pulled my gaze away from him to watch Eliza and the Salamander.
I held my breath, finger on the trigger, Newt and Tony equally ready to spring.
Eliza rolled off the Eclipser and rose to her knees. One of her hands firmly grasped Mr. Average’s forearm.
“Okay,” she said, her voice strained. “Got him.”
We all approached the strange pair: Eliza with body taut and sweat on her brow, the Salamander lying on the ground and blinking.
He hiccupped and waved a hand at us. “Joining the party! Join the party! Come on in.” The Salamander started to giggle. “No dogs allowed, though, sorry.”
Newt walked right up to the man and stood there with dark flames still dancing in his hands. For once, no trace of humor etched his face.
“What’s your name?” Newt asked.
“What’s in a name? Smells so sweet. Should have known.” The man gave a lopsided smile and hummed for a minute before saying, “Name of the rose, rosemary, sage, thyme.”
I kept my gun trained on the man, just in case. He seemed pretty crazy, though.
“How many Eclipsers are here?” Newt tried again.
“Here, there, everywhere a quack, quack.”
“How many?”
The man started picking his nose with complete absorption.
Newt gave an irritated sigh. “So this is what happens when you Weres call on the moon to make someone insane?”
Tony said, “One of Eliza’s strongest skills: making people crazy. Sometimes, she doesn’t even need to call the moon.”
I shot a glance at him. Was that a joke? Tony, joking? Judging from the smile that quirked his lips, yes. Eliza grimaced in return, but otherwise remained focused on the Salamander.
“I’m glad he’s not trying to burn us to a crisp,” I said. “But I’m not sure we’ll get anything useful out of him in this state.”
Newt tried again. “How many Eclipsers are here?”
The man started humming again. This time I recognized it as “One Little, Two Little, Three Little Indians”—though they probably called it something else these days? Was that a disrespectful song? Dammit, I wrenched my mind back on task.
“Do you think that means there are ten? Ten Eclipsers?” I said.
“Could mean anything. Or nothing at all, which is most likely.” Newt ran his hand through his hair and tugged in irritation, which caused even more spikes.
I took a step closer to the Eclipser with my gun still aimed at his chest. The man gave me a loopy smile.
“Hey, I know you,” he said.
“Eliza, can you back off slightly on the crazy stuff for just a minute? Without him attacking us?” I asked.
“I’ll try.”
“What’s your target tomorrow? Where will you set fires, if we don’t give you Carson?” I tried to keep my voice friendly.
A moment of clarity passed over the man’s face like a cloud moved. “Dog-lover,” he said and tried to spit at me. He furrowed his brow.
Newt yelled, “Watch out!”
Eliza gritted her teeth and pressed both hands to the man’s arm. I saw the exact moment when her powers prevailed, because the Eclipser’s head lolled to one side. The pine needles near his hands smoked; Newt scuffed the area clear.
Tony said, “This is not useful. We might as well kill him.”
A shiver ran up my spine from his voice.
“Dammit,” said Newt and took several steps away as if to clear his head.
“Okay, so when he’s insane, he makes no sense. When Eliza releases him, he tries to kill us.” Somehow, cataloguing the obvious helped me. “Newt could imprison him with fire, but that wouldn’t necessarily make him talk, either. Plus, we don’t know exactly how strong he is, so we should avoid a fight if possible.”
Newt started to speak, but I cut him off to continue. “Yes, I’m sure you could take him, Newt, especially with the rest of us for backup. But we won’t learn anything that way.”
“So.” Obviously, the Salamander wouldn’t shake off Eliza’s called-insanity, because Mr. Average babbled animatedly to a large pine cone. I lowered my gun and alternated rubbing each hand on my jeans to dry the sweat off my palms. “We resort to normal human methods of investigation.”
“What do you mean?” asked Newt.
“Here.” I held out my gun, grip first, and Tony took it from me. Then I knelt by the Eclipser and went through his pockets. I tossed his wallet to Newt, who caught it smoothly. Mr. Average’s other pocket was pay dirt: his cell phone.
I checked the contact list first. Many unknown names, half of them probably non-Eclipser friends and completely irrelevant to the current situation. Too bad he hadn’t added some code to everyone’s contact information, “Eclps” or “bad guy” would have been helpful. I looked at the call record and saw multiple recent calls to Paula Davidson, Tim Wheaton, Johnny Browne, and “Mary.”
“His name is Mr. Average,” said Newt, with the wallet thumbed open.
“What?” I said. Even Tony did a double take.
“Just kidding.” Newt grinned. “His name is Mike Hollis and he’s from Grover Beach, California. I wonder if that’s near the suspected Eclipser headquarters.”
“Do you know any of these names?” I rattled off a bunch of contacts from the recent call log.
Newt shook his head. “No, but someone might. We’ll run them past the master.”
“Okay.”
I clicked through the cell phone menu again and went to his text messages. He seemed to be a compulsive delete-er—anyone who looked through my texts would have found things from months ago, but Mike Hollis only had two texts in his inbox, which seemed completely bizarre. The most recent from Paula Davidson: Unless other news, ASH @ 7. Team is M, R, Ts. The other text was sent yeste
rday by Mary and read: Billy home and fine, call tonight? Love you!
Mary must be his wife. I looked down at Mike Hollis, who seemed happy enough under the veil of insanity. What were we going to do with him? I didn’t like the idea of killing anybody, but somehow knowing he had a family made me feel even worse.
“Anything?” asked Newt.
“Maybe.” I read them the text from Paula Davidson.
“Ash? Like Ashland? The town?”
“It’s capitalized. Capital A, capital S, capital H.” After a minute, I shrugged. “I don’t know; maybe it does just mean Ashland.”
“This Paula Davidson must be involved,” Newt said.
“She could be our Ma’at.” I looked at the phone, and after a second’s hesitation, pocketed it.
Tony growled and darkness dropped over him. Newt’s body stiffened with a jerk and he swung wildly to look through the trees in the direction of Roxy Ann Peak, toward the fire.
“What?” I asked.
“Salamanders. Three of them.” Newt’s eyes started to gleam—literally—as he gathered power.
I couldn’t see Tony; didn’t know if he’d already sprung into the woods in pursuit of our enemies.
Shit.
“Tony,” I said, through clenched teeth. “My gun. You have my gun.”
For a brief moment, I thought I’d be left once more with no real weapon in the midst of a paranormal fight. The air beside me roiled and Tony appeared.
“Here,” he said, holding out my gun. When I reached for it, he brought his other hand up to cover mine, his skin hot against me. “Be safe.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice, and pulled away from him.
“Newt, I’ll circle them and attack from the rear, while you have them distracted from this side.” Tony looked around our position, then frowned as he caught sight of Eliza, teeth bared in concentration on our captive ’Mander. “Give me back that gun for a second,” he said and held out his hand peremptorily.
After a moment of reluctance, I handed it over, upon which Tony walked over to where Eliza held Mike Hollis insane. Tony raised the gun high and brought it smashing down on Mike’s head. Mike collapsed to the ground unconscious.
“Dammit, about time,” snapped Eliza and jumped to her feet. She rubbed sweat from her brow and rolled her shoulders. “Tony, circle to the rear as you said. Remember you don’t have one of Sheila’s bracelets and the rest of us do. Julie and Newt, attack from this direction. I’ll take the flank. One long bark followed by two short means fall back to the cars. Got it?”
Waxing Moon Page 17