A Feral Darkness (18 page)

      
"Listen," he said, watching her face intently enough that she suddenly knew how much it revealed. "I've got a sleeping bag and an air mat." As her eyes widened, he held up a still-damp hand and said, "I'm not up to anything. I'll sleep out there," and he nodded back at the dog room, "if you like. I just—"

      
"The floor in the den," she said in a rush of words, and looked down at her feet for a long moment. Not that Masera could do a thing about these inexplicable intrusions into her life.

      
Not a thing but keep her from facing them alone.

      
He nodded. "I'll get my stuff, then."

      
"What about your dogs?" she blurted. "Will they be okay?"

      
In the moment of silence between them, he searched her face, asking and answering his own questions and coming to the obvious conclusion that she'd seen them or been told of them. "I have a housemate," he said. "They'll be fine. If you've got a phone that's not broken, I'll give him a quick call when I get back in."

      
By the time he reappeared with the rolled sleeping back and air mat tucked into one arm and an overnight kit dangling from that hand, Brenna had retrieved the bedroom phone. Not a portable, but she'd have to save up to get another one of those. She handed him the slimline receiver and he dialed the number with his thumb, shoving the phone up under his chin for a quick conversation in a language that totally baffled her.

      
"There," he said, letting the phone slide down into his hand and replacing it on the cradle. "Taken care of." And then, because he must have been used to the question forming on her lips, he said, "Euskotar. It was Basque."

      
"He only speaks Basque?" she said, a little confounded by how difficult it would be to find translations and services to accommodate that language here in the States.

      
"No," he said, more like his usual self. Well, his usual self as judged by a few moments in the break room.

      
Fine, then, he'd just wanted a private conversation. Whatever. She wasn't up for a rejoinder right now, though she rather crossly thought that he could have simply asked for privacy; she could have gone to ready the den.

      
Not that there was much to ready. The floor space was adequate even if the carpet was worn, the light switches were self-evident, and all she had to do was find the television remote. She'd forgotten it was on all this time, silently flickering patterns of light across the empty room. She'd forgotten all about the half-finished movie.

      
"That wasn't a bad flick," he said, catching sight of the video case on the floor by the couch.

      
"I didn't finish it," she said. "I mean, I liked it, I just got...interrupted."

      
"Watch it now," he suggested, unrolling the air mat with a practiced flick and release.

      
"That doesn't seem..."
Right
. It didn't seem right somehow. But the alternative was to go to bed and stare at the ceiling, thinking of Sunny and darkness and terror, and he kind of screams no one should ever hear.

      
She sat down on the couch and picked up the remote.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CHAPTER 9
INGUZ
Beginnings
The smell of brewing coffee woke Brenna. Disoriented, she lay quietly, adding up clues. The sagging, comforting cushions of the couch enfolded her; not unusual circumstances. Druid lay tucked up under her arm; also not unusual for this past week or so, though her hand throbbed and must be stuck in an awkward position. But the light seemed brighter than it ought, and who'd made coffee?

      
She cracked open her eyes and peered through wispy bangs at the room around her, discovering that the VCR clock proclaimed it an hour later than her natural rising time of half past five and that the rolled sleeping bag proclaimed she wasn't alone.

      
In case the coffee wasn't enough of a clue.

      
Ah, yes. Masera. And then, a kick in the gut.

      
Sunny.

      
And her hand hurt not because she had slept on it, but because Druid had
bitten
it.

      
Well,
that
made kicking him out of bed a whole lot easier.

      
Even so, she remembered that he, too, would be sore, and eased his transition to the floor with a hand to his chest. Then she sat up, grumbling at the stiffness of her welted and bitten parts. And she'd fallen asleep on the couch, with Masera right here in the same room. That didn't seem right somehow, she thought, giving a little wiggle of her shoulders to shed the odd feeling. Clutching the afghan around herself, she got up and headed straight for the bathroom, dumping the afghan outside the door and dumping her clothes just inside it. A quick shower would make her feel human again.

      
Of course, she hadn't thought ahead—too used to living alone and running from room to room wearing whatever she darn well pleased—or
didn't
—and had to stick an arm out the door and feel around for the afghan so she could make a mad dash to her bedroom and clean clothes.

      
When she reappeared in the kitchen, her face sported a nasty bruise around the welt but the rest of Druid's nail marks were covered by jeans and a sweatshirt with a drawing of a foolishly grinning dog and the slogan
All of my clients are animals
. Her hair still swung free and her stomach growled, but she was awake and ready to go.

      
Somewhat to her surprise, despite Masera's internal application of coffee, he still looked bleary-eyed, his naturally unpretentious appearance given over to a downright rumpled version—finger-combed hair, lots of stubble, one collar wing inside out.

      
"Oh, Lord," he groaned upon seeing her—however well that was. She'd found his contact case in the bathroom. "You're a morning person. I let the dog out."

      
"Thanks," she said, and grinned at his attempt to string complete sentences together. "I left towels out for you in the bathroom, if you want to shower." She helped herself to the coffee; a cautious sip confirmed that he made it much stronger than she was wont, and she added milk. "It's decaf, by the way."

      
"I was afraid of that," he said, shoving away from the table and the magazine through which he had been flipping—not one of hers; he must have brought it in from the SUV. "Even more reason to take that shower."

      
While he was gone, she took stock of her hand and decided it wouldn't be doing any grooming for a few days. Glancing dog bites meant scuffed skin and surface bruising; full contact bites meant deep swelling and tissue damage—and while she'd had worse, Druid had definitely nailed her a good one. But the call to Pets! was easy; no one was picking up the phones yet and she left a message for Roger. He'd fume—lost groomer hours on a Saturday drove him crazy—but then, it wasn't like she
wanted
to be hurt. And Sunday was a day off; by Monday she hoped to be two-handed again. Well, it would hurt, but grooming was pretty much like football—you played rough, worked hard, and pretended not to notice the injuries unless the affected body part simply refused to function.

      
Too bad the pay was a hell of a lot less.

      
Brenna toasted a bagel and got another one out and ready to go for Masera. Then she sat down in his chair—
her
chair—and looked at the magazine he'd left behind.
Sporting Dog Journal.
Not one she'd heard of. He'd been looking through the ads in the back, which seemed to be chock full of supplement and medical supply offers, as well as some equipment that she simply couldn't place at first glance. Cheesy ads, with lots of superlatives.
The best!
Results guaranteed!
She made no real effort to figure it out, her thoughts drifting to the reasons he was here in the first place.

      
Inexplicable horrors, Sunny gone...Brenna suddenly felt like her whole world was flying off-balance, and she fought the impulse to clutch the table just to keep herself from flying off with it. Poor Sunny...

      
She pressed her fingers over her eyes.
No
. She had things to do. Things that would require her concentration.

      
Which was when Masera, looking a lot zippier but as of yet unshaven, returned for his coffee cup. "Ah," he said. "Didn't mean to leave things lying around," and snagged the magazine, tubing it and shoving it in the center of his sleeping bag roll.

      
Brenna shrugged as he hesitated on the way back down the hall, presumably to shave, her equilibrium reestablished. She had learned long ago that non-morning people were not to be taken too seriously before their eyes truly opened. "Would you like a bagel? I have black cherry butter or plain old fake grape jelly."

      
"Your choice," he said, and disappeared again.

      
She ought to stick him with fake grape, a squeeze bottle from the store. But she pulled out the same black cherry butter she'd used on her bagel and stood by the toaster oven, waiting for the
ding
to signal the grab-bagel, blow-on-fingers game.

      
He returned just as she slid his plate into place across the table—same clothes but cleaner self, and looking like he was just about ready to face the world. "Thanks," he said, referring either to the shower or the bagel, she wasn't sure, and going on to refill his coffee cup. "Maybe if I pretend it's caffeinated...?"

      
Brenna grinned, flipped her hair out of the way and sat, crossing her ankles under the chair. He came up behind her, hesitating; she
felt
more than saw the hand that hovered over her hair, almost touching.

      
But not.

      
She suppressed a smile.
Just like Emily's kids
.

      
But...not.

      
He sat gingerly—testing the chair and finding it to be one of the sturdy ones—and took the kind of generous bite from the bagel that men were inclined to take. Big bites, big chewing, big swallows. "Your hair is beautiful," he said, having devoured half the bagel. "Why do you—" But he stopped, as if he realized there was no polite way to ask the question she'd heard so many times before.

      
"Because I'm a groomer," she said, which was the answer she gave most people.
Gotta have something to groom
was the follow-up, but this time she hesitated, and instead told him the lightest version of the truth. "Because once upon a time I asked for a favor, and it was granted. You could say that I keep it long in remembrance of that day."

      
Not that she had any real indication that the old hound's extra years were any more than coincidence—any more than it was coincidence that her hair, the hair she'd once tried so hard to grow and then sacrificed to Mars Nodens as her father's magazine had suggested, had suddenly grown fast and thick.

      
But my, hadn't there been a fuss when she'd walked back into the house with her ragged new haircut, accomplished with the same pocketknife tucked into her jeans at this very moment. She smiled at the memory, though it had hardly been a fond one at the time. Then, it had been disaster. Now she thought of it as the first time she had defied her parents by going after something important to her and invisible to them.