Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga (13 page)

I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

“Can’t?”

“I set him free. I gave him his freedom. I can’t call on him anymore.”

She looked into my eyes searchingly. “You told Kat you can call him.”

I shrugged. This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to. “I can call him, but he isn’t my servant anymore. It's different.” I added, “It's dangerous.”

She smiled wearily. “So, you understand at last what you are dealing with.”

“I didn’t say I understood him. But I do understand that, now that he's no longer bound by me, he can eat me for breakfast.”

“Yes. Well, the hope is that there will be sufficient people of power present when you call him, to contain any damage he might wish to do.”

“Have any of them had any experience controlling a demon? Ha. Or even seen one?”

“Nonetheless,” she said, “this is what you must do. If you want people to believe you, if the danger is really past, we are going to have to hear the demon say so, and make our own judgment.”

“Tonight? You want me to call him tonight?”

“On Beltane? Of course not. This is a celebration.”

“But you want me to call him in front of other people?”

“That's the idea. You want to convince us that he defeated— turned—the Worm, yes? How else can you do it?”

“I thought I’d do it by having the Snake not come.”

“People are too worried to wait for that.”

“Yeah. I get that. But here's the thing. If I call him in front of other people, they’ll know how it's done. They’ll hear me call his name.”

“So I suppose.”

“But that's the problem. If they hear his name, if they can call him themselves, some of them may try to enslave him again, and I promised him that wouldn’t happen.”

Tamara thought a moment. I hoped she was thinking about all the power wielders she knew in this city, and what some of them might do with a powerful demon in their service. She said at last, “Then what do you suggest?”

I looked straight at her, with as much sincerity as I could muster. “Everyone there has to promise, has to swear, that they will never use what they see or hear to increase their own power. They have to give me their oath, on whatever they hold most sacred, that they will never call Richard themselves.”

Tamara raised her brows. She suspected something. Her believing me depended on how stupid she thought I was. I opened my eyes a little and held her gaze, and finally she nodded. “It will be as you say.”

Yeah, I thought to myself. And now we’ll find the liars out.

So, the plan was that she would find an auspicious day, and all the interested power wielders would get together, and after everyone swore they wouldn’t use this knowledge against him, they would watch me call my demon. Richard would come, he would tell them the crisis was over, and everybody would go away and be happy. Great plan.

Tamara said she would start sounding people out about the auspicious day, since many of the people she had to consult were here already for Beltane, or would be here in a little while. Finding the right day didn’t mean throwing the bones, consulting the I Ching or meditating among three bowls of water, it meant finding a day and a time that interested power wielders could agree to meet. So, that was the first problem, and it was going to take a while.

Tamara finished her coffee and headed back to the preparations. I volunteered to clean up the kitchen, and she agreed, after I promised not to stay on my feet too long. I packaged up the food, washed the dishes and wiped the surfaces, standing on my good leg for the most part. I’d done this kind of thing with Richard, not too long ago.

Another problem was, Richard is not my demon's name. Richard is what I called him, because using a demon's real name for ordinary usage is asking for trouble. Richard entered my service for protection when he was powerless, and he gave me his true name. With that, I had complete mastery over him. Now that he was free, his true name was all that would summon him. Giving an all-powerful demon's true name to a bunch of power wielders was a really, really bad idea. Richard and I had talked about this, before he went. I’d given him a date for his freedom, but as long as I knew his true name, I could enslave him again simply by uttering that word.

If I called Richard, at the gathering that Tamara planned, I would be making a present to anyone who wished it, of the word that would call an all-powerful demon. If Tamara managed to invite all the people who were after me for my demon, she’d be doing my hunting for me, and all I had to do was watch who rose to the bait. This just might be fun.

When the kitchen was clean I wandered back over to the store to watch the preparations. I was crossing the vacant lot when Curt Sondstrom drove by. He saw me and came to a stop, double-parking across the street. He got out of the car and beckoned to me.

I took a moment to decide whether I’d seen him or not. I’m not a puppy. I don’t come when I’m called. He looked over at the crowd of people, then came around the back of his hatchback and crossed the street toward me. I decided then that I had seen him, and I met him part way on the sidewalk. He glanced over at the gathering, where the preparations seemed to have melded with the party to come. The drinking, the laughing, the eating, and some preparatory drumming had already begun. Only the dancing would wait for nightfall, and the fire.

Curt turned so his back was to the crowd as he faced me. He had that plastered smile on again, and his tension was so strong I could practically taste it. He wasn’t spiking fear this time, though, and that annoyed me. He should be afraid of me. I’d have to see what I could do about that.

“You wanted to talk to Sarah?” he said. “She's waiting to talk to you.”

“Why would I want to talk to Sarah?” I said. I had spent some thought about what I should do about Sarah. I wasn’t ready to talk to her because I hadn’t decided which of the lovely scenarios were most fitting. Some of them, of course, were going to make some folks pretty angry if they found out about them, but there was no one here I answered to, after all.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t put it right,” Sondstrom said. I was interested in the fact that not all of his attention was on me while he was speaking. He kept a sharp eye on people coming up the sidewalk in our direction, or crossing the road towards us. He was not on the look-out for friends, unless he was looking for them in order to avoid them, I decided. “Sarah is waiting to speak to you.” He dropped his voice, to sound sincere and contrite. “She has something she wants to say to you.” He looked at me then from under his brows, giving the impression that he shared in this supposed apology. Of course, he hadn’t said she was going to apologize, or maybe do anything but cuss me out one way and back for messing with her dog breeding program. But he was implying that she would.

“Oh?” I said. “Is she coming here?”

“No, no. She wouldn’t. She's—some people don’t understand the things she does, or why she does them. I’ll tell you her whole story some day. She's at my shop in Arcadia. I’ll take you there.” He touched my arm to guide me to his car.

“But—it's Beltane!” I protested, child-like. “There's going to be a bonfire.”

He smiled. “I’ll get you back before the party gets going. I promise. It's not that far.” He started walking, his arm not quite touching my back to herd me along. “You’ll like my shop. Maybe you’ll see something that appeals to you. I hope you will.” His smile was tense, and fake. He was lying.

“I don’t know,” I hesitated. “I should be helping with the party. Tamara had some important things she wanted me to take care of.” I tried to think what they were, in case he asked.

Instead, he said, “Oh, Tamara knows all about it. In fact, she suggested that the best thing you could do was meet with Sarah and make it up. Today, while there's time.” There was that smile again. “And I’m to have you back in time for the barbecue.”

Oh what a liar! I had to admire him, as I crossed the street with him to his car. “Should I tell Tamara I’m going now?” I asked, just to keep him jumping.

“I just talked to her on my cell. It's fine, she knows.”

“Okay,” I said, and stepped into the passenger seat of his car.

The car filled up with his tension as he drove off down the street, turned the corner, and then caught the main drag that would eventually take us to the freeway. I was wondering how long I should let this go on when he pulled in to a gas station and drove up to a pump. That's when Elaine, the evil vet, came out from behind the farthest set of pumps and got into the seat behind me.

“Go,” she said. “I’m in,” and Curt pulled onto the main drag again.

It is not good to let an enemy sit behind you, within the reach of her arms. I turned around in my seat to face her. “Hi!” I said, with fake enthusiasm. I could see both her and Curt at the same time from this position. “How are you? The hole you put in my hip is healing nicely, in case you want to know.”

Elaine radiated tension in a different way than Curt. Hers had an intensity, like a low note on the scale, unlike the ascending chords that Curt was emitting. “I’m fine,” she said evenly. “My truck is still nose down on the beach. They haven’t managed to bring it up yet, because they haven’t got a tow truck small enough to get around that bend, and big enough to tow it off the sand.” Her mouth widened into an angry sneer, “And it's going to cost a fortune!”

I couldn’t help my big fat grin. Honestly. I couldn’t. “Oh, I’m really sorry,” I said. I noticed that she was keeping her hands out of my sight. Unless I climbed up to look down in her lap, I wasn’t going to be able to see what she was holding there. “So, do you want to talk to Sarah, too?’

She registered surprise and shot a look at Curt, who must have caught her eye in the mirror. He answered, “We thought it would be better if we were all there together when you and Sarah talk.”

“That's right,” Elaine concurred, following Curt's lead. “We’re all trying to help you.”

“Is that what this is?”

“We’re perfectly serious. You don’t know what trouble you’re in.”

“I told you I was sorry about the car. Did you find your gun yet?”

“That's not what we’re talking about,” Elaine insisted. “It's about your demon.”

“My demon? You mean my ex-demon?”

She shook her head. “You can’t pretend it's gone if you’re still turning into a wolf.”

“Oh, is that why I keep turning into a wolf?” I asked them. I wonder what my mother would think of that. And my father. And my brothers, and the whole great valley full of my kind.

“Don’t make fun. We’re going to help you.”

“The demon has nothing to do with my wolf nature.” I could see there was no point in explaining, but I tried.

“Then,” Elaine's eyes gleamed, “it won’t matter if we take it away.” She moved forward to tell me earnestly. “Do you know that you’re under a curse?”

I sighed. What an idiot. “Sometimes it sure feels that way.”

“We want to help you,” Curt put in. “There must be a cure.”

“And that's what we’re all going to talk about? You two, and Sarah, and me?”

“Yes,” Elaine said.

“And is sister Holly going to be there too?”

The two of them must have conferred in the mirror again. There was a moment before Elaine answered. “She can’t this time. She's out of town. But Holly says that as soon as we can get you to Cecil, Cecil will find the cure.”

“Oh, is Cecil back in town?” I was looking forward to meeting him. I turned around to the front. Elaine was up to something. I gave her a little space so she could get on with it, since I wanted it to happen soon.

“No,” Curt said, looking in the mirror again. “Where is old Cecil these days?”

Elaine's voice sounded distracted and a little strained. “He's still out on that yacht. He's trying to commune with the World Snake. He thinks he can talk to it.”

“Well, good luck to him,” Curt said. He looked in the mirror again.

And I just bet he was sure that my demon could help him with that. I was going to say that, but there wasn’t time. I would have known that Elaine was making her move even if I hadn’t smelled the chemical trace coming from the backseat, because the focus of Curt's eyes suddenly hardened. I didn’t wait. I changed, and as I changed I let loose all my anger and pent-up frustration, so by the time I’d turned around, I barely fit in the car. She had a syringe in her hand, and had raised it to stick in my arm or my neck, but instead of an arm or a neck, she was facing a really large wolf's head, with its mouth open, snarling so fiercely that spit was flying. Elaine gasped. Curt lost control of the car.

I’d made sure to make my move before we got to the freeway. I didn’t want to have a fight in a car going sixty-five miles an hour. Curt jerked left, really not a good idea, so I loomed over Elaine, who was screeching, and bumped the wheel with my forepaw and sent the car careening to the right. Curt yelled, grabbed at the wheel, I gave it another nudge and snapped at Elaine's head just to make her duck and jerk. She stuck the syringe in the upholstery and I snapped at her again to make her let it go, and nudged the wheel out of Curt's hands at the same time.

There was a bump as the car climbed up on the sidewalk, and then a crash that shook us all as we hit a fence, and then a breathtaking drop as I wondered if I’d aimed us at the river or something, and tried to take a quick look outside, but the windows weren’t sighted for something with its head pressed to the roof, and then we hit the ground, and Curt accidentally trod on the gas instead of the brakes and sent us roaring down the fake green hill of a golf course, over the rough and into the water hazard. I turned around and changed so I could use my hands, rolled down the window as we subsided into the pond, and changed again. Elaine was floundering in the back seat, trying to roll down the window, and then trying to roll it up again as the water poured through. Curt shouted something. He was having to fight gravity to try and get out of his seatbelt, and his seat, since his side of the car had listed downward. He was going to have to get past me, too, since my window was still out of the water. I wasn’t going yet. I hadn’t finished.

I leaned over the back seat. To ensure that I had Elaine's full attention, I took her head into my jaws. As she let out a mewling scream, clawing at me to no avail, and Curt shouted at me, I planted a huge paw on his chest, and then I let one canine pierce the skin on the back of Elaine's skull, until it touched the bone. Ouch! She shrieked at the pain. I didn’t blame her. That must have hurt a lot. I tasted her blood as it bubbled up fast, all warm and sweet. Yum. I let go, her blood still dripping from my lips as she wailed and clutched her head and stared at me aghast.