Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga (33 page)

A drum started up on the patio, joined a few moments later by several others. Women and men carried instruments out, found their places in the growing circle, and joined in. I slipped along the side yard to the front of the house where the house and the wards together muted the sound of the drums. Madam Tamara had wanted to see me, and see me she had. I had a trap to tend.

“Amber!”

I recognized the tall, heavy-set woman on the sidewalk, a white scarf draped across her shoulders. The flowing green gown was new, though, and the air of replete satisfaction, and the scent of lavender soap.

“Someone I want you to meet,” she said with a smile.

A big shiny car had stopped in front of Lady Fireheart’s house, and all the doors opened. A quick little woman hurried around the back to help a guy out of the backseat. He wore a gleaming white robe that buttoned to his throat, and a short purple robe over it. His long black hair hung to his shoulders, beautifully combed and oiled. I didn’t need the white cloth around his neck to recognize him. I’d seen him once before at a meeting at Tamara’s, but it was the scent of lavender soap that told me who he was. And the smell of sex. The danger was over, the World Snake was gone, and Cecil was back in town.

“Master,” Sally conducted Cecil onto the lawn, her hands in prayer position. “May I present Amber, of whom you’ve heard so much.”

Cecil flowed toward me with his hands outstretched. “My dear girl, how wonderful to meet you at last. We have heard so much.”

The bony little woman who had helped him out stood on his other side, her hands also in prayer position, her eyes down. She also smelled of lavender soap. The two men who’d been in the front seats stepped up to flank Sally. The stocky one with the deep tan had recently bathed, and before that he’d had sex with the bony woman. The other one, dark and slender, dressed in dark jeans and a white linen shirt, wore a little smile a lot like Sally’s. He also smelled of lavender soap. Honestly.

Cecil grasped my hands in his and pressed them. “Wonderful! Wonderful! What you have accomplished! The World Snake has turned, and we have you to thank. I felt her, I felt her mind as she changed her course. And you, you are the cause. We have so much to thank you for!”

Well, that’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? Praise and thanks? Kudos and acknowledgment? And it was true, but just… not from him.

“You have so much to teach us. A demon, under your command! So advanced! And perhaps we can teach you a little as well. You must come to us, you must come and study.”

The little smiles of the people around him increased, and their scents changed just a little.

“Where’s Holly?” I asked him.

He stopped smiling. “Ah, Holly. My dear disciple. She mistakenly took a wrong path, we think it was through improper meditation, and worldly pursuits. We have suggested that she withdraw for a time, and purify herself, and meditate anew.” He squeezed my hand again. “We won’t be seeing her for awhile. But come and see us! We have waived all initial fees, in honor of your accomplishment.”

I didn’t even want to bite him. I didn’t like his scent. I grasped his hands in turn, leaned forward and reached up to speak softly in his ear. “I’m sixteen.”

I let go as he stepped back so fast that he fell over the tanned guy behind him. I left him in the arms of his disciples, and headed for my car, smiling. I was learning lots of new ways to bite. I drove off to Calabasas to see if I’d caught anything in my trap.

W
hen I got to Calabasas I once again parked a mile away from Elaine’s place, this time in a different direction, and approached on foot, walking along the left side of the deserted highway, where my scent would be obscured by traffic the next day. Finley’s truck was still where he’d left it, but it had been tagged with a yellow warning card from the local sheriff’s office, saying that it was about to be towed.

The house next door to Elaine’s place stood empty. It had been built by someone from the same school of geometric house design, though this one looked like it was made from cut-out metal rectangles instead of giant sugar cubes. In one place the brick wall was only a few feet from the side of the house. I changed, took a bound from the far side of the road, made myself big, touched down on the wall and leaped up to the roof where I hunkered down small again. From the far side of the roof I could look over and down onto Finley’s truck. The little breeze blew down the road in my direction. If anyone came along, I would be sure to notice. I went to sleep.

After two more nights of commuting to Calabasas after work, my patient hunting was rewarded. I was roused at about midnight from my nap on the roof by the sound of quiet voices and softer steps walking along the dirt road. When they were almost at the truck I caught their scent, and crouched lower, afraid they might sense my excitement. It was my oldest stepbrother, Tillman, and with him was Gray Fox.

I made myself as small as I could in my wolf form. The air was not moving very much, and it moved from up the road, across the roof, and down to the yard below. It would be difficult for them to scent me. And if they did… I noted again the best direction to run and make my way back to my car. After all, there were two of them. I hadn’t planned that there would be two of them.

The voices stopped as Tillman changed to his four-footed form and cast around the truck, and up and down the road, scenting the ground, the air, the standing grass, the bushes. Tillman is big as a wolf, with a heavy black head and a patch of pale fur on his back. Luke and I used to say it’s because he likes to roll in filth. I watched as he returned to the truck, stepped onto two feet and struck the side of it for emphasis. “She was here!”

“They both were,” Gray Fox agreed in his measured voice.

“What do you think happened?”

“Lower your voice, sir,” Gray Fox advised. “There are people about.”

“People?” Tillman mocked him, but he did lower his voice.

“My cousins are casting for scent over these hills. It is possible that one or the other, or both were hurt, and went to ground near here.”

“You think my brother was hurt?” Tillman sounded like this idea would never have occurred to him. I remembered Finley’s nose, how it had looked so cockeyed, and bled so much. I smiled to myself.

Gray Fox leaned easily against the door of the truck, his arms folded. “The scent of his blood is on the grass beyond that fence,” he nodded in the direction of Elaine’s orchard. “Not enough for a death wound, certainly…”

Tillman had already changed and dashed off. The Fox waited for him, bending his head in patience. Tillman came back a little while later and stood up again. “There was a fight!” he announced.

The Fox nodded concurrence.

“How could she give him a fight?” Tillman asked.

“Probably he gave her a beating,” Gray Fox suggested.

“Yeah, but then where is he?” He stared up at the hills, as though he’d spot his brother just by looking.

“Do you think he might be holding her himself?” Gray Fox asked him. “That he’s found a den and means to keep her as his prize?”

Tillman’s head came around, startled. “No way!” He thought a moment and then said, “You think?” And then he added, “Dad will kill him.”

“Very true.”

“I’ll kill him! Hell, that’s not in the plan!”

“None of this is in the plan.” Gray Fox sounded bitter.

“Yeah, well, who’d have thought the little bitch would take off like that?”

“We all thought it,” Gray Fox corrected mildly. “What we didn’t think is that she would succeed.”

Up on my roof, I grinned down at them. Ha.

“When we catch her, it would be best if you cripple her,” Gray Fox told Tillman. “There will be no more running away after that. She has shown herself to be resourceful. She must be disposed of in such a way that she won’t be in a position to provide a rallying point for the others.”

“I thought you wanted the little bitch dead?”

“Not yet, sir,” Gray Fox cautioned, touching a hand to Tillman’s arm. “Not just yet. She’ll need to be seen at home, and seen to have lost, badly, before she dies. And she must die before your father kills her mother.”

“Dad said to kill her,” Tillman said uncertainly.

“Yes. But his orders to me, after we discussed it, were to bring her home broken. I’m certain you can manage that.”

“Right. But what if Finley’s got her? What if he’s now her mate?” Tillman’s voice rose again. “What if he’s got her pregnant?”

“What do you think your father would want you to do?”

Tillman thought for a long moment. Then he shrugged. “Beat the shit out of them both, I guess. If she is pregnant, that should take care of any pups.”

“We will make certain of that.” The coldness in Gray Fox’s voice reached me where I lay. I felt a pulse of anger in my chest. I welcomed it.

Tillman stared up the road, and then took a step to stand closer to Gray Fox. This time he really did lower his voice. “Do you think Finley heard the rumor? You know, about the… you know.”

“The demon?” Gray Fox’s voice was mocking.

“Yeah, and maybe that’s why he’s keeping her for himself?”

“There isn’t any demon,” Gray Fox told him. “The little bitch never had that kind of power. If she had, I would have known it, and I would have let your father know long before he came and took the old bitch her mother for his mate.”

“Right,” Tillman agreed. “That’s right. Still. A demon. That would be so cool!”

“Yes, sir, but it is not to be. Now, let us see if we can run down these errant pups of ours. I have sent my cousins to each end of this valley and the next, to cut either of them off if they bolt. Let you take up the hunt, and I will follow.”

“Yeah,” Tillman agreed, and I could taste his rising excitement. The memory of what Tillman’s excitement had meant for me in the past rose up in me. I quashed it. I was older now. Really. I was stronger. I’d beaten Finley, after all. And still the cold knot of fear was there, closing my throat, tightening my limbs.

“The trail splits up that hillside. It may be an old track, or just another way to their den. I’ll take the north fork and you the south, if you like.”

“I’ll take whichever one is fresher,” Tillman corrected him.

“As you wish, sir.”

“Let’s go find the bitch, and give her what she deserves. And if Finley’s got her, I’ll make him watch. Come on!” He leaped out onto four feet and tore down the road.

Gray Fox started after him on two feet, taking his time. I saw him reach into his pocket, and heard the static as he thumbed on the radio. “Anything at your end? Very well. We’re at the truck now, and Tillman is taking up the trail from here. I’ll be following. No, it went exactly as I told you it would. Same stupid boy. Thank you, Cousin. Call me if you see anything. I’ll do the same. Out.”

I hugged the cold rooftop as I listened to Gray Fox reveal his treachery against my mother, and his plan to destroy me, and became as small as I could. As he made his way after Tillman to follow my trail, I put my head down between my paws and tasted bile.

Gray Fox had been the ally and henchman of my family for time out of mind. He lived at the top of our valley, our gate keeper, our first line of defense against any enemy who came to find us. I remembered the sound of his voice in our living room, while we kids were in bed upstairs, talking for hours with my mom and dad. I remembered the respect my parents both had for him, and how they’d taught that respect to me and my brothers. And he was a traitor, who had plotted with Ray before Ray stole my dad’s place. Who was planning my mother’s death sometime in the future. Who wanted me broken, and then dead.

The knot of anger in my chest expanded. I took deep breaths. My eyes hurt. They were aflame. And I found I had grown so large that I had only to step off the roof onto the dirt road, and two more bounds sent me up my carefully laid trail after the villain, after the traitor. And I came upon Gray Fox so fast that he never heard me, never saw me, until I picked him up by the back of the neck and shook him hard, like a rat. I heard his neck snap.

There was hardly any blood. I flung his carcass high and far off the trail, so he would be hard to find. And then I went on after Tillman.

I’d laid the trail that Tillman was heading up night after night in exhaustion and hope. Now my trap was sprung, I was rested, I was angry, and all I needed to do was run him down in the night and take him out as I had Finley. The plan was that Tillman would track me the way I would track someone, choosing the strongest scent at each crossing, because the strongest scent should indicate the most recent trail, and that way I’d lead him down one of several tracks that looped back on themselves. Loops I’d picked because they provided good cover for an ambush. So, whichever trail he picked, he would eventually end up running around in a circle, where I could find him and attack him. His only other choice was to backtrack, which would only lead him to a different choice of loop. I’d laid a labyrinth to catch my enemy, and he had walked in. All I had to do now was follow, and make the kill. Why do these things never go as planned?

The cool damp night did not offer the best conditions for tracking, but that wouldn’t matter because once I knew what track he was on, it would be hard to go wrong. I set out up the hillside, the traitor Gray Fox’s scent still in my nose, his blood in my mouth, his fur in my teeth, looking forward to running down my second prize for the night.

It’s very difficult to run silently through California scrub. The rocky paths, the thick ground cover, mean that stones turn under your feet, and branches break or shake back into place wherever you pass. I made myself as small as I could along some narrow game trails where I’d laid the path, but my elation, my joy of the hunt soon made me large again, and I pressed on looking forward to the ambush, the catch, the kill.

Turns out I didn’t know Tillman that well. Suddenly, his trail simply stopped. I halted and cast about, confused. I had a dawning feeling that he’d turned my trap around on me, that he was out there in the dark, watching, about to leap on my back. I crouched down, listening. No more than me could he move silently in this cover. Nothing. The crickets began to call again. I turned and back tracked, and found his scent again. He’d left the trail, the perfectly well-marked trail, and dashed down a slope into a narrow clearing. He’d gone chasing after a rabbit. A rabbit!