Dead But Not Forgotten (35 page)

Hours later, Luna pulled onto the shoulder of a deserted potholed parish road and parked behind Remy's pickup. Remy and his son didn't live in Bon Temps but Red Ditch, which was even more rural and was, Luna realized now that she was here, a perfect place for a runaway shifter to hide out in.

She got out and stopped for a moment, breathing in the scents and sounds and sights of the bayou that stretched out in all directions as far as she could see, until it merged into the gray sky of dusk. The smell of green growing things, undercut with the sweetness of decay where the rotting vegetation enriched the peaty water. A slight saltiness on the back of her tongue. The quiet rustles, squeaks, chomps, and tiny splashes of myriad lives going about the business of living. Even the soft hoot of an owl couldn't dim her enjoyment. Maybe to someone else the place might feel uninhabited and desolate, even spooky, but she loved the way the landscape hid nearly all signs of human habitation, loved the expanse of earth in all its uninhibited beauty. And her other nature was eager to answer the call of the moon, to stretch her wings, and take to the night.

“Soon,”
Luna promised herself, wondering why, when there were places like this, she'd lived in cities nearly all her life.

She picked her way along the crumbling shoulder, taking care not to slip and fall into the water-filled ditch that ran alongside it, and joined Remy where he was standing by the pickup's open door.

Hunter was inside, strapped into his booster seat, head lolling back, mouth open as he slept. Poor kid was worn slap out, and she hated that they were going to wake him up soon. But he'd had a good meal, as they all had, at a cute mom-and-pop restaurant. Food was a necessity for a five-year-old who'd had a long day, and for a father who was trying his best to protect his boy, and for a werebat who had a night of search-and-rescue flying ahead of her.

Plus the time they'd spent eating had given a local garage the chance to mount the huge halogen headlights now fixed on the bull bar on the front of Remy's truck. (Luna had paid for the meal and the lights; working for the twoey coalition, even if she got stuck with the “safe” jobs, still came with perks.)

She waved at the bayou and, keeping her voice low so as not to wake Hunter, said, “This is where he heard the crying voice, right?”

Remy nodded. “We drove up and down the road a way, making sure, and here's where he heard it strongest. He knew it weren't a human, like we told you, and that's when we decided to go get Sookie.”

“You manage to get hold of her yet?” Luna asked.

Remy shook his head. “Still getting her voice mail,” he said glumly. “Same as the last hundred times I called her.”

Disappointment itched at Luna. The search would've been so much easier with Sookie. She could've helped listen and locate the Were in trouble. And with Sookie on board, Luna could've called in more searchers from the nearest werewolf pack. But she couldn't do that and keep Hunter's ability a secret. So that meant only the three of them could be here to put their “war plan” into action.

A loud, heavy splash made her jump. “What's that?” she said, peering in the direction of the sound.

“That's a gator off to find his supper,” Remy said, way too calmly for Luna's comfort. “There's a good few in the bayou, enough that you can get a hunting license here in the season, but no one sees them much. Most gators are shy of humans. Bobcats are the same. The black bears are a bit more curious, but if you shout at them they usually go away. Unless there's food, of course. Though we don't get many bears round this way, so there's nothing to worry about.”

She was going to be searching for a twoey hiding out in swamp full of freaking alligators, big cats, and bears! The bayou didn't look so enticing now. Good thing none of those critters could fly. Which, she reassured herself, made them less of a worry than that owl she heard earlier. Of course, she wasn't the only bat around, so the owl had plenty of options for its dinner.

Luna took a steadying breath, buoyed up by that thought. “So,” she said, “time we got started.”

“Reckon it is,” Remy agreed. He leaned into the cab and gently shook Hunter awake. The little boy groaned and yawned, then, as he saw where he was, popped wide-awake, eyes shining with anticipation. With his father's help he quickly unbuckled and climbed out of his seat to jump from the truck. Remy picked him up and sat him safely on top of the hood.

“You ready, son?” he asked.

“Sure am, sir,” Hunter replied smartly, grinning as he squeezed his eyes tight shut. He cocked his head as if he were listening. Which he was. Though Luna had spent enough time with the boy by now to know he didn't need all the dramatics to hear other folks' thoughts. Not even hers. But she was glad it had turned into a game for him; poor kid had enough to deal with without getting traumatized by all this.

Hunter made a low “ahh-ahh” sound and stuck his arm straight out, pointing left into the twilight. “He's over there,” he said, then opened his eyes. “He's not crying anymore but he's really, really sad.”

“Can you tell how far away he is, sport?” Remy asked.

“I think he's about as far away as Ms. Luna went when we played the game.”

Luna had come up with the game during their “war council” (Hunter's enthusiastic description of their initial chat on how they were going to find the shifter). She'd flown around Sookie's house, and the woods, even the nearby cemetery, and thought directly at Hunter to tell him where she was, so she could work out at what distance he stopped hearing her. The kid was smart so it hadn't taken them too long to discover Hunter could hear her right to the end of Sookie's long drive.

Which meant that the shifter was about two miles away—the length of Sookie's drive—in the direction Hunter had pointed.

Of course, that still left Luna with a lot of ground to cover, but she could fly as high as ten thousand feet and cover forty-odd miles in a night (which was the same height as and a bit more than the distance of the Mexican free-tailed bat her other nature was closest to), so she had a good chance of finding the sad werewolf.

The sun set with its usual suddenness, and a swath of bright stars and the fat one-day-past-full moon lit the night sky, calling her to shift and fly!

“Thanks so much, Mr. Hunter,” Luna said. “That's going to be a big help.”

The little boy smiled at her, pleased. Then his face fell and he said, “He thinks his best friend's dead, Ms. Luna. That's why he's so sad.”

Luna's heart thudded. The teen the runaway werewolf had attacked at the children's home had been his best pal. This had to be him. For a minute indecision warred in her. Should she let the Dallas packmaster know? Call for help? No, she'd promised not to betray Hunter's secret. She'd find this sad Were first, make sure he really was the runaway, and as soon as Hunter was safely out of the picture, then she'd call for help.

“My turn,” Luna said, and headed for her car.

She slid into the seat and rechecked the details of the runaway on her phone. Better to know them and not need them. She shifted to her batself, then crawled out of her clothes and into Remy's waiting palms. His big hands were warm and slightly damp with sweat and smelled of the lavender soap the restaurant had provided in the restrooms. Luna's little bat heart skipped an anxious beat as he carefully lifted her as high as he could. When they'd been planning this, she'd decided that asking Remy to literally hold her life in his hands was one way to show him he could trust her with his son's secret. And of course, the higher up she was, the easier it was to launch into flight.

Her trust was rewarded and seconds later she was zooming out in the direction Hunter had pointed.

“Cold?” she thought at him.

The huge halogen headlights bolted to Remy's pickup flashed brightly twice, lighting up the night about her.
Cold.

Luna squeaked with success. They had two-way communication! And the halogens were so bright she'd be able to see them for miles. Unlike their afternoon “game,” Luna wasn't going to have to fly back every time she thought at Hunter to see if he'd actually heard her. And the amazing thing was that the halogens had been Hunter's idea. Well, not the halogens as such, but he'd said that as she was a bat, they should get a giant torch so he could signal to the nontelepathic Luna, like they did with Batman.

And so the halogens became the Bat-Signal (without the bat cutout, though Hunter had taken some convincing by Remy that they didn't need one). Of course, the next problem was how Hunter could tell Luna if she was getting close to the other were, and again Hunter came up trumps, saying they could use clues, like in the game.
Hot. Warm. Cold.

A few minutes' flight later, Luna thought at Hunter again, “Cold?”

The Bat-Signal flashed twice.
Cold.

She still wasn't close enough, but she estimated she was only a quarter of a mile out over the bayou. She flew on, the night alive with hisses and croaks and rustles and splashes. The air swarming with buzzing insects, all of them bright spots of color on her mental radar. She flapped over thick clumps of leafy trees here, sparse skeletal ones there, seeing the fat face of the moon reflected again and again in the brackish water of the sluggish creeks, and huge lily pads floating like mini islands on the still-watered ponds.

“Cold?” Luna thought.

Cold.

She spied a small spotted frog on a lily leaf and just barely stopped her automatic dive; dinner already seemed a long time ago. Then she glimpsed a sinuous gray length marked with black, winding its way toward the pad. Its ripple rocked the frog's raft, there was a snap of teeth, and the tasty snack was gone. She turned her attention back to the search.

“Warm?” Luna asked.

Cold.

Not close enough.

Another stream.

Another reflection of the moon.

Lots more trees.

She was nearly at the two-mile limit. “Warm?” she thought.

Three flashes.
Warm
, the Bat-Signal confirmed.

She snapped up a passing bug to celebrate and flew faster.

Below her a lake opened out. Cypress trees draped in ghostly Spanish moss rose out of the water like a scattering of dark towers. More giant lily pads covered the surface, and here and there among them floated a solitary log. A round shape—a turtle the size of a dinner plate—swam almost silently through the water. A nearby log moved suddenly, surging through the water, one end yawning wide—it crunched down on the turtle, twisting and rolling and foaming the lake surface.

The lake was obviously alligator central. The runaway werewolf wasn't going to be down there. And the distant shore was too far outside Hunter's range.

She swooped back to the nearest bank.

“Hot?” she thought.

Three flashes.
Warm.

Maybe Hunter's range out here in the sticks was longer than they'd thought. She flew back out over the lake, heading for the far bank.

“Warm?” Luna asked, soaring higher to see the answer.

Four flashes lit up the Bat-Signal.
Hot!

Hot! But she was only halfway there. Below her was nothing but the lake.

“Hot?” she asked, double-checking.

Hot,
confirmed the Bat-Signal.

The Were
was
down there, but down there was nothing but freaking water. It didn't take a genius to realize he wasn't going to be paddling around as a werewolf, not in the middle of a lake full of lily pads and silently floating log-impersonators. That was a surefire way to end up as gator chow.

So where was he?

“Looking,” Luna thought.

A single flash from the Bat-Signal.
Okay.

Flying over the moon-silvered water in ever-widening circles, she put her sensitive snout and mental radar on full alert. And got a hit as she passed over a cluster of cypress trees.

She swooped down and around their bulbous bases, zipping through the stalagmite-like knees sticking out of the water. The base of one large tree had split, forming a dark watery cave. Her nose told her the werewolf was in there. Though how he'd gotten safely out here past all those gators was a mystery.

She landed on the nearest tree where two branches split about six feet above the lake, dug her claws in, and shifted. A moment later she was squashed securely in the V, feet braced against the rough, stringy bark. A sting on her butt let her know a nasty little bug had taken retribution for all of its pals she'd munched.

She grabbed some handfuls of moss to protect her modesty, not that she was prudish, but talking to a stranger, especially a teenager, while nude could be distracting for all involved. Fixing her gaze on the tree cave, she cupped her hands and hollered. “Jimmy, I'm Luna Garza. I'm a werebat, and I'm here to help you. So get your furry ass out here.”

A hush fell over the bayou for a breath, and then the buzzes, rustles, and splashes rushed back in like shocked whispers as if the local inhabitants had suddenly noticed a human had appeared.

“Hurry up,” she shouted again. “We ain't got all night, y'know.”

The tree cave stayed dark and silent. Had her nose got it wrong?

She sent a mental question: “Still hot?”

Four flashes from the Bat-Signal lit up the distant sky.
Hot!

Freaking werewolf was ignoring her.

“You've got five minutes,” Luna called, “before I fly out of here.” Then acting on a hunch, she added, “Your friend Gordon is still alive.”

Before the echo of her voice faded, water rippled and something crawled slowly out of the tree cave and clawed its way up onto the thick-spread base of the cypress.

It didn't look like a wolf. Its head and body were rounded, not pointed. Its fur, even slick and shadowed by the water, was mottled with dark patches. Its tail was wrong, too: short and stubby. And were those tufts on its ears?