Indigo Moon (30 page)

Godfrey looked around the dingy motel room he’d rented only half an hour ago.

“What do we do now?” he asked. “I can’t leave him here alone, but I have to somehow find Claude and tell him Hope and Isabelle are missing.”

“And what can Claude do about that?” Ren had speculated on what Wonder Boy’s plans were, but he had been so distressed and useless about the dog that she had decided first things first. She would help his pet, and in return, he would help her.

“We were to meet up with Claude along the route, and he would take Isabelle back to Little Dip. Marie was going to help her with her medicines.”

“Isabelle is sick?” Ren tried not to snap the question. Her guts lurched. Isabelle had been robust when she’d last seen her. How far had she declined in the last few weeks? She wanted no other wolven near Isabelle. Only her.

“She wasn’t looking too good,” he said.

“How? What do you mean, not looking good?” This time she did snap.

“Ill. Couldn’t eat. She was in shock when we heard about Barry. But to be honest, she looked off before that. She said she’d been losing weight, not sleeping, stuff like that.” He leaned away from her, unnerved at her tone. She’d better watch that. She didn’t want to turn him off completely; unfortunately, she needed him right now.

Ren nodded. She wasn’t happy.

“You mean Marie Garoul, don’t you?” Her leather bag of tricks seemed lame compared to the famous author of the Garoul almanac’s cure-alls. She pushed down her jealousy.

“Yes. Marie. The Alpha,” Godfrey said uneasily.

Ren realized how cold she sounded speaking of the Garoul matriarch. She turned away and dragged an empty drawer out of the dresser. She had no time for his concerns. He’d find out soon enough she was not what he thought.

“Give me one of those pillows.” She pointed at the bed. She placed it in the drawer and gently laid Tadpole on top. Her mind was racing. The plan had been to take Isabelle to Little Dip. In the circumstances, it was a good plan, except Isabelle hadn’t made it. She was lost out there, sick, and pursued by feral Weres.

“Here.” She handed the makeshift bed over to Godfrey. “Put this in the foot well at the back of the car. It’s more secure and will keep the drafts off him.”

“We’re leaving?”

“We’re going to find your Claude,” she said. She needed reinforcements, no matter how distasteful the idea was.

“I don’t think we can,” Godfrey said. “I’d love to, but I’ve no idea where he is, and we’re hours behind schedule. My cell phone is in the Lexus, and I don’t know his number to call from a pay phone.”

Ren stiffened. “Then we go back to the diner.”

Every bone in her body wanted to snap open with frustration. Her marrow boiled with impatience. Isabelle had slipped from her fingers at every turn, and continued to do so. She needed to find her, to hold her, smell her…

“I have another idea,” Godfrey said.

“What?”

“They took Hope for a reason. It can’t be to negotiate with me. They must want to talk to Marie.”

Ren grunted. She didn’t get it. She didn’t care about this Hope person. Or Claude and Marie Garoul, either, for that matter.

“Explain.” She led him out to the car.

“Well, if the ferals chasing us weren’t yours, then someone else took Hope. Isabelle seemed to recognize a scent or something. She yelled ‘patchwork,’ and ran off after Hope.” He tucked Tadpole’s box safely behind the passenger seat.

“Patchwork?” She glared at him.
Stupid man
.

He slid in the front seat beside her and shrugged. “It didn’t make sense to me, either. But my point is, nobody kidnaps a Garoul’s mate unless they want to deal with the Garouls.”

He had barely time to click home his seat belt before Ren shot out of the parking space. His head banged against the headrest.

“Ouch. Where are we going?” he asked anxiously.

She slammed on the brakes at the motel exit, and he ricocheted forward in his seat belt with a sharp grunt.

“You tell me,” she said. “Left or right?” She watched him puff for breath. “Which way is Little Dip?”

*

“Hey. Psst! Hey.” The urgent whisper crept through the shutters just as dawn began to turn the sky a steely gray. Hope jerked out of an uneasy doze. Her head hurt too much for her to sleep well. Mouse snored gently on the floor opposite, curled into a tight ball, the hard floorboards no problem for her young bones.

Hope scrabbled onto her stiff knees, feeling every minute of her thirty-one years.

“Mouse.” She gently shook the girl’s shoulder. Mouse grunted awake.

“Shush.” Hope held a finger to her lips. “There’s someone out there. At the window.” She pointed at the closed rear window, just above Mouse’s head.

Mouse was immediately alert. Unfortunately, her slightest movement was accompanied by the loud clank of chains.

“Mouse? Is that you?” The whisper came again.

“Joey,” Mouse cried delightedly and scrambled as close to the window as she was able, scraping her chains across the floor.

“Shush, Mouse. Patrick will hear,” Hope hissed and put her finger to her lips. “Joey? Your Joey? From Canada?” she asked. She could barely believe it. How had he gotten all the way down here? According to Mouse, Ren’s pack was under orders to mind the farm back in B.C.

“Go tell him it’s me. I can’t move.” Mouse tugged at the chain in a huff.

Hope moved over to the window. “Joey?”

There was silence for a moment. “Who’s that?”

“I’m Hope. Mouse is in here with me. She can’t come to the window. Patrick has chained her up.”

Joey gave an angry hiss at this news. It tailed off into a forlorn silence. Hope waited, would he talk to her?

“Hey. How do I know she’s even in there with you?” he suddenly asked, as if the idea had just occurred to him. “It could be a trap.”

“It’s not a trap.”

“But it could be?”

Hope sighed. “If it was, you’d be caught by now,” she said.

More silence as he thought this over. “Okay. Prove it.”

“Prove what?” This was the worst rescue attempt Hope had ever heard of.

“Prove it’s not a trap.”

“Well…do you feel trapped?”

More silence followed this.

“No. But it wasn’t a good test,” he said finally. “Hey. I know. Prove Mouse is in there with you.”

“How? She can’t yell. That would wake everyone up.”

“Get her to tell you something only she and me know.” He sounded very satisfied with this plan.

“Okay. Wait a minute.”

“Wait! How do I know you’re not going to warn the others I’m he—”

“Oh, shut up. I’ll be back in a minute.”

Hope was back in seconds. “Mouse says you’re stupid and you smell.”

Joey giggled, and Hope took it she had passed the test.

“Okay, Joey. What’s the plan? Can you get us out of here?”

“Um. I can pull the shutters off?” he said.

“Mouse is chained to the floor,” she reminded him. “And Patrick has the key. We don’t know how many there are of them out there.”

“I’ll go look.”

“Please be careful.”

Joey slid back a few minutes later. “There’s only Patrick.” He sounded excited. “I can take him any time.”

“Mouse says you can’t because your guts are busted and Patrick will whup you good,” Hope relayed.

“I can jump him easy.” Joey sounded petulant. This was dangerous. Hope didn’t want him to try something rash. He was their only chance of escape, and that stacked the odds against them heavily.

“You’ll need to surprise him, Joey. Be clever. Get him from behind somehow.”

She could hear Joey sucking his teeth as he mulled this over.

“Mouse?” Hope turned back into the room. “We do get fed, don’t we?”

Mouse nodded. “Breakfast is chicken bones. He’ll bring that soon.”

“I can hardly wait.” She went back to Joey. “Joey. Lie low until you see Patrick bringing us breakfast. When he opens the door I’m going to distract him, and you sneak up on him. Okay?”

“What are you gonna do?” he asked eagerly.

“Never mind. You just sneak up on him and sucker punch him good.” She thought that might appeal to Joey.

“He’s coming,” Mouse whispered.

“He’s on his way, Joey. Leave the distraction to me. You get ready to pounce.”

“You bet.” And Joey was gone.

“What
are
you going to do?” Mouse asked. She sounded worried. “Patrick’s sneaky. He’ll open the door a crack and push the food in.”

Hope could hear his footsteps now, long minutes after Mouse’s keen hearing had picked up on them.

“Don’t worry. I have ideas.” She’d better. There was very little thinking time left.

The lock rattled, and the door screeched open about one foot. The dim light of a downcast day crept in around Patrick’s shadow. He set a tin tray with a plate of chicken bones down on the floor.

“Better make it last, ladies. I’ll be heading out…” His words trailed away as a small round object trundled out of the darkest corner toward him. It rolled slowly across the floorboards. He frowned. The ball bumped into the rim of the tin tray with a soft clunk. He reached for it, full of cautious curiosity. It was barely in his fingers when he let out a surprised yelp and dropped Hope’s prosthetic eye back to the floor. At the same instance, Joey, in his wolven glory, gave a mighty roar from behind and dropped a huge rock on Patrick’s head, sending him sprawling.

Joey threw back his head and howled in delight. The morning sun broke through the clouds, and for a hallucinogenic moment burnished his fur in a triumphant red-gold blaze, like some pagan god.

“Good boy, Joey.” Hope scrabbled the key out of the lock, delicately side-stepping the pool of blood around Patrick’s head. Joey sat on his hunkers panting with pleasure at the praise. Hope fumbled with the lock to Mouse’s chains.

“Yes!” Mouse leapt to her feet and stamped them on the floor in a brave little dance. Hope couldn’t begin to image how cramped she must feel after days in leg irons. She was one tough kid.

“Is he dead? I want to bite him.” Mouse snapped her teeth. Her eyes gleamed with a wicked amber glow. Hope knew the telltale signs. There was no time for more wolven antics.

“Not quite dead. But don’t bite him. Let’s chain him up here and let him eat chicken bones.”

Mouse’s face lit up with glee. “And then I can bite him.”

“What’s the point? He’s out cold. Help me drag him in here and lock him up. We need to get out of here before any of the others turn up,” Hope said. Escape was paramount. Revenge, no matter how well deserved, could wait. “We’ll let Ren have the first bite, okay? She’ll like that.”

It did the trick.

“Joey,” Mouse said, and without a blink Joey lifted Patrick’s dead weight and tossed him into the shack like a sack of cow fodder.

“Mouse, do me a favor. While I chain him up, could you look for my eye?” Hope bent to her chore. Mouse needed a distraction from the possibility of chomping on Patrick.

“Gross,” Mouse said happily and began to scour the floor. “I wish I had a magic eye.”

*

“You go first,” Ren said. “Someone will come out to challenge me. Keep going. Don’t stop or turn around no matter what you hear.”

Godfrey’s frown deepened. She could tell he was nervous. He cradled the dog in his arms a little closer. They were standing by the car, on the western boundary of Little Dip valley.

“Challenge you?” he said uncertainly. “But you’re a Garoul. I know that just by looking at you. Why—Oh.”

He’d turned to her as she stripped off the last of her clothes. Now he was acting the gentleman and looked everywhere but at her. His cheeks flushed and she realized it was not because of her nudity, but her scarring. She bared her teeth. She was proud of her scars. She was a hunter, a fighter; she had a right to these scars. They were a badge of courage, a tattoo of her Alpha identity.

“Remember. Keep going,” she said, annoyed at his stalling. He’d brought her all the way to the Garouls’ golden valley, and now he was beginning to fret. But they had a deal, even if he didn’t realize it, and he was carrying his part of the bargain in his arms. “Don’t turn back, no matter what.”

“Like Lot’s wife,” he muttered sulkily.

Her “Huh?” came out as a low rumble. A drop of her saliva dripped onto his shoulder. The dog drowsily stirred in his arms. At least it knew an Alpha order, even when half comatose. Godfrey peeped over his shoulder, checked out the bloody drool on his jacket, then gazed on up at her until his neck cricked and his eyes popped. She knew he had a wolven mate, but it gave her immense pleasure that he was nonetheless awed by her size and strength. She was a prime specimen. She was wild.

He paled and swallowed loudly. His temperature plunged. She could feel the heat drain off him as a chilling realization took hold. She was Garoul, but she was not family.

Another low growl, so soft the air around them bubbled with subtle menace. Her lips trembled delicately against her canines. He whipped his head around and fixed on the path before them. She snorted a satisfied puff past his left ear, lifting the hair at his temple. He had permission to step out and lead her all the way to the Garoul home compound.