Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (3 page)

“I’m only going out of town for a few days, and the store doesn’t sell my concealer anymore,” I lied.

“Oh, that makes sense. You women.” He shook his head, and I sensed he hadn’t believed my flimsy excuse. “Tell me when you’re coming back, and I’ll make dinner for you.”

We ate lunch and made small talk. The chef kept bringing out little bites of this and that, and before I knew it, it was already one o’clock, and I suspected I wouldn’t need to eat for a week. In spite of the carb coma, I managed to make the rest of my plans, so by the time Giancarlo dropped me off, I’d come up with Plan B.

The best place for a hunted wolf to run is to the protection of her pack, assuming they’ll still have her.
That last part had my stomach tied in knots.

My dream car Maddie lived in one of the garages my apartment complex rented out for storage purposes. She was a dark blue Mini Cooper convertible with tan top, and I liked to ride around with the top down on nice weekends. I was trying to keep the mileage on her low in case I needed to sell her for quick cash at some point, so my fifteen-year-old Jeep was my usual mode of transportation. Plus, it would cushion me better against any impact from a distracted SUV-wielding driver. Without my intending her to, Maddie had become part of my secret identity, and Paul didn’t know about her. Neither did Giancarlo. I had him drop me at the new strip mall that backed up to the complex so I could “pick up something.”

There were no fuchsia overtones to the apartment smells today, and I exhaled the breath I hadn’t realized I held. The garages had been added on as an afterthought, so they were at the back of the complex, and I didn’t even have to go back to my building. It would have been nice to pack some clothes, but thanks to raiding Giancarlo’s apartment, I had a full set along with toiletries. I’d have more where I was going, and a lot of other baggage I didn’t want to think about.

When I opened the garage door, I closed my eyes and inhaled the smells of leather and a little whiff of the chemical odor that cars always had. She’d just had an oil change and tune-up, and when I started her, the engine purred.

An answering rumble rolled through my chest. Wolf-Lonna liked the Mini Cooper.
“It’s closer to the ground and maneuvers more like us,”
she said.
“It’s almost as good as being on four feet.”

With a smile, I closed the top and pulled the car out, making sure the garage door was securely closed behind us. Then it was out the side entrance and on to the back roads and the place where I knew I was safe even if I was less sure of my welcome: Crystal Pines. I caught a slight aroma of fuchsia when I turned out of the apartment complex, but it didn’t linger, and I grinned.

So long, wizard!
 

A few hours later, I pulled into the Crystal Pines subdivision. Formerly the small Ozark village of Piney Mountain, it had turned into a weekend community for rich city folks who wanted to get away from it all but not really. I remembered I hadn’t called Joanie to tell her I was coming, so I pulled into the row of parking spaces by the diner. It was after the lunch rush, so there were plenty to be had. My stomach growled.

I likely won’t have a job when I get back,
I told myself.
I don’t need to spend money eating out.

A knock on my window startled me, and I looked up to see the craggy face of Matthew Grunden, the town’s social worker, peering in at me. He waved, and I wiggled my fingers back at him.

“Nice car,” he said when I got out and stretched.

“Thanks. It was a splurge last year after one of my P.I. cases went really well.”

“You deserve it.” He kissed me on the cheek, but I didn’t miss the sniff he gave me. I wasn’t offended—I did the same thing. At least it was facial cheeks and not the other ones. He was one of the original members of the Crystal Pines pack, having been turned by one of the contaminated vaccines in the hands of evil scientists.

“So what brings you up here?”

The answers tumbled to the forefront of my mind, and it took me a moment to organize them. He misunderstood my hesitation.

“It’s hard to think on an empty stomach. Let me buy you coffee.”

“I’m fine,” I started to protest, but the growling noise from my abdominal region in response to a whiff of something savory and meaty caught me out in the lie.

He smiled, and the wrinkles around his eyes deepened. “Not a problem, young lady. It’s been too long.”

“How are the kids?” I asked once we got settled in a booth and the young waitress gave us the patented Crystal Diner “one minute” hand sign as she poured coffee for a couple of guys who looked like regulars the way their butts molded to the stools.

“They’re doing well, and the last one of them finally went back to school this week.” Matthew grinned. “They’re like puppies and have already sorted out their hierarchy. Simon Van Doren has taken the alpha spot with Johnny Jorgens as his beta. The other four fall in line well.”

“Any effects from being experimented on?” I shuddered. Although my memory had blocked the trauma of my own experience in the cave by the river, enough of the residual emotion remained that I still reacted, a classic Posttraumatic Stress reaction. All I knew was I lost my high singing range after screaming from being forced to change from human to wolf through chemical means. At least that’s what the others had told me. That and maybe it was a good thing I didn’t remember, although I wondered. It’s disconcerting to have hours missing from important memories.

He shrugged. “It’s hard to tell since they’re going through so many other adjustments. I’m keeping a close eye on them in both their forms.”

The waitress approached, pad in hand. “Hey, Matthew. What can I get you folks?”

“What is that amazing smell?” I asked. “You’re venting it outside.”

She laughed. “That’s our special today, a Philly cheese steak sandwich on one of Holly’s mini-baguettes. It’s got all the fixins and comes with fries.”

“Sounds perfect. I’ll have mine medium rare, and I’ll do a tea as well.”

“Split one?” Matthew asked. He patted his flat stomach. “I’m trying to watch my girlish figure, and my wife will have dinner waiting for me.”

I agreed. I tried not to look at the empty corner booth, where I’d first seen and fallen hard for the wizard who got me into this mess to begin with. Peter Bowman had snared me with a glance of his ice-blue eyes—probably why I’d only dated brown-eyed guys since.

“No one’s heard anything about him,” Matthew said, following my gaze. He’d been with us that morning, and although I had long ago forgiven him for calling me to come up here, neither of us had forgotten. He’d said at the time that Peter Bowman was the good brother, the town lawyer, and Leo Bowman—now Joanie’s lover—the screw-up. It turns out everyone had had that one backwards except Joanie, who had sensed Peter’s tendencies from the first glance. After the Wolfsbane Manor incident, Peter had disappeared with his wife and kid, and Leo, realizing how dangerous his brother could be, went after him. He’d lost the trail and had come back to rebuild and claim Joanie.

No one came back for me.

“I guess that’s good and bad. It means he hasn’t hurt anyone else.”

“Not that we know of. So let’s get back to you. Why are you up here? Joanie said you and she only hunt as spirit wolves occasionally when you happen to run into each other.”

I stirred lemon into my tea with the straw as I tried to sort out my thoughts. “Things have gotten very strange in Little Rock,” I said. “Have you seen Kyra lately?”

He shook his head. “No, she stopped hunting with us around the end of December, and none of us have seen her since. I’ve driven by her parents’ old place, and it looks deserted.”

I explained about how someone was impersonating me and talking to my clients, and about Paul’s lunch invitation and phone calls.

“That is, indeed, very strange,” Matthew said. “Are you sure he was talking about you?”

“Pretty sure. His attitude toward me the past few days has been suspicious. Did Kyra act any differently on your last hunt?”

He looked out of the window. “Maybe a little. She seemed distracted.”

Our food had arrived, and I took a big bite of my sandwich. “I forget how good the food up here is,” I mumbled once I swallowed.

He laughed. “I wouldn’t think you city girls’d be so impressed. It’s just simple fare for us country folks.”

“Sometimes simple is better.” I looked at my sandwich and fries. I didn’t tell Matthew about the fuchsia wizard mystery because all I had were dreams and hunches, which weren’t enough to build any kind of case or even to know where to start. Actually, I did know where to start—with the intriguing Doctor Fortuna, who definitely had something fishy, or should I say fuchsia, about him. That was another reason I was up here: Joanie had amassed quite the collection of books on shapeshifters and magic, and she had been a research professional before the Incident, as we called it. If there was something in there that applied to the other mysteries, she would know how to find it.

“That may be true, but be careful. You’re different from the rest of us, so it’s not surprising someone has singled you out.”

I looked at him, startled. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”

He fidgeted with his straw wrapper, which he’d curled into a corkscrew. “I got a phone call a few weeks ago asking about our pack. The person said they were from the government, and they were following up on the Cabal-Hippocrates scandal. I don’t remember much of the conversation, but they asked about you in particular.”

“Why me?” But I knew the answer.

“You were turned by magic, not a viral vector. Someone is curious about you because of it.”

“Was it a man or a woman?”

“That’s the other disturbing part of the phone call. I admit my memory isn’t as good as it used to be, but I don’t remember as much of it as I should. I don’t even remember the gender of the caller, only that there was some sort of accent.”

“Why didn’t you call or email me and tell me?”

“That’s the other thing.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I would think about it when I was driving or another time when I wasn’t near my computer or couldn’t use my phone, but I never remembered when I had the means to do so.”

A chill went down my spine. Apparently I had attracted some unwanted attention, but I still had no idea from whom, only that they were powerful enough to manipulate memories.

We talked about mundane things as we ate the rest of our sandwiches, but when he walked me to my car, he put his hand on my shoulder and looked into my eyes.

“Be careful,” he said. “I didn’t want to say this inside where I could be overheard, but there have been strange smells in the woods, and none of us hunt alone anymore.”

With those disturbing words, he closed my car door for me and waved to me as I pulled away.

Chapter Three

I had been so freaked out by someone being after me, perhaps more than one, that I hadn’t noticed the scenery on the drive up to Crystal Pines. Now, brain on overload, I took a deep breath to focus and tried to orient myself.

The buds had just started appearing on the trees in Little Rock when I left. Here it was still winter with a few bulbs poking their green shoots out of the ground, and a few crocuses opened their faces to the dim sunlight. Yes, the clouds had cleared, but the air had a damp chill that went straight to my bones. I hummed a happy tune, but then I remembered I’d never called Joanie to tell her I was on my way. The thought of seeing her again human face to human face without the limitations and barriers imposed by our spirit forms made my stomach clench, and I regretted eating all my fries.

At least my not calling her was all my own avoidance.
I pondered what I had just discovered from Matthew, and the air grew colder, or maybe my arms just decided to kick out goose bumps for the heck of it. His disturbing revelations were easier to focus on than what I would say to Joanie.

What do you say to someone you’ve been a complete bitch to?
I decided to throw myself on her mercy and the hope that there was something left of our friendship, which had been close since college. If the amount of dirt we had on each other was a gauge of friendship, ours should be strong enough to survive anything.

The address had seemed familiar when I plugged it into my GPS, and I almost turned around when I arrived at the house she lived in now. It was Peter’s old place, the Tudor-style four bedroom, three and a half bath he’d shared with Marguerite and their son Lance. The address hadn’t computed, but the panic sure did. I sat in the driveway in my car, my palms sweating and my heart racing. My inner wolf was quiet for once, although her excitement about seeing her pack-mates again and confusion about my reaction whispered in the emotional part of my brain.

The last time I had been here, the damage had already been done, my transformation complete, and all of us dealing with the consequences of having been kidnapped by the men who had contaminated the vaccines. That explained what happened to everyone else. I was the mystery.

“Well, sitting out here is only going to look weird,” I mumbled and got out of the car, my purse slung over my shoulder.

The front door opened before I got halfway up the sidewalk. Joanie leaned against the frame, her arms crossed, and an expression of polite interest on her pixie-like face. She had gained weight since I last saw her in person and looked healthier than she had in years. She even had a little bit of a tummy, which had never happened before. I forced a smile and blinked back the tears of anger and jealousy.