Long Shadows: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 2 (6 page)

I snorted, but my instincts told me he spoke the truth. However, I wasn’t sure how much I could trust myself.
“Why should I believe you? We were shot at!”

“Yes, I’m aware of that. It’s why I decided to show myself to you. My orders were to follow at a distance and observe.”

If I’d been in human form, I would have asked more questions, but as a wolf, I sat back to consider his words. This close to him with the flames flickering over the planes of his face and his glasses, I couldn’t help but notice again he was a good-looking guy. I also smelled the meaty, bloody aroma of the two rabbits, one raw and the other cooking. Part of me wanted to change to human so I could enjoy it and maybe him as well, although my wolf side wouldn’t turn cooked food down.

“Focus, Lonna,”
I told myself. There were too many distractions for my wolf’s brain to handle, but I was reluctant to change into my human form.

Another gunshot split the night’s silence, and Max jumped to his feet with startling agility. The fire extinguished itself, and my eyes adjusted to the darkness and the trees.

“That was close,”
he said, once again using his mental voice.
“Where are your friends?”

“There’s a boathouse. They were going to head there and change, then make their way back up to the house.”

“Why change?”

“Because whoever’s hunting us is looking for wolves.”

“As far as you know.”

Max seemed to wrap the darkness around him. I would say it was like a cloak, but it was more like he blended in as a part of the scenery, more camouflage than cover, which was impressive considering his skin—although tanned—was still paler than the background of the rest of the woods. We listened for others, but there was nothing, not even the soft footfalls over wet leaves one would expect of humans.

I smelled blood and rushed forward, afraid of what I would find. The supine form of a large brown wolf lay across one of the trails. The scent: Matthew.

“Matthew, wake up!”

“He’s not likely to any time soon,” Max said, his hand on my head.

“He’s not dead. I can hear his breathing, his heartbeat.”

“He’s been tranquilized.” He put a hand on Matthew’s side. “There are no life-threatening injuries.”

“We can’t just leave him here! Why would someone do this? Other predators could come and harm him while he’s asleep.”

He straightened up and looked around. “It could be a trap, or they could have done this to him thinking he was like you.”

“Isn’t he like me? Again, why?”

“It’s too much to go into here, and we have to keep moving.”

“But it’s dangerous for him. Can’t you move him?”

The look he gave me told me no, but the corners of his mouth turned down.

“I’ll try.” He crouched and slid his arms under Matthew’s body. With a grunt, he lifted him and tottered a few steps. He didn’t drop him, though. He laid him gently at the base of a tree off the path. I couldn’t help but be impressed by his strength.

“He’s too big and heavy for any human to drag him all the way to the house. The best I can do is to put a spell on him so he will be invisible to those who did this to him and to anyone or anything else that comes along unless they step right into him.”

“Thank you.”
It was less of a possibility now he no longer lay on the trail.

“It will give us time to go up to the house and get Leo to help me.”

I looked at him, surprised.
“You would help him? Help us?”

“I told you, I’m one of the good guys. I’d rather not be out here with a crazy person with a gun, tranquilizer or not, but if it’s important to you, then yes, I’ll help.”

“Follow me.”

Something hissed in the air behind me, and my flank stung. The woods wobbled.

“Go! Use your nose. I’ll follow. You don’t have much time.”
Max looked around with a frown.

“Before what?”

“Don’t worry about it! Just go.”

When we reached the house, I guessed Joanie and Leo must be inside because the curtains were drawn over the bank of windows in the back. I ran through the doggie door, leaving Max waiting outside, and Joanie almost dropped the spoon she was stirring the pan of hot chocolate on the stove with.

Leo grinned. “I told you she’d come back.” Then he looked closer and frowned. “What’s that in your flank?”

“Matthew’s out there. He’s in trouble.”

Buzzing filled my ears. The room tilted, and I collapsed on to the floor, panting.

“What’s wrong?” Joanie looked at Leo. “Lonna, can you change back?”

I closed my eyes, wishing the floor wouldn’t spin so. Then I identified the prick in my back leg: a tranquilizer dart.

“He’s outside,”
I managed to get out before everything went black.

Chapter Five

It’s a bad thing when you wake up not being able to remember the end of the night before. It’s even worse when you wake up in a doggie bed, albeit a large one. Now it was my turn to think in expletives, specifically, “What the—”

Max wouldn’t approve of my inner monologue.
I opened my eyes, and each little sunbeam stabbed at my vision like a tiny dagger. The worst part? I was curled up but in my human form and completely naked. At least someone had put a sheet over me. I felt like I’d drunk a bottle of wine with a side of whiskey and a tequila chaser.

Isn’t there a song about tequila and nudity?
How did I change?
Then I sat up and ignored the lurching of my stomach. Normally my wolf side would have chimed in by now.

Wolf? Where are you?

Nothing.

What happened? Where did you go?

I screamed and passed out again to the thunder of feet running toward me over the hardwood floors.

The next time I woke, I was in my bedroom tucked between the sheets. I wore a T-shirt and a pair of boxers, and Joanie sat on the bed beside me.

“Oh, good, you’re awake,” she said. Her eyes sported dark circles.

“What happened to me? I dreamed I woke up in a doggie bed, and I’d changed back to human, and my wolf side was gone.”

The look on her face told me it hadn’t been a dream.

“Oh crap,” I said. “This is like those people who get drugged by a stranger in a bar and wake up without their kidneys, isn’t it? Except in my case, I had a wolf-ectomy.”

“I don’t think you’ve lost her,” Joanie told me and smoothed my hair back from my face. It was a soothing gesture.

“Then where did she go?”

“She’s being blocked by something. She’s there but not accessible.”

“What?” I looked at her and frowned. “Like a suppressed memory? Or a secret wish?”

She shrugged. “You’re the mental health professional. What happened last night, or what can you remember?”

It all came rushing back to me, the man in the clearing and Matthew on the trail. “Matthew! Where is he?”

“Leo figured out what you meant, followed your trail back into the woods, and got him with the four-wheeler. He’s sleeping it off downstairs. Was there someone else?”

I frowned. “Didn’t Leo smell him, too?”

Joanie shook her head. “No, just you. It’s amazing you made it that far if you were drugged.”

“There was a wizard. He could manipulate fire. He knew how I’m torn, how there’s two parts of me.” I pressed my heels to my forehead. “I can only remember in bits and pieces, it’s a jumble of images and conversations. But it was that guy, Doctor Fortuna. He wore gray glasses, and he said I could trust him.”

“What did he say to you, exactly?”

“That what had happened to Matthew was because they mistook him for someone else. There was more, but I can’t remember.”

“The drugs are still working out of your system. Leo took some blood so we can figure out exactly what the man gave you.”

“I can’t stay here. I’m putting the two of you in danger.”

“Yes, you are, but we don’t know if what happened to you and Matthew is only because of you or for other reasons, if maybe our little pack is being targeted because of how we were made.”

“Or how I was made. I’m the different one.”

She didn’t disagree with me, and I took a deep breath to calm the anxiety constricting my chest. “Just help me learn as much as I can about wizards and how they operate, and then I’ll leave you alone,” I said.

“I’ve already started in the library,” she told me. “Come down once you’ve showered and dressed.”

Joanie had lost her grandfather’s books in the fire that took Wolfsbane Manor, but hers had still been en route from her place in Memphis, so she had more than enough to fill Peter’s large library/office. Yes, as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t stop thinking of the house as belonging to the sorcerer who made me what I was. Anyway, I was sure she’d added to her collection as her experiences as a werewolf created new avenues for research. When I arrived in the library, she already had a stack piled on the corner of the desk.

“Are you giving me homework?” I asked and perched sideways in one of the armchairs facing the windows and away from the desk, my legs dangling over the side. “I’m a bit past school, you know. That’s for nerds like you.”

Her lips twitched like she tried not to find my joke funny. “You could look at it that way. I’m pulling anything that could contain information about someone being un-cursed as a werewolf.”

My vision blurred when I reached for the presence I’d grown accustomed to in my head and didn’t find her. “Other wolf-ectomies, you mean?”

“It’s not something I’ve heard of before.” She sighed. “Not that there’s been anyone to talk to about this besides Iain, and he’s gone from somewhat busy researcher to overwhelmed expert consultant with the Cabal-Hippocrates case. I’d never admit this to Leo, but I wish I knew how to get in touch with Gabriel.”

“You think he’s plugged in to the werewolf network? Wouldn’t Iain know the same people? They were at Stirling together.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Gabriel was a lone wolf, a rogue without a pack, but he must have still been in touch with family or friends.” She flopped into the tall black leather desk chair. “It’s amazing how little I knew about him in spite of feeling like I knew him well. People don’t just disappear without help, and Iain and his people were looking for him to testify. Did they approach you?”

“There was a deposition.” I shuddered. “Iain couldn’t make it, and the assistant he sent wasn’t very reassuring. I thought those corporate lawyers wanted to eat me alive.”

Joanie grinned. “Did you give them a full dose of the Marconi charm?”

I smiled at the memory. “By the end of it, they were sweating. One even asked me to dinner afterward. You know, to apologize for giving me such a hard time. They believed me about the kidnapping and being held against my will, but they didn’t seem convinced about the werewolf bit. They thought I had been drugged.”

“That’s it!” Joanie snapped her fingers.

“What?”

She darted among the shelves, looking for a certain volume. “It’s around here somewhere. An old Book of Shadows from the eighteenth century.”

“Why do you have something so old and valuable in your bookshelves? Isn’t it falling apart?”

She shook her head. “It’s not the original. It’s been typed up and printed.”

“That’s boring.”

She glared over her shoulder at me. “That’s not the point. Don’t you know not to judge a book by its cover?”

“Groan.” I rolled my eyes. It was almost like old times, but with the addition of werewolves and sexy men. I missed Giancarlo. He was good for a cuddle before he passed out and left me to my hunting. What was I going to do now that I couldn’t change or access my inner wolf? I would actually have to sleep or something.

She hopped down from the ladder, book in hand, and grimaced.

“Are you okay?”

“I stepped on a thorn or something last night.” She stood on her right foot and rotated her left ankle. “That’s one of the problems with actually changing—injuries don’t translate as well with the spirit wolf form.” She opened the book on the desk to the table of contents. “Here we are. ‘On making and unmaking of shapeshifters.’”

“Okay.” I joined her and peered over her shoulder. “It’s like a recipe book.”

“It’s an old herbal from colonial times. Families had their own books, and the ones with a bit of folk magic in them are called Books of Shadows, or spell books, but most healing women considered them family recipes.”

She turned to the chapter on shapeshifters, werewolves and were-cats.

“Were-cats?” I asked. “Meow?”

“There are legends of shifters all over the world, all kinds of different animals, even snakes and dolphins.”

I couldn’t help but laugh. She had the dreamy “I’m only half paying attention to you while I read” tone I’d gotten so familiar with when we were college roommates and just after, when we were both in graduate school, her for epidemiology and me for social work.