Timeless Moon (9 page)

"Can I run a tab?"

She shook her head no. "Sorry." She pointed to a large handwritten sign taped to the mirror behind the bar. "The boss got burned one too many times. Even
he
pays cash as he goes."

"Fair enough," Rick nodded to let her know he wasn't offended. When she counted out his change he gave her a generous tip.

He watched her walk to the door of the kitchen over the rim of his glass, admiring the movement of her hips as she walked before realizing the admiration wasn't his. One of the drinkers down the way was smitten with her
—couldn't take his eyes off the waitress.

Raising his shields a little higher, he took a deep
breath and realized a shifter had come in the bar. His hand tightened on the mug by reflex and his mind focused in on that one smell without giving any outward appearance he noticed. A wolf, by the scent, and powerful enough to tingle his skin. He certainly wasn't up to the level of Lucas, but then, who was?

"Very nice."

The voice was similar to the one on the phone. Rick turned to greet the man who'd joined him at the bar. Yes, this had to be Raven Ramirez. He had a strong resemblance to some in the Alaskan pack, with hair the color of dark chocolate that hung well past his hips. He had it pulled back and held in place with black rubber bands that were nearly invisible against the midnight leather of the biker jacket he wore unzipped. His jeans and boots were black as well. His shirt showed a mouse giving the finger to a striking bald eagle with the caption, "The Last Great Act of Defiance." A casual observer would know at a glance he was dangerous. They wouldn't know he was a werewolf.

"You must be Raven. How's your dad?" Even though he didn't know the man, it never hurt to ask after kin.

"Better now that Jack's gone," Raven said with deadpan seriousness. "He's got a new mate who's keeping him on his toes. I don't know if you heard it from Lucas, but he moved to Albuquerque with her. Denver's not quite the same without him." Raven
raised his hand to get the attention of the barmaid. Not that he'd needed to. Rick could tell she'd been aware of the big man from the second he'd walked in the door. He could feel her lust like a living thing, but she was feeling shy and nervous as well. "He told me to give you his best and if you find Aspen, to let her know how much he appreciated the tip."

"Tip?" He noticed his brows raise in the mirror and turned his head just enough to see the other man.

"Yeah. Aspen apparently called the head of the pack in Albuquerque to suggest that Carly call Dad. Like always, she didn't say why. But when that particular seer speaks, people listen. And they jump because she always calls right in the nick of time."

Rick nodded. "She was always like that. Never altering the future, but sort of
…
steering
it when she could because she was looking at it backward and sideways." A chuckle escaped him. "She was hell to play chess with."

A brilliant smile made a few years lift from Raven's shoulders. "I'll bet. I sure wouldn't want to play a game with her. But let her know there are a lot of people indebted to her. I guess I'm one of them, too. Her name comes up over and over in the files. A sentence here, a cryptic comment there, just enough information to the right people to avert disaster. Speaking as someone who has to clean up the mess, I appreciate her efforts for the agency."

"The weird part is
—that would surprise her. She
never thinks about people appreciating her gift. Josie always looked at the negative side
…
who would be
angry
with her for her failures?"

A quick nod before shrugging off his jacket. "Granddad's like that, too. They accept the responsibility that comes with being gifted, but hate it. Anyway, Dad wanted to let you know you're welcome to stop by any time if you make it down that way."

"I may just do that." Rick refilled his glass with beer from the bottle and took a drink, marveling at the taste on his tongue. He didn't get beer up at his cabin often, and he'd forgotten just how rich and complex it was. Sweat dripped down the iced mug to land on the polished bar as he took another drink. While he couldn't get drunk because of his body's ability to heal itself before enough brain cells were killed, he remembered occasionally "cheating" by sitting at a table of happy drinkers. Their euphoria would bleed into him, giving him a close enough approximation that he understood why people sought out bars.

"Is that your Indian out front?" Raven changed the subject easily, and didn't even try to keep the admiration from his voice. "I'd heard you had a nice ride."

He nodded as he swallowed the last bit and set the empty glass on the bar. "Yup. Lucas mentioned yours isn't half bad either."

"Yeah, but I've always wanted one like yours." Ramirez turned his attention to the barmaid, giving
her a smile with enough amperage to make the pulse in her throat jump visibly. "I'll have a bottle of MGD and a burger plate."

"Coming right up." She smiled back at him, moving with brisk efficiency to fill his order and prepare another round for the group surrounding the pool tables. Rick breathed a silent gratitude that the losers from the match had left. All that remained in the bar was happy feelings. He allowed them to soak into him until he was feeling a little giddy. Maybe he wouldn't automatically listen to everything Raven told him with immediate, unreasonable distrust if he was a little tipsy. He could feel Raven moving from pleasantries to business. His mood darkened, but it couldn't quite cut through the glow that filled his pores.

After a moment of brooding, Raven spoke
—his tone serious. But the words didn't match the mood. "You're not going to want to leave that Indian parked in an open lot at a motel somewhere. What say we take it up to my dad's shop and lock it in the garage 'til you get back from our headquarters in Boulder?" The barmaid appeared from the other end of the long bar, carrying an open bottle and chilled glass. The tall man accepted them with a smile and passed a twenty to her.

"I was hoping not to have to check in with the pack." People and politics, along with all the "visiting dignitary" social crap wolves did sounded like
too much of a bother to Rick after a long day's ride. Still, the offer of a locked garage appealed to him. The Indian was special. If he had to play nice with the locals, he would. He'd be damned pissed to get the bike stolen from sheer carelessness.

"Right now there's nobody to check in with." Ignoring the glass in front of him, Raven took a long pull directly from the bottle. "It's absolute chaos around here lately." He swiveled his seat so that his back was to the bar and he could keep an eye on the room. "Nobody's going to know or care if you're here. Trust me."

Rick's sandwich arrived and he decided that discretion would be the better part of valor, so he ate to keep himself from saying the wrong thing. He'd been out of circulation a long time. He didn't have a clue what had been happening in Boulder. But a wolf pack as large as he remembered this one being, without strong leadership, was a disaster waiting to happen.

"Damn that smells good." Raven's nostrils flared and narrowed as he took a long sniff. Almost immediately his stomach started growling and hunger overpowered the other sensations in the bar to push against Rick and make him eat even faster.

The burger was, in fact, surprisingly good
—better than he would've expected from a non-Sazi-owned business. Humans had to worry so much about food poisoning that they always seemed to overcook their meat, making it tough and ruining the flavor. But this
burger was actually ground steak, cooked rare enough to still have some taste to it. Rick let the combined flavors of rare meat, tangy mustard, and onions sit in his mouth so that he could savor them. When his companion reached a hand across to steal one of the salted potato wedges that had come with the meal, he only gave a half-hearted snarl, not even bothering to swat the offending hand away.

The two men each ordered another beer as the waitress delivered Raven's meal. They ate and drank in companionable silence. It was nice, Rick reflected, to find someone who didn't feel the need to fill every minute with chatter. Ramirez seemed absolutely content to listen to the music playing on the jukebox, watch the barmaid, and relax. When the plates were empty and the beers downed the two men rose in silent accord, heading toward the front door and the business that awaited them.

The man in the vest, and his companions with him, gave Rick and Raven plenty of room to mount up, even though they didn't disguise their admiration of the bikes. One or two of them shook their heads and smiled when the engines roared to life. Rick could still feel their eyes boring into his back as he followed Raven out of the driveway, down Speer to the highway exit.

The drive up to Boulder didn't take long, and Rick didn't begrudge a minute of the time spent. Raven had been right. The Indian would be safer locked in
the garage where people or Sazi could guard it, and Rick would have one less thing to think about while he was on assignment. Raven checked in with the night shift, letting them know they were leaving the bike, while Rick unfastened the saddlebags and gathered up his belongings.

"You ready?" Ramirez appeared at the door of the garage, keys in hand.

"Yup." Rick tossed the saddlebags over one shoulder and grabbed his sleeping bag by the belt that he'd used to keep it rolled into a tight bundle. He followed the other man outside, his footsteps echoing in the large open area of the metal garage building. Outside a tow truck was waiting, engine running. Its black paint gleamed, the elaborately painted logo on the doors bright and colorful, even in the pale silver light of the moon. The truck was a large model Ford with an extended cab. There was plenty of room for Rick's saddlebags next to the battered Coleman cooler that took up a section of the backseat.

When Rick was strapped in the passenger seat and they were on their way back down to the hotel in Denver, Raven began his briefing.

"Spiders?
They really
exist?"
Rick shuddered. Of course, there had been rumors of a race of shapeshifting spiders that preyed on Sazi for his whole long life, but nobody had actually encountered one
—save Lucas. But the tale Raven told about his time in Chicago last fall made him absolutely believe.

Raven nodded in frustration and flipped on his turn signal as they neared the hotel. "So far there have only been two of them, but that doesn't mean there aren't others out there. And we know they're actively working with some of the more violent snake separatist groups
—the ones who think ruling humanity is some sort of divine right. The snakes were up to something in Germany, but then they always are. Thankfully, Ahmad's been able to keep them in check so far."

Rick didn't
like
Ahmad al-Narmer, the were-cobra who represented the snakes, but he had to admit that the man wasn't nearly as bad as some of the others of his species.

"By the way," continued Raven, "Have you seen the photo of what Aspen did to Ahmad in Chicago?" Curiosity beat at Rick and he shook his head.

Raven pulled into a parking space at the hotel and pulled out his wallet. Rick snickered at the photo of Ahmad and his men pinned to the ceiling
—wallets and change raining down onto the heads of the council members and the Chicago pack—as Raven spoke. "She not only did this, she did it with
style.
I can't even
imagine
how much power it must have taken to throw them up there and just leave them there for hours while she casually made the trip home."

Rick thought back to the few meetings he'd encountered between Josie and Ahmad. It was only through outside intervention that they hadn't killed each other. "Well, I know their tempers, and it was
probably good that she did it this way. If they'd gotten down while she was still handy, Ahmad would have made a challenge for sure. The cobras are an especially proud bunch. They wouldn't sit still for that type of insult
—particularly from a woman." He motioned to the picture and then offered the wallet back. "I'm not surprised that she's been getting more assassination attempts after
…
this."

Shaking his head, Raven put the wallet back into his pocket, then pulled the key from the ignition and opened his door. "But it wasn't a cobra that attacked her at the house. The corpses buried were male rattlesnakes. The DNA was for a female of the same species. And what had the female been doing in her house?"

"Well, explosions are a common enough Sazi tool for getting rid of evidence." There was nothing quite like an explosion and fire to eliminate most of the evidence at a scene. Had she simply gotten careless while setting things up? It was possible, but it didn't seem likely.

"True, but
Angelique
found tire tracks and footprints for a second set of intruders, with the unmistakable scent of humans
—as well as the distinctive scent of a tiger. You remember Natasha Fausek?"

Rick nodded his head.
“T
he redheaded Bengal at Wolven? Oh sure. She was in the service when I was. Good record of captures, and dynamite on a chessboard."

The other man motioned with his head toward the upper balcony of the motel. "She just got into town and is going to tell us exactly what happened with Aspen that night. After that, you might be interested in a little moonlighting job Charles's old guard, Yusef, did for her, including everything there is to know about a little town called Pony, New Mexico."