Blue Moon (24 page)

I heard whoever it was kneel in the dry leaves before Jamil's voice came. “I won't touch you. Are you still getting the memories?”

He didn't ask if I was seeing the memories. I found the phrasing strange. I shook my head without looking up.

“Then it's over, Anita. Once the munin leave, they're gone until called again.”

“I didn't call her.” I raised my face slowly and opened my eyes. The summer night seemed blacker somehow.

“It was Raina again?” he made it a question.

“Yes.”

He knelt as close as he could get without touching me. “You shared the memories with Jason and with Cherry.”

I wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement, but I answered it: “Yeah.”

“It was a full visual,” Jason said. He was sitting with his bare back against a tree.

Cherry had her hands pressed to her face. She spoke, face hidden. “I cut my hair after that night, after what she did to me. One night with her was the price for not having to do one of their porno movies.” She jerked her hands away from her face, crying. “God, I can smell Raina's scent.” She rubbed her hands against her jeans, over and over, as if she'd touched something bad and was trying to wipe it away.

“What the fuck was that?” I asked. “I've channeled Raina
before, but it wasn't like that. I've got glimpses of memories, but not a full-blown movie. Nothing like that, ever.”

“Have you been trying to learn to control the munin?” Jamil asked.

“Just to get rid of it, them, whatever.”

Jamil moved closer to me, studying my face as if looking for something. “If you were lukoi, I'd tell you, you can't just turn the munin off. If you have the power to call them, then you must learn to control them, not just shut them out. Because you can't shut them out. They'll seek a way into you, through you.”

“How do you know so much?” I asked.

“I knew a werewolf who could call the munin. She hated it. She tried to shut them out. It didn't work.”

“Just because it didn't work for your friend doesn't mean I can't do it.” I could feel his breath warm against my face. “Back off, Jamil.”

He scooted back, but he was still closer than I wanted him to be. He sat back in the leaves. “She went crazy, Anita. The pack had to execute her.” His eyes went past me into the darkness. I turned to see what he was looking at. Two figures stood in the darkness. One was a woman with long, pale hair and a long, white dress like something out of a 1950s horror movie. If you were playing the victim. But she stood very straight, very certain, as if she were anchored to the ground like a tree. There was something almost frightfully confident about her.

The man with her was tall, slender, and tanned dark enough that he looked brown in the dark. His hair was short and a paler brown than his skin. If the woman seemed calm, he seemed nervous. He gave off energy in a roiling bath that breathed along my skin and made the night seem hotter.

“Are you well?” the woman asked.

“She shared the munin with two of us,” Jamil said.

“By accident, I take it,” the woman said. She sounded faintly amused.

I was not amused. I got to my feet, a little unsteady, but standing. “Who are you?”

“My name is Marianne. I am the vargamor for this clan.”

I remembered Verne and Colin talking about a varga-something last night. “Verne mentioned you last night. Colin said he'd left you at home to keep you safe.”

“A good witch is hard to find,” she said, smiling.

I looked at her. “You don't feel Wiccan.”

Again, I knew she smiled at me. Her peaceful condescension grated on my nerves. “A psychic then, if you prefer the term.”

“I'd never heard the term vargamor before last night,” I said.

“It's rare,” she said. “Most packs don't have one anymore. Considered too old-fashioned.”

“You aren't lukoi,” I said.

Her head cocked to one side, and the smile was gone, as if I'd finally done something worthwhile. “Are you so sure?”

I tried to get a sense of what had made me so sure she was human, or at least not lukoi. She had her own energy. She was psychic enough for me to notice. We'd have recognized each other without any introductions. We might not have known the exact flavor of each other's abilities, but we'd have recognized a kindred or rival spirit. Whatever power moved her, it wasn't lycanthropy.

“Yeah, I'm sure you're not lukoi,” I said.

“Why?” she asked.

“You don't taste like a shapeshifter.”

She laughed then, and it was a rich, musical sound that managed to be wholesome and earthy all at the same time. “I like your choice of senses. Most humans would have said I didn't feel right. Feel is such an imprecise word, don't you think?”

I shrugged. “Maybe.”

“This is Roland. He is my bodyguard for this night. We poor humans must be watched over for fear that some overzealous shapeshifter might lose control and harm us.”

“Somehow I don't think you are that easy a prey, Marianne.”

She laughed again. “Why, thank you, child.”

Her calling me child made me add about ten years to her age. She didn't look it. It was dark, but she still didn't look it.

“Come, Anita. We will escort you to the lupanar.” She held out her hand to me like I was supposed to take it and be led like a child.

I looked to Jamil. I hoped somebody knew what was going on, because I was lost.

“It's all right, Anita. The vargamor is neutral. She never fights or takes sides in challenges. That's how she can be human and run with the pack.”

“Are we involved in a challenge or a fight that I don't know about?” I asked.

“No,” Jamil said, but he sounded uncertain.

Marianne interpreted for me without being asked. “Introducing two outside dominants to a pack can lead to fighting. Having someone as powerful as Richard is raising the hackles on our younger wolves. Having him sleeping with our pack's only two dominant females makes it worse.”

“You mean we may get into a pissing contest,” I said.

“A colorful phrase, but accurate enough,” she said.

“Okay, now what?” I asked.

“Now, Roland and I escort you all to the lupanar. The rest of you may go ahead. You know the way, Jamil.”

“I don't think so,” I said.

“No to what?” Marianne asked.

“Do I look like Little Red Riding Hood?” I said. “I'm not taking a stroll in the woods with two strangers. One of them a werewolf and the other a . . . I don't know what you are yet, Marianne. But I don't want to be alone with the two of you.”

“Very well,” she said. “Some or all may stay. I was thinking that you might like privacy to speak with another human tied to the lukoi. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“Tomorrow in the light of day, we can talk. Tonight, let's just take it easy.”

“As you like,” she said. Again, she held out her hand to me. “Come. Let us talk as we all troop to the lupanar as one big, happy family.”

“You're making fun of me now,” I said. “That won't put you on my A-list.”

“I make fun of everyone a little,” she said. “I mean no harm by it.” She waggled her hand at me. “Come, child, the moon is passing above us. Time wastes away.”

I walked towards her with my five bodyguards at my back. I didn't take her hand, though.

I was close enough to see the condescending smile clearly now. Anita Blake, the famous vampire hunter, afraid of some backcountry wisewoman.

I smiled. “I'm cautious by nature and paranoid by profession. You've offered me your hand twice now within just a few minutes. You don't strike me as someone who does anything without a reason. What gives?”

She put her hands on her hips and tsked at me. “Is she always this difficult?”

“Worse,” Jason said.

I frowned at him. Even if he couldn't see it in the dark, it made me feel better.

“All I want, child, is to touch your hand and get a sense of how powerful you are before we let you inside the boundaries of our lupanar again. After what you did last night, some of our pack fear you within the boundaries of our lupanar. They seem to think you will steal our power.”

“I can tap into it,” I said, “but I can't steal it.”

“But the munin already reach out to you. I felt you call your munin. It traveled through the power we have called tonight in the lupanar. It disturbed it like plucking on a thread of a spider's web. We came to see what we had caught, and if it were too big to eat, we would cut it loose and not take it home.”

“The spider metaphor worked for maybe two sentences, then you lost me,” I said.

“The lupanar is our place of power, Anita. I need to get a sense of what you are before you enter it this night.” The laughter was gone from her voice. She was suddenly very serious. “It is not just our protection I am thinking of, child. It is yours. Think, child, what would happen to you if the munin within our circle rode you one after another? I need to make sure you can control at least that well.”

Just hearing her say it made my stomach tight with fear. “Okay.” I held out my hand to her like we were going to shake hands, but I gave her my left hand. If she didn't like it, she could refuse it.

“Offering the left hand is an insult,” she said.

“Take it or leave it, vargamor. We don't have all night.”

“That is more true than you know, little one.” She put her hand out as if to touch mine but stopped with her hand just above mine. She spread her hand above my skin. I mirrored her. She was trying to get a sense of my aura. Two could play at that game.

When I raised my hands up in front of my body, she mirrored me. We stood facing each other, hands spread wide, not quite touching. She was tall, five-foot-seven or five-foot-eight. I didn't think there were high heels under that long dress.

Her aura was warm against my skin. It had a weight to it, as if I could have wrapped her aura in my hands like dough. I'd
never met anyone with such weight to their aura. It confirmed my first sense of her. Solid.

She pushed forward suddenly, wrapping her fingers around my hand. She forced my aura back in upon itself like a knife thrust. It made me gasp, but again, I knew what was happening. I pushed back and felt her waver.

She smiled, but it wasn't condescending now. It was almost as if she were pleased.

The hair at the back of my neck tried to crawl down my spine.

“Powerful,” she said. “Strong.”

I spoke around a tightness in my throat. “You, too.”

“Thank you,” she said.

I felt her power, her magic, move over me, through me, like a rush of wind. She pulled away so abruptly it staggered both of us.

We were left standing a foot away from each other, breathing hard like we'd been running. My heart thudded in my throat like a trapped thing. And I could taste her pulse on the back of my tongue. No, I could hear it. I could hear it like a small ticking clock. But it wasn't her pulse. I smelled Richard's aftershave like a cloud that I had walked through. When the marks were working through Richard, it was often scent that let me know what was happening. I didn't know what had caused them to act up. Maybe the power of the other lycanthropes or the closeness of the full moon. Who knew? But something had opened me to him. I was channeling more than the sweet smell of his body.

“What is that sound?” I asked.

“Describe it,” Marianne said.

“Like a clicking, soft, almost mechanical.”

“I've got an artificial valve in my heart,” she said.

“It can't be that.”

“Why not? When I lean forward to the mirror to apply eyeliner, I can hear it through my open mouth, echoing against the mirror.”

“But I can't hear it,” I said.

“But you are,” she said.

I shook my head. I was losing the sense of her. She was pulling away from me, putting up shields. I didn't blame her, because, for just a second I could feel her heart beating, limping along. The sound hadn't made me sorry for her or empathetic.
The sound excited me. I felt it pull things deep inside my body. It was almost sexual. She'd be slow, an easy kill. I looked at this tall, confident woman, and for a split second all I saw was food.

Fuck.

W
E FOLLOWED
M
ARIANNE
and her guard, Roland, through the darkened trees. I'd have caught that damn dress on every twig and deadfall. Marianne floated through the woods as if the trees themselves let her and the dress pass gently through. Roland paced at her arm, gliding through the woods like water down a well-worn channel. Jamil, Nathaniel, and Zane moved just as gracefully. It was the rest of us that were having trouble.

My excuse was that I was human. I didn't know what Jason and Cherry's excuse was. I tried to step on a log and missed. I ended up on my stomach, arms scraping along the rough bark. I straddled it like a horse and couldn't seem to get my leg over the other side. Cherry tripped on something in the leaves and fell to her knees. I watched her get to her feet and trip over the same damn thing. This time she stayed on her knees, head down.

Jason fell in a tangle of dry tree roots at the end of the log I was sitting on. He fell on his face and cursed. When he got to his feet, there was a scrape on his chest deep enough to show blood, black in the moonlight. It reminded me of what Raina had done to him. She'd cut his chest to rags, and there wasn't a scar on him from it.

I closed my eyes and leaned over the log, resting my forearms on it. My arms hurt. I raised myself slowly and looked at them. I'd scraped them up enough so that blood was slowly filling the wounds in spots. Great.

Jason leaned against the end of the log, far enough away that we wouldn't touch. I think we were all still afraid of that. Didn't want a repeat.

“What's wrong with us?” Jason asked.

I shook my head. “I don't know.”

Marianne was just suddenly there. I hadn't heard her come up. Was I losing time? Was I that out of it?

“You cast out the munin before it was ready to release you.”

“So?” I said.

“So, that takes energy,” she said.

“Fine, that explains me stumbling around. What about them? Why do they feel like shit?”

She gave a very small smile. “You are not the only one who fought the munin, Anita. It was you who called it, and if you had not been willing to fight it, then the other two would have been helpless before it, but they fought it as well. They struggled against the memories. That costs.”

“You sound like you know,” I said.

“I can call the munin. These chaotic flashes are what happens when you have a munin that hunts you, and that you do not want to embrace.”

“How did you know it was chaotic?” I asked.

“I caught a glimpse or two of what you saw. The merest touch,” she said.

“Why don't you feel awful?” I asked.

“I did not struggle. If you simply allow the munin to ride you, it passes much more quickly and relatively painlessly.”

I half-laughed at her. “That sounds like the old advice of lie back, close your eyes, and it'll be over soon.”

She turned her head to one side, long hair sliding over her shoulders like a pale ghost. “Embracing the munin can be pleasant or unpleasant, but this munin hunts you, Anita. Most of the time, a munin that tries to bond with a pack member does so out of love or shared sorrow.”

I just looked at her. “It isn't love that motivates this one.”

“No,” she said, “I felt both the strength of her pesonality and her hatred of you. She chases you out of spite.”

I shook my head. “Not just spite. What little is left of her enjoys the game. She's having a really good time when I channel her.”

Marianne nodded. “Yes. But if you would embrace her instead of fighting, you could pick and choose among the memories. Strong ones will come easiest, but you could control more of what comes and how strongly it comes. If you would truly channel her, as you put it, then the images would be less like a movie and more . . . like wearing a glove.”

“Except that I'm the glove,” I said, “and her personality overwhelms mine. No thanks.”

“If you continue to fight this munin, it will get worse. If you will cease struggling and meet her even partway, the munin will lose some of its strength. Some feed off of love. This one feeds off of fear and hatred. Was this the old lupa? The one you killed?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Marianne shivered. “I never met Raina, but even that small touch of her makes me glad she's dead. She was evil.”

“She didn't see herself that way,” I said. “She saw herself as more neutral than evil.” I said it like I knew, and I did know. I knew because I'd worn her essence like a dress more than once.

“Very few people see their own actions as truly evil,” Marianne said. “It is left to their victims to decide what is evil and what is not.”

Jason raised his hand. “Evil.”

Cherry echoed him. “Evil.”

Nathaniel and Zane and even Jamil, raised their hands.

I raised my hand, too. “It's unanimous,” I said.

Marianne laughed, and again, it was a sound equally at home in the kitchen or the bedroom. How she managed to be both wholesome and suggestive in the same breath puzzled me. Of course, a lot of things puzzled me about Marianne.

“We'll be late,” Roland said. His voice was deeper than I thought it would be, low and careful, almost too old for his body. He looked peaceful enough, but I could look at him with things other than my eyes. You couldn't see it, but you could feel it. He was a mass of nervous energy. It danced along his skin, breathing out into the dark like an invisible cloud, hot, almost touchable, like steam.

“I know, Roland,” she said. “I know.”

“We could carry them,” Jamil said.

A thrill of power flowed through the trees. It caught at my heart as if some invisible hand had touched me.

“We must go,” Roland said.

“What is your problem?” I asked.

Roland looked at me with eyes that were a nice, solid darkness. “You are,” he said. He spoke in a low voice, and it sounded like a threat.

Jamil moved between us so that my view of Roland was almost completely blocked, and I assumed, his view of me.

“Now, children,” Marianne said, “play nicely.”

“We will miss the ceremony entirely if they do not hurry,” Roland said.

“If you were a true lupa,” Marianne said, “you could draw energy from your wolves and give it in return like a great recycling battery.” It sounded like she'd given this lecture before. I guess every pack needs a teacher. I know ours needed one sorely. I was beginning to realize that we were like children that had been raised by neglectful parents. We were grown-up, but we didn't know how to behave.

“You're psychic enough that you might be able to do it in a small way without being lukoi,” Marianne said.

“I don't think I'd call being a necromancer the same thing as being psychic,” Jamil said.

Marianne shrugged. “It's all much more alike than most people wish to acknowledge. Many religious groups are comfortable with psychic ability but not with magic. But call it what you will, it's either that or we call some more wolves and throw you across our shoulders.”

The real trouble was that I only knew two ways to call power. One was ritual, the other was sex. I'd realized a few months ago that sex could take the place of ritual for me. Not always, and I had to be attracted to the person involved, but sometimes. I didn't really want to admit to strangers that sexual energy was one of the ways I performed magic. Even though no actual sex was involved, it was still embarrassing. Besides, doing anything sexual seemed like putting out the welcome mat for Raina's munin.

How could I explain all this to Marianne without sounding like a slut? I couldn't think of a way to explain it that didn't make me sound bad, so I wasn't going to try.

“Go on without us, Marianne. We'll get there on our own. Thanks, anyway.”

She stamped her foot under that flowing gown. “Why are you so reluctant to try, Anita?”

I shook my head. “We can discuss magical metaphysics tomorrow. Right now, why don't you take your wolf and go. We'll get there, slow but sure.”

“Let's go,” Roland said.

Marianne looked to him, then back to me. “I was told to see if you were a danger to us, and you are not, but I don't like leaving you out here like this. The three of you are weak.”

“We'll get over it,” I said.

She cocked her head to one side again, hair sweeping like a white veil to frame her face. “Are you planning some sort of magic that you don't wish me to see?”

“Maybe,” I said. Truth was, no. No way was I voluntarily touching Jason or Cherry again, not tonight. But if Marianne thought we were going to do something mystical but private, she might go away. I wanted her to go away.

She stood looking at me for nearly a full minute, then finally smiled, dim in the moonlight. “Very well, but do hurry. The others will grow impatient to greet Richard's human lupa. You have everyone's curiosity piqued.”

“Glad to hear it. The sooner you go, the sooner we can start.”

She turned without another word and started off through the trees. Roland trailed her, then took the lead. We all stood around waiting for Marianne's white dress to grow distant and ghostlike through the forest.

Finally, Jason said, “Start what?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just wanted them gone.”

“Why?” Jamil asked.

I shrugged. “I don't want to be carried like a sack of potatoes.” I started walking, slow but sure, towards the lupanar.

Jamil fell into step beside me. “Why not try what she was suggesting?”

I walked carefully, paying a lot more attention to my feet than I usually did. “Because outside of raising the dead, I'm still an amateur. It will probably take less time for us to walk to the lupanar than for me to do something mystical.”

Jason agreed with me, which made me frown at him, but it was still true. I was like someone with a loaded gun that didn't know how to shoot. I would be struggling to figure out how to undo the safety while the bad guys shot me a million times. About two months ago, the only other necromancer I'd ever met had offered to teach me real necromancy, not this voodoo dabbling I was doing. He'd ended up dead before he could teach me much of anything. Funny how many people ended up dead after they met me. No, I didn't kill him.

Cherry stumbled and went down again. Zane and Nathaniel
were just suddenly there, one on either side of her. They helped her stand, hugging each other for a moment. Cherry slipped a hand around the waist of both men, leaning her head for a second on Zane's shoulder. They walked this way through the treacherous dark, Cherry leaning heavily on her fellow wereleopards. There was a camaraderie between them that hadn't been there before. Had I done that? Had just having someone to protect them forged some sort of bond? Or had it been Richard's prickling energy? I had a lot of questions and didn't even know if there was anyone who would know. Maybe Marianne would know, if I decided I could trust her.

Jamil offered me his arm. I waved him away. I knew that Raina had slept with him, and I did not want the memory. “Help Jason,” I said.

Jamil looked at me for a second, then went and offered his arm to Jason, who refused the offer. “If Anita doesn't need help, neither do I.”

“Don't be a hard case,” I said.

“Now, that's the pot calling the kettle black,” Jason said.

“If I offered you my arm, you'd take it,” I said.

“An excuse to hang all over a pretty girl? Sure.” Then he seemed to think about it. “But maybe not tonight. I can't call the munin, but there's something in the air tonight.” He shivered, rubbing his hands along his bare arms. “Of all the memories Raina had of me, why that one?”

We were both slowly walking as we talked. “The three things Raina liked best were sex and violence and terrorizing people. Making you lukoi hit all her buttons.”

Jason stumbled, fell to his knees, and just stayed that way for a second or two. I waited with him, wondering if I should offer to help him up. “I know you wondered why I never did any of her porno movies.”

“I guess. I mean you're not exactly the shy type.”

He looked up at me, and even by moonlight, there was a sorrow in his face that was deeper and wider than most people ever saw. He was too young for the look in his eyes, but there it was. Innocence lost.

“I'll always remember the look on her face when she killed me.”

“She didn't kill you, Jason.”

“She tried. It didn't matter to her whether I lived or died. It really didn't.”

That one shared memory, and I couldn't argue with him. Raina's pleasure had been more important to her than his life. Like a serial killer.

Jason hunched in upon himself. “But she was my sponsor, and I had to stay with her until my probation period was over. When I could, I got away.”

“Is that why you went to stay with Jean-Claude, as his lap-wolf? To escape Raina?”

Jason nodded. “Partly.” He looked up suddenly and grinned. “Of course, Jean-Claude is way cool.”

I shook my head and offered him my hand.

“Think we can risk it?” he asked.

“I think so. I'm not feeling particularly muninish right now.”

He took my hand and it was just a hand. His hand in mine. I helped him stand, and he staggered just a bit on his feet, which made me wobble. We clung to each other for a second like two drunks leaving a party. I hugged him, and he hugged me back. It was quick. He pulled away first, and looked almost embarrassed. “Don't tell anyone I didn't take my chance to grope you when it was your idea.”

I patted him on the back. “Not a soul.”

He gave me his usual grin, and we started through the woods, walking close enough to catch each other if we fell. A breeze blew through the trees, rustling everything. The woods were suddenly alive with sound. I turned my face to the wind, hoping it would be cool, but it was hot like the air from an oven.