Hunter's Moon.htm (38 page)

He pulled out of my best grip as though it were nothing and walked away. He spoke without turning. "Don't make me come and get you."

I looked down at Sue. She had color again. There was a pool of blood in her chest where there was none before. Her chest rose and fell on its own and she felt confident in my head.

Go. I'll be all right now. Then she drifted off to sleep again.

I didn't know if she'd be okay but at least she had a chance.

Chapter 30

I pulled on the blue coveralls. They were a little short and far too wide. But they covered me. Just as I was leaving the hanger to join Bobby outside, I heard the exclamation of amazement and delight from Carl as he reached the table. I could smell his astonishment.

"A one-minute miracle. Shit." There was a hint of anger from someone. I couldn't tell who. Carl and the others stared after me as I walked out. A miracle indeed— and I was walking outside to meet that miracle now.

The heavy metal door protested noisily as I exited the hanger. It slammed behind me with a bang. Bobby was leaning against the wall lighting a cigarette. He didn't look at me until I joined him. He walked away from me and expected me to follow.

I could think again. I felt almost like myself again. For that I'd follow.

We walked toward the plane. The bodies were all gone. The boys must have made them disappear. I didn't know to where, nor did I care. The sun was bright on the baked earth. I had to blink a few times to get my eyes to adjust. The coveralls were already making me sweat but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered except that Sue had a chance.

Bobby stopped suddenly when he felt that we were a sufficient distance from the hanger. He turned to me, his face cut in angry lines.

"Are you completely insane? What you just did is an automatic death sentence!" Smoke billowed out of his mouth as he spoke and the wind blew it right in my face.

I presumed that he meant attacking Leo. "He was going to kill Sue," I said in a quiet, equally angry voice.

The cigarette smoke was irritating my nose and I sneezed.

He pointed a finger at my chest. "And that is the only thing that is saving your ass right now!"

He plucked the nearly whole cigarette out of his mouth. He dropped it on the ground and pressed it into the dirt with a twisting motion of his foot.

"Mated to a human!" He smelled burnt metal annoyed and mildew amazed at that same time. "I'm going to have to inform your pack leader of these indiscretions." He crossed arms across his broad chest. "Which pack are you attached to?"

I furrowed my brow and felt a pressure on my chest at the same time. Carl was starting to work. He must be using a rib spreader. It was a very strange feeling. Not pain exactly, just odd.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

He gave a little exasperated movement of his hand. It remained tucked under his other arm. "Okay, fine. Maybe you don't have a formal pack structure around here. Who do you hunt with?"

When I continued to look confused he twirled his hand, "You know, on the moon?" He waited expectantly but I had nothing to offer him. I shrugged.

"No one."

He suddenly looked startled again. "You really don't, do you?"

"Nope."

His expression grew both suspicious and tense. He licked his lips more than once. "If I said I was with Wolven, what would you say?"

"Who or what is Wolven?"

He closed his eyes and dropped his head. "Oh, shit! At least tell me you're a family member."

I shrugged. "You know I am. I grew up in the Patrone's house."

He gave a nervous chuckle with his head still bowed. One hand reached up and covered his eyes. "Oh, this is not good at all." Bobby was no longer angry. He was worried.

He shook his finger in the air, thinking and murmuring to himself. I continued to look confused because I was still in both places at once. It was hard enough to concentrate on this conversation when I should be in the hangar with Sue. I knew there was nothing I could do but I needed to be close to her. It felt just wrong not to be near her. I reached for her, a tentative touch along the mental connection and felt her warm and loving in the background.

Loving. It's not something I ever thought I needed. Absolute acceptance and warmth. That was what I got when I touched her. Even this, having Leo take her, hurt her— it was all accepted as part of being with me. That was so completely unexpected and amazing.

Bobby's hand was waving in front of my face and I returned to myself.

"I'm sorry," I said. "Were you talking to me?"

He rolled his eyes. "Apparently not. Okay, fine. I accept that you're not all here. You're with your mate. But try to stay with me. I have to ask you some questions."

I felt my back go up. I don't willingly give information. "You can ask." He caught the meaning.

"I have the right to ask." He looked confident. I couldn't see any deceit in his eyes. I was starting to get a little sense of frustration, with the slight coffee smell of anger from him for the first time.

"Fine. I can tell you believe that. Now make me believe it. And while we're on smells, why can't I smell you? I'm picking up some emotions now but nothing else. What are you?"

That brought a sudden frown to his face. "Hmm. Must be wearing off." He reached up with both hands and used the fingers of one hand to pull down his lower eyelid. Then he bent his head slightly and removed a contact lens. When he looked at me again I actually gasped. His right eye was a solid dark brown with a black pupil. Perfectly normal for a South African male. The other eye, though… it was reddish-gold. Not just the iris. I could almost have handled that.

But his whole eye, including where the white should be, was reddish-gold. The pupil was a small black vertical slit. Then he blinked. I hadn't noticed it before. His eyelids blinked up! The lower lid covered the eye, not the upper.

He licked his lip just like always but now the movement seemed foreign; alien. What was he?

It suddenly occurred to me what I had seen in that flash as he stood over Sue. "You're a snake?" I asked, a little startled. "Are there other kinds of… creatures too?"

Lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!

He gave me a little smile. "You really are new at this, aren't you?"

I opened my mouth but no words came out. I tried again. "Apparently."

He looked suddenly amused. "Okay then. I'll give you the quick course. You know some of it already."

He bowed slightly. "My name is Robart Mbutu. I'm from Mozambique, South Africa. I am a Reticulated Python. I am the last of my kind." There was sadness and fierce pride in that statement.

"Collectively, we are Sazi. Your kind, the wolves of America, descend from the Anasazi of the Four Corners."

"The cliff dwellers?" I asked. It would explain why archaeologists never found many bodies. Werewolves stay in whatever form they die in.

Bobby smiled slightly. "Actually that isn't quite accurate. It properly translates to, cave dwellers."

That made even more sense.

Bobby lit another cigarette and took a long draw. "This is a pretty truncated version of our history, but you'll learn more later. For the moment, know that hundreds of years ago, a representative of each of the known were-species came together from all over the world. Humans were encroaching on our land and attempting genocide of our kind. We overcame our language barriers and our prejudices.

The first meeting was chaired by Inteque, the youngest son of the Great White Wolf. He, a powerful jaguar named Colecos and Sasha, a polar bear, used both reason and force.

By the end of the gathering, the delegates had formed a government and created a Council comprised of the greatest among us. We chose a name, Sazi, to include all of our kind. We remain hidden from the humans to protect us all."

I suddenly felt Carl working on Sue again. It seemed to come in flashes. I was with Bobby one minute and in Sue's body the next. He was cutting high on her thigh. Maybe a graft? There was a lot of flesh gone. Bobby must have seen my attention disappear because he put a hand on my shoulder. I tried to focus on him but it split my attention between the two realities and made me dizzy.

"You're making it difficult to carry on a conversation here. Let me help." I felt his power flow from his hand into my shoulder and up my shoulder into my head. It flowed like water and like steel. A wall grew up between Sue and me; his doing.

"Whoa."

"You need to learn to shield." His voice held a slight amount of reproach. "Many things will get easier after you learn how." He released my shoulder but the power remained like a tether between us. It was really strange, and it was making me nervous.

"You're scared of me," He flicked his tongue between his lips like a snake. He didn't even attempt to make it look like a human movement. I suddenly realized that the reason for all of his lip licking wasn't a human one. Snakes sense things with their tongues. I stepped back, a little weirded out.

He shrugged. "Probably not a bad thing. Most are. I am an agent of Wolven, the law enforcement branch of our government."

"So you're… a creature cop?"

He let out a low hiss. "Of a sort, and I really prefer Sazi. We're not creatures. I've been working undercover for a couple of years, investigating Leo."

Wait. Sazi. That's what Leo said when I visited his office. He called me Sazi. Then I focused on what Bobby had said. He's been undercover for years? I was forced to voice my surprise and outrage.

"Years? Jesus, Bobby, everybody knew he was killing people. It took you years to figure it out?"

He gave me a dirty look and crossed his arms disdainfully. "No, it didn't take me years to figure it out. It took years to get proof enough to convict him. He kept eating the evidence. It's hard to establish a murder without the body."

I grimaced involuntarily. "He ate the evidence? That is sick." But I suppose that would be a problem with a scavenger.

The warm sun beat down on us. It felt kind of nice standing there without feeling the pull of Sue's needs. But it was lonely too. I glanced at the hangar. I hoped things were going well.

Bobby noticed and rolled his eyes. "So now I'm going to lose your attention because you're not connected? Give me a break, Giodone!" I felt the wall he constructed thin in my head. It wavered until it was an invisible barrier. If I reached across I could touch her. It was enough. Bobby had such absolute control over his abilities. I was both envious and curious.

His tongue flicked again. He nodded. "Curious. That's good. Are you ready to answer some questions yet?"

My eyes narrowed. Friend or not, he's a cop. "I'll let you know when I hear the questions."

"Always on the defensive." He gave an amused shake of his head. "Probably why I like you. Pity you aren't more powerful—we could use you in Wolven." I wouldn't comment on that. But I had to admit that if Bobby was typical of the others in this organization, I wasn't up to snuff.

Carmine and Mike stepped outside. They ignored us and started to drag bodies toward the second hangar.

Bobby smelled nervous at their presence. He turned and quickly put his contact back in. He walked toward the plane, and twitched a finger for me to follow. He sat on the lowered steps where it was shady. The white nylon cord stretched with a high-pitched creak as the steps came to rest on the runway. I sat in the dust. It wouldn't hurt the oil stained coveralls.

He started. "If you aren't family, I presume you were randomly attacked," The tone implied a question.

Okay, I figured out that "family", as he meant it, were other Sazi. I had no problem telling him what happened. "It was an attack, but it wasn't random. She fully intended to kill me."

"You know who she was?" His voice was all business.

I nodded my head. "I do. Her name is Barbara Herrera, although you'd never guess the surname from looking at her. She's a green-eyed redhead. But she wasn't a wolf when she attacked me. She was just a woman I was hired to take out."

His jaw dropped slightly. I didn't think I could surprise him any more. "She attacked you in human form!"

I nodded again. The hot wind churned sand into my eyes; I blinked several times to shift the grains to the edge, then turned my body so the wind was at my back. The sand didn't seem to bother Bobby. I glanced at the sky. It appeared that the storm was going to miss us. Good. We'd probably need the plane soon.

"After she turned you, did she train you? Introduce you to a pack?" I shook my head each time. "Did she at least teach you to hunt?"

"I know how to hunt," I replied with a shrug. He just blinked. I leaned back onto my arms, extended my legs, and crossed one ankle over the other. The sand was cooler in the shade, but not by much.

"You were hired to kill her. Were you given specific instructions on the way to do it?"

"I don't take instruction. You know that."

He shook his head and moved his body so his long legs rested on the edges of the steps. "We can only be killed in a very specific way. You saw what I did to Leo and the others. Were you given instructions to hit her heart, then her head?"

I really don't want to discuss my techniques or my clients with an admitted cop. "I told you, I don't take instructions. Why does it matter?"

I'd never seen this side of Bobby before, the absolute authority. "Because it'll tell me whether it was just a disgruntled human or one of our own that wanted her dead. Did you finish the job? Who was your client?"

I couldn't answer right then. I literally couldn't. I tried but I was suddenly fighting for air. I couldn't breathe. Sue couldn't breathe. Something was very wrong.

I grabbed at my throat. I sucked air through my nose and mouth but it didn't satisfy the need. I couldn't tell Bobby what was wrong but he understood it.

"Now what in the hell is going on?" he asked. He pulled his weapon as I dropped to my side in the dust. He moved with lightning speed toward the hanger. I wished I could have followed, but all I could do was fight for air. Somebody was killing Sue and I couldn't stop it. I couldn't break free. When Bobby left he took the shields with him. Now we were dying together. The noose had finally closed and it was strangling me.