Indigo Moon (22 page)

Beside Ren sat the other woman, and though a mirror image to look at she was her polar opposite in attitude. This woman was cold. Her eyes were black as pitch. They captured light and refused to release it. Her gaze was not happy or warm, but defiant and calculating. Her hair shone blue-black in the weak sunlight, and a scarlet smile curved her lips like a saber. She was as beautiful and venomous as a blue coral snake.

Who are you? Why do I dislike you so much?
Isabelle snapped off the power and set the camera aside. She couldn’t remember this other woman so like Ren, but Isabelle did not trust her. She worried that in her partial amnesia she had muddled the two in her mind. Was she right to trust the memories she had striven so hard to find? Her idea of Ren was blurred. Her feelings toward her did not harmonize with Ren’s actions in Singing Valley.

Maybe she had no true memory of Ren after all. Everything was so polluted with the possibility of the sister. Like her journal, all her memories of Ren and their time together were burned around the edges. Vast chunks were missing, possibly lost forever.

Isabelle’s throat scorched with an uncomfortable rash. Her eyes itched with tears of frustration. Everything was burning her up—her clothes, the apartment. She was allergic to normal these days. The dry, heated air in her lungs made her feel wizened from the inside out. Claustrophobia clawed at her. She felt panicked. Isabelle knew what she had to do.

The door clicked shut after her, and she stood in the hall drawing in cool mouthfuls of air. After a few minutes her heartbeat settled and her panic lessened. She strode along the hallway to the stairwell, avoiding the elevator with its confined space, and stale air, and mirrors. She stepped out into the night and walked briskly away from her block. Then she jogged for a few more streets. Then she broke into a full run, sprinting across Sellwood straight for Hope Glassy’s house.

*

“What is it, Taddy?” Hope opened the kitchen door. Tadpole hovered on the doorstep and sniffed the breeze. “Hurry up, you silly dog. I can’t stand here all day being your doorman.”

Usually, he was tripping her up in his eagerness to get outside for his morning patrol. With a nervous nose twitch, he finally cleared the threshold, making straight for the locust tree that marked the boundary with the neighbor.

Hope poured herself a cup of coffee and, nursing the mug in both hands, followed Tadpole into the garden. Early-morning dew glistened on every blade of grass, the first rosebuds peeped shyly from glossy green foliage, and birdsong filled the air. Her spirits lifted. Spring was a favorite season.

Tadpole ran an excited circuit from the locust to her decking and back again, his nose buried in the grass. Hope’s steps faltered. Large mud-spattered footprints covered her back deck. From the amount she could tell they belonged to one creature, and from the size and shape, Hope knew they were wolven.

*

“Godfrey. Get over here now.” Hope had her phone pressed to her ear and Tadpole wriggling under the other arm. She had grabbed him and locked them both inside the house. “I don’t care what time it is. I don’t care if it’s a minute past midnight and you’re a pumpkin. I’ve got a prowler, and it’s the hairy kind. Get over here as fast as you can.” She hung up and put Tadpole down. He ran straight to the kitchen door, begging to be let out to sniff some more.

“It’s not a good time to be curious, Taddy. We’ve got an unwelcome visitor. You’re staying indoors with me until we find out what’s going on.”

He ran back to the living room, jumped up on the couch, and pressed his nose to the window, clearly on sentry duty. Hope left him there, glaring up and down the street. Now that Jolie was out of town and he’d assumed the rank of protector, he had decided he was allowed on the furniture, especially at times of high alert. Hope hadn’t the energy to chase him off her couch. Her stomach was churning with nerves.

She returned to the kitchen to sit and fret at the small kitchen table. She wished Jolie were home; she’d know what to do with trespassing werewolves. Zagoria was not the easiest place in Greece to catch a phone signal. It had been two days since she’d last heard from her, and Hope missed her badly.

She had to keep busy until Godfrey arrived, so she clanged about the kitchen, breaking eggs into a bowl for pancake batter. The snap and splinter of the shells became an anodyne for her shattered nerves. The sharp crack of the whisk on the ceramic bowl was strangely soothing. At least she was keeping her panic at bay. Godfrey would be here soon and they would both need a good breakfast and strong coffee before they started to investigate her midnight prowler.

*

“Oh, my God.” Godfrey examined the ground around Hope’s backyard with dismay. Her flowerbeds were trampled and mud was tracked all over the path and back decking. “This thing’s huge!”

“I can see that. It’s hardly reassuring.”

“Look at those scratches.” He pointed out the long scores on the paintwork around the patio doors. “It was looking for a way in. I don’t like this, Hope. You and the Tadpole are coming home with me. Jolie and Andre can deal with this when they get back.”

“They won’t be back until next week. And I don’t want to leave my home. All my stuff is here.”

“Stuff? Stuff! This is a feral werewolf, Hope. I hardly think it’s after your fruit teas of the world collection, or your Doris Day forty-fives! It wants to
eat
you! There’ll be nothing left except what forensics find in its poop.”

“Does
American Theater Magazine
know you’re missing?”

“This is not mere drama, Hope. This is factual.
You
are on a menu.”

“I don’t want to move out, Godfrey.” Hope said, feeling defeated. “This is my home. My and Jolie’s home. Our den. If I run away I’ll feel like I let her down or something.”

“Nonsense. It’s the only sane thing to do. Jolie would never forgive me if I let you stay here. Besides, I’ve got your keys.” He waggled a bunch of keys at her.

“You filched those off my kitchen counter.” Hope made a grab for her keys, but Godfrey swung them out of reach. She tried a more adult approach. “Look, whatever it is, it must know the house is alarmed. It was just snooping. It smells Garoul all over the place and is checking out the scent.”

“It’s snooping around because it knows Jolie isn’t here. No way would a feral come anywhere near a Garoul den,” Godfrey said.

“Exactly. How does it know Jolie’s gone, huh? I think it’s just a stupid, nosy feral.”

“And I think it’s opportunist and extremely dangerous. You’re coming home with me. I’m lonely. Get packed.” Godfrey stood back and looked up at the building. “How did it get so close with these sensor lights? The glare should have sent it scooting.”

“The bulbs burned out ages ago. With Jolie around I guess I didn’t think it was that important,” Hope said, a little shamefaced.

“Well, having a werewolf in the house does make one a little blasé about home security. Let’s get these lights up and running. We’ll replace the bulbs and redirect the sensors onto the patio. Might as well give Mr. Snoopy a little razzle-dazzle next time he comes around. Not that you’ll be here to watch him run.”

Godfrey was right. It was silly to stay here when something big, ugly, and carnivorous was sniffing around outside her house. Besides, Jolie arrived from Athens next Wednesday; a long stay at Andre and Godfrey’s luxury penthouse might be fun.

“Okay, Home Depot it is for the spare bulbs. I’ll leave Tadpole here. He’s fast asleep under the couch. Seems a whole hour on guard duty has pooped him out.”

“See? Look at us holding the fort. Wouldn’t Andre and Jolie be proud at how clever we are? So grab your purse and let’s go.”

*

She’d started with the blond guy. Godfrey. She watched as he went about his work, and skulked around the bookstores and coffee shops close to his flower shop. His scent was good, a tart lemon verbena that promised summer and smelled of sunlight and fizzy sorbet. But it was only a top note. His underscent was dark and very sexual. His mate was strong, not an Alpha like Ren, but important enough to saturate his lover in a wolven musk that signaled his ownership for miles.

Isabelle had no interest in him. It was the woman who accompanied him that snared her. A small, dark-haired, compact woman, who had been wounded somehow, but was not weak.
Her
scent was something else. Complex and powerful…and safe. Isabelle couldn’t break it down into component parts. She didn’t fully understand it, and that intrigued her.

In a matter of days, she had discovered the woman’s name. Hope Glassy. And where she lived. At first, Isabelle’s wanderings had brought her by Hope’s small house. Drawn by scent and a vague, unfocused notion that some sort of solace could be found by simply being close by.

Now she actively sought it out. By day she would casually walk past unseen on the other side of the street, confident in the knowledge Hope had gone out to work. She knew because she watched Hope bustle out the door with her bag and umbrella at six forty-five a.m. on the dot. At night, after Hope returned and walked her dog, Isabelle would lurk in any handy shadow and watch the darkened windows.

Sometimes the little ginger dog would bark from inside the house. He knew she was there, but he didn’t threaten; he wanted her to know he was aware.

Isabelle was fascinated. This was a pack home, a small one, and the woman was central to it. A big wolf lived here. A mean one. But the woman kept it tame and cared for it. She wondered what it was like to be on the inside. What comfort and answers lay behind the happy yellow door? But she could sense warning, too. This woman was mated, she was a mainstay in a wolven world Isabelle knew nothing about. The house, its walls, roof, yard, windows, even the path leading up to that yellow door pulsed with warning, as if a protective spell had been wrapped around the entire building. Isabelle felt it right through to her bones, and coveted it.

She’d been out all night and was starving. Her appetite was enormous these days, despite the fact she was losing weight at a steady pace. She was exhausted now. Her feet hurt from walking, but she didn’t want to go back to her apartment until her neighbor had left for work. She didn’t want to meet him in the hall. She prickled around him; she wanted to snap her teeth and growl out a warning for him to leave her alone. To step back and keep out of her head space, it was too crowded in there already.

Barry made her feel like that, too, with his whining self-pity and passive threats. Thinking of him always made her upset and uneasy. She didn’t trust him. He’d been trying too hard to find out where she’d moved to. He wanted her to go back to him. He begged and cried and pestered her until she felt choked.

Isabelle circled Eastmoreland with a graceful, measured stride and slowly headed back to the only segment of city that made her feel secure: Sellwood and Hope Glassy’s house. If she kept too far away it made her anxious. Hope’s home was the nucleus to her ever-contracting world.

The neighborhood was waking up to a sun-filled Friday morning. People were beginning their commute. Traffic was increasing. Cars and school buses passed by her. She had stopped running once she hit the busier streets. Now she wrapped her coat tighter around her body and trudged on, trying to blend in.

Two blocks away from Sellwood Park a dark luxury car cruised past. Isabelle glanced up and locked eyes with the woman in the passenger seat. Hope Glassy stared back; it took a split second before recognition flashed across her face. Isabelle turned away to stare blindly at a shop window.

The car rolled on, and in the window’s reflection Isabelle could see Hope twist in her seat to look back. Isabelle ducked her head and scuttled away. It was a bad thing to be seen this close to Hope’s house. Part of her was panicked, and part thrilled that Hope remembered her. Perhaps she had some sort of an affinity, too? No. More likely Isabelle had been careless and Hope was aware of her. Her rashness had sabotaged even the simple luxury of walking past Hope’s house. If she wanted to continue her quiet visits, then no one had to know. If she couldn’t go to this house and soak up the scents and the calming ambience that pulsed out of it, she would die. As simple as that. She was withering away as it was, becoming more and more lost and incapable. For some unfathomable reason, this little house gave her hope and promised all manner of possibilities. It was her oxygen. The most basic component of her current existence.

She stumbled on. The streets were quieter now that the initial commuter rush had tailed off. She turned the corner of Hope’s block. The yellow door winked invitingly at her. Hope’s Ford was parked out front, but she knew she had gone away in the big black car. It was safe.

Isabelle began her vigil by slowly walking by, her eyes glued on the house, always looking for clues as to the pack that lived there. She basked in the fleeting calm that filled her, and wondered at the lure that kept bringing her back. A fuzzy ginger head popped up at the window and the little dog began to bark. The glass muted his shrill yapping. Isabelle hesitated. He was barking out some sort of welcome rather than the warning she’d half expected.

Now he was playing a game. He’d duck down from the window and run along the couch, only to pop up at the other end and bark at her again. Isabelle crossed the road and stood before Hope’s front lawn watching. Back and forth he ran for a good five minutes or more, popping up at one end of the window, then the other until a smile creased Isabelle’s face and a chuckle bubbled in her chest. She could not remember the last time she’d smiled; her face was etched into a blank mask these days. People didn’t register her, or if they did, they ignored her. The dehumanizing suited her—she was a no one, a derelict, an invisible. Now this little dog and his antics had her standing in the street giggling.