Indigo Moon (29 page)

The shack he was hauling her toward was shabby and weather-worn, and perversely enough, she recognized it. She had passed by here with Amy Fortune last fall, looking for
Castilleja levisecta.
The shack was about five miles outside of Lost Creek, and several more from Little Dip. She had tried to guess how much time she had spent in the suffocating car trunk while empty beer bottles bumped against her head and the smell of oily rags choked her. Little had she known their breakneck speed was taking her in the direction she’d been headed in all along.

Whoever he was, he had chosen his bolt-hole poorly, unless the proximity to the Garoul home valley was deliberate. It was dangerous for a feral to come this close to Garoul territory. The fact she was still alive told her she was a pawn in someone’s game. Already she could feel the side of her face swell from his punch. Her current ill treatment did not bode well. Whatever their plans, there was a good chance her general well-being was of no importance.

He kicked open the door and tossed her on to the floor. Without a word, the door slammed closed and the lock rattled. She was plunged into darkness. Hope sat up and brushed dirt off her gashed knees. Her head throbbed, and her temple was bruised to the touch. Her fingers gently probed the tender patches on her scalp where her hair had been torn out in clumps. She struggled not to cry, but every time she thought of Tadpole the tears welled up and rolled silently down her cheeks. He had tried so hard to protect her. She prayed Godfrey was caring for him.

And where was Godfrey? Had he managed to get Isabelle to Claude? A metallic clink snapped her from her desperate thoughts and into pure panic. Her throat closed over with fear. It came again, the quiet clink of a chain scraping against the wooden floor. She was not alone. Something was in here with her.

“You smell nice,” a child’s voice whispered in the darkness. It sounded lost yet hopeful all at the same time. “Who are you?”

Hope scanned the room. As her sight adjusted to the dark, she could just about make out a small, shadowy figure sitting on the floor diagonally across from her.

“I’m Hope. Who are you?”

“Mouse. And that’s Patrick who pushed you in here. He’s mean. He made you cry.”

“Just a little.”

“Did he hurt you?”

“Not much. He pulled my hair.”

“He pulled mine, too. I hate him.”

“He’s not my favorite person either. How’d you get here, Mouse?”

“I was sleeping and he grabbed me.”

“From your bed?” Hope was horrified. What did they want with a child? Then it occurred to her the child was in chains and she, the adult, was not. Her stomach felt leaden.

“Mouse? Why did he chain you up?”

“Because I’d bite him and he’s scared.”

“Ah, I see.” Hope nodded. “You’re wolven.”

“Yeah. And after I bite him, Ren’s gonna bite him more and she’s got big teeth. He’s gonna be one sorry pup.”

Ren.
Hope was confused. So it was not Ren’s pack that had chased them out of Portland and terrorized them on the road.

“Where is Ren, Mouse?” she asked.

“Dunno.” The voice sounded small again. “She left to find Isabelle and we were to mind the farm. Then Patrick grabbed me. He pulled my hair. Ren will be mad at him because he did that
and
disobeyed orders.”

“Okay.” This was interesting. So Mouse was one of Ren’s pack…and Patrick, too, from the sound of it. Why had he grabbed her and Mouse? It was serious stuff to disobey your pack leader. Had Mouse got her facts straight?

Hope was surprised at the age range in Ren’s pack. Isabelle had said they were young, but Mouse’s age put them more in the category of a family den than a gang of feral scavengers. “Does Patrick not want to be in Ren’s pack anymore?”

“I don’t know.” Mouse was troubled by this idea. “He’s sneaky. Me and Joey never liked him.”

“Joey?” How many were there running around out there?

Mouse sighed, tired with the questions. “Joey’s in Ren’s pack with me. He’s my best friend. And there’s Jenna and Noah. Jenna’s kind. She’s Noah girlfriend. And Noah’s the best hunter, after Ren. He’s gonna teach me how to skin as soon as Ren says I can have a knife,” she explained patiently.

Mouse’s adoration of Ren was obvious. This corroborated what Isabelle had said earlier. Ren was sounding less and less like the murderous monster she had expected. Hope needed to dig a bit more. Too many pieces of this puzzle were missing.

“I’m sorry for all the stupid questions. Isabelle only told me a few things about the farm.” Hope chose her words carefully.

“Isabelle?” Mouse exploded with excitement. “You know her? She’s my friend. She had to go away because of an emergency and Ren said she had to go help her.”

“She’s my friend, too,” Hope said, wondering why Ren had covered up Isabelle’s escape, and what that meant.

“I miss her.”

“She misses you all as well.” Hope realized it was true. When Isabelle talked about these kids, which was often, there was genuine warmth in her voice. She wondered how much Isabelle realized this. It was all very odd. Like a little family torn apart.

The chains rattled as Mouse moved her legs. Patrick had shackled her by the ankles. The chain looped through a steel ring attached to the floor and looked tight and uncomfortable.

“How long have you been here?” Hope asked.

“Two days. He goes away lots. Sometimes others come back with him. Three more. He bosses them about like he tried to boss us. The new guys don’t like him much.”

“Three guys were chasing me and my friends. Two of them looked sick. Could they be the same guys?” Hope tried to ascertain just how many there were.

“Yeah. The other two have bad guts. They’re always moaning about it.” Mouse sounded disgusted at such weakness. “They’ll never be Weres.”

“What’ll happen to them?”

“They’ll die. They always die once their guts start to rot,” Mouse said, matter-of-fact.

Hope looked away remembering Isabelle’s pain. She was in trouble.
Please let her be in Little Dip by now.
Marie could help her, perhaps save her. Hope guessed she’d been in the car trunk for about two hours, though it had felt like a lifetime. That was more than enough time for Godfrey to have found Claude and handed Isabelle over.

“Will your friends come for us?” Mouse asked hopefully.

Hope smiled at the “us.” “I’m not sure. I have a rough idea where we are, though. It’s not far away from some other friends I know.”

The chains rattled violently, displaying Mouse’s enthusiasm for this news. “Will they come?”

“They don’t know we’re here.”

“Ren will find us,” Mouse stated with certainty. “Patrick stinks. Ren will sniff him out and pound him for stealing me. She’ll pound him for hurting you, too. Especially if you’re a friend of Isabelle’s.”

Hope wasn’t sure she wanted to meet this Ren at all, with her big teeth and pounding. But Isabelle clearly loved her, and Mouse adored her…and Patrick had betrayed her? Hope was confused. If Ren wasn’t behind this double kidnap, who was? Someone—or something—much more frightening.

*

Isabelle wasn’t sure when she’d stopped being the prey and became the hunter. Best of all, her pursuers knew nothing about it. As far as they were concerned, they were hounding an exhausted woman up a sodden, muddy hillside.

She had lost Patrick’s scent quickly, and with it all chance of finding Hope. The incessant rain had washed everything into one big gloop of earth scent.

It was strange, the connection she felt for Hope. Hope had a big heart and had offered nothing but unstinting support. Hope was a den mother. Isabelle realized that had been the magnet drawing her to Hope’s house all along. And now she had lost Hope’s scent and failed her as a friend.

Panicked, at first she had tried to stay close to the tree line, but as her predators flushed her into higher ground the trees had thinned, and her cover with them. It surprised her how fast she had adapted. It seemed second nature to lurk in shadow and move in short, sharp bursts of speed. She intersected these with longer, crouched runs, drawing her hunters farther onto the steeper slopes after her. They were unwell and tiring quickly. They thought they were chasing her, but she knew different. Somewhere, while clawing through rock and thorny scrubland, the roles had reversed. She always moved with a target already mapped out in her mind, be it a boulder or a lone, twisted tree. It gave her the advantage and exposed her pursuers.

On the way to her next waypoint, she realized she could pick up their scents even though they were far away. Higher up, and free of the forest, the air swirled the entire world of the hills toward her. She now knew exactly where her pursuers were, and how to execute her next move. That’s when she decided her next move was to circle around behind them.

Her mind was as sharp and hard as a flint edge. Thoughts sparked off her, yet she moved on instinct alone. This wasn’t learned logic; this was an innate wisdom. Somehow it had seeped through her pores into her organs, through every fiber of her body. Her chills and sweats had gone. She didn’t shiver anymore. Her skin felt crisp and cool; only her feet and hands were hot. Her scalp prickled with excitement. Her chest rumbled in quiet pleasure with a purr for her own cleverness.

She lay on her belly on an escarpment, ignoring the mud creeping through her clothes and onto her skin, and watched her hunters flail about in the gorge below. Her tracks had long gone cold. The beasts circled and snarled and nipped at each other, the healthiest one bullying the weaker two, until all three were on the edge of frenzy.

She rolled away, pleased, and lay with her back in a cold puddle, looking up at the night. The rainstorm was passing. High winds were breaking up the tumbling clouds. Patches of starry sky peeked through, promising a bigger, brighter night. The stars burned holes in her, they riddled her with pinpoints of light and energy. The moon, when it came, would blow her apart.

Her clothes were sopping wet. With little thought, she pulled them off and gloried in the cold night pressing against her nakedness. She stretched her arms and arched her back until her spine popped and her shoulders and elbows crunched. Her ears rang with the splinter and creak of her facial bones shifting. Mandible, maxilla, zygoma all cracked and crunched. She had a moment’s sharp, unpleasant pressure, and then it was past her. Her sinuses flooded with deeper, richer scents and flushed away the pain. These smells were headier than anything she’d experienced before. She felt faint from it, drunk on it.

Lifting her face to a strong gust of wind, she sniffed and snuffled, her wet nose twitching in its squat, leathery muzzle. So many scents—she wanted to explore each one. She wanted all the smells in the world to fill her head, she wanted to suck it all in until her lungs burst. She panted with delight and flipped over onto her hands and knees, then hunched into a sprinter’s start. She licked her lips, flicked her teeth—so smooth, and long, and sharp. Very, very sharp. A bead of blood bubbled on her tongue, and the coarse hairs along the ridge of her spine rose in pleasure. She wriggled her toes in delight. She felt like running. Her thigh muscles were pumped and hard, bursting with energy. Her bare feet tingled and she dug her toes into the grass and dirt. She wanted to run for a million miles. She wanted to run around the widest part of the world, over and over again.

Her fingernails sank into the mud, curved and sharp, like claws. They
were
claws! Massive claws, on massive paws.
I’m brown. My coat is brown.
Her last human thought hummed in her head as she shot out of her sprinter’s crouch and bounded forward, leaping, howling, pushing her huge, bunched muscles to their glorious limit.

The wind caressed her fur, her ears twitching as it rushed past. She pulled her muzzle back and bared her canines, and snarled. These Weres had taken her friend. She couldn’t recall much else. She had a friend, and now she was gone, and these three were somehow responsible.

The three wolven in the gorge below froze. They were ignorant, stupid, useless in their newness. Isabelle was new, too. But she knew what to do. She powered into them, bowling them over like ninepins. She flashed her wonderful claws. Throwing a loose roundhouse to the chest of one, she hooked several ribs and tore them from his sternum. His left lung popped like a balloon. She kicked out at the other. A tight, hard stab. Her clawed foot plunged into his unprotected underbelly, ripping his abdomen open like paper.

The healthy one ran, but she didn’t care. She would find him later, and he would tell her whatever she wanted to know. But these two, the dying ones…she was doing them a favor.

“It’s not a punctured lung.”

“Thank God.” Godfrey breathed a sigh of relief.

Ren secured the bandage wrapped around Tadpole’s torso. “His breathing is labored because of shock. His ribs are badly bruised from the kick and he’ll need an X-ray, but I don’t think anything’s broken. At worst, a cracked rib or two.”

“Bastards.”

“I’ve given him a shot of Metacam, and he’ll sleep now out of pure exhaustion.” She dropped her stethoscope into her bag and snapped it shut. “That’s all I can do for now. We’re lucky I even thought to bring this with me.” She tapped the leather. The truth was the bag and its contents had been packed with Isabelle in mind.