Moon Shadows

Nora Roberts

Italy

Somewhere in the Piedmont Mountains

L
IKE
a brush tipped in twilight, the setting sun shimmered across the valley and daubed silver-edged shadows into the forest. Those last flaming rays wouldn't linger, but would soon slide away to hide behind the peaks and leave the sky a soft, purpling blue.

Simone hitched her shoulders, shifting the weight of her backpack as she watched night creep across the wild reaches of Valgrisenche.

At least she was pretty sure that's where she stood. She'd wandered off the path—such as it was—hours earlier. But she didn't care. She'd come for the adventure, for the thrill. For the freedom.

And if she was a little lost in a remote area of the Italian mountains, so what? She was
in
the Italian mountains, and that's what counted.

In any case, she had her compass, her guidebooks, and all the necessary supplies. Tomorrow, she'd cross over into France—
France
, she thought with a quick hiking-boot boogie.

If the mood struck anyway, if she didn't decide to linger on
this side of the border another day or two before she continued her journey. This glorious and personal journey.

She'd camp, but not yet. The light was fading, but the sunset was so spectacular, painting reds and golds over the western sky. She'd always thought twilight the most magical of times. A breathless hush that should be savored before it bled away to night.

So she'd follow the sunset for a while, fill her lungs with the sharp tang of pine from the forest, and watch the dying sun sink onto, into, behind the snow-covered peaks.

She'd been right to come after the summer season, right to take this one year to indulge in everything she'd dreamed about all of her life.

She'd tasted pasta in Rome, gotten drunk in Spoleto, bought an ornate silver cross from a vender in Venice, and had a foolishly intense three-day love affair in Florence.

But most of the time she stayed off the beaten path, enjoying the hikes through the valleys and hills, through the fields of sunflowers, the vineyards.

For a full third of her eighteen years she'd been trapped in the city, imprisoned by fate, and the system. She'd been forced to follow the rules and had marked each day since her twelfth birthday as a day closer to freedom.

Now she was here, following a dream. Her parents' dream, she knew. She was living it for them. If they had lived, they would have come long before this. They, the three of them, would have seen and tasted and smelled and experienced.

She fingered the heavy cross hanging around her neck and watched the last rays of the sun drip beneath the peaks.

They would have loved it.

She settled her pack more comfortably and began to walk again. There was too much energy inside her to settle down for the night. Stars were already winking on, and the sky was mirror clear. She had her flashlight and could follow her nose and compass until she was tired.

Another hour, she told herself, then she'd pick a spot and call it her room. She'd make a few notes in her trip diary by moonlight.

It was warm for October in the mountains, and the exercise
kept her comfortable with just her faded jean jacket. Nearly six weeks of hiking had added muscle to her usually spindly frame.

Her cousin, a full year her junior, had already started to sprout breasts when Simone had moved into the tidy, regimented house in Saint Paul. And Patty had never tired of needling her over her lack of shape.

Or of tattling on Simone over the most minor, and sometimes fabricated, infractions.

So she'd learned to get along, coast along, and count the days.

Take a look at me now, Patty, you buck-toothed bitch. She flung her arms out, cocked one in an exaggerated muscleman flex. I'm practically buff.

She'd cut her sunny blond hair short before she'd left Saint Paul, done it herself as a kind of ritual—and for practicality.

Less hair, less to deal with while traveling. It was growing out a little shaggy around her triangular face, with the bangs spilling into her eyes and most of the rest shooting up in spikes. Maybe it wasn't precisely the best look for her, but it was
different
.

She thought it might be fun to treat herself to a haircut in Paris. Maybe have it dyed magenta. Radical.

Her sturdy boots rang over rock, shuffled over dirt, as the full white moon began to rise.

It was bright enough to turn off the flashlight. She walked by moonlight, dazzled by the huge ball of it sailing over the indigo sky, charmed when a wisp of cloud slipped over the white, then vanished again.

Watching it, she began to sing Sting's “Sister Moon.” At her feet a thin fog began to slither and smoke and crawl, like snakes, around her ankles.

When the howl rose and echoed, she stumbled to a halt. The chill lanced straight into her belly, a blade of bowel-freezing ice. Instinctively, she looked behind her, did a clumsy circle while her breath puffed out in a muffled scream.

Then she laughed at herself. Stupid knee-jerk reaction, she told herself. It was probably a dog, somebody's dog running around the woods. And even if it was a wolf—even
if
—
wolves didn't hunt people, or bother them. That was Hollywood stuff.

But when the howl poured through the air again—close, was it closer?—every primal nerve went on alert. She quickened her steps, dug into her pocket for her Swiss Army knife.

No big, she lectured herself. If it was a wolf, it was just out looking for rabbits or mice, or whatever wolves liked to eat. Or it was hoping to make a date with another wolf. It was not interested in her.

How far was the next village? she wondered, and broke into a jog, her muscles protesting as she punished them up a steep rise. She'd just get to the village, or a house, a farm. Something that had people and light and noise.

Out of breath she paused to listen and heard nothing but the whisper of the pines with their silver edges etched by the light of the swimming moon.

Her shoulders started to relax, then she heard it. A rustling. There was movement in the trees, stealthy, stalking that made her think of Hollywood again. Slasher flicks and monster movies.

But it was worse when she could see, thought she could see, the vague shape of it. Too big to be a dog. And the moonlight glinted off its eyes, fierce and yellow as it melted into deeper shadows with a thick, wet snarl.

She ran, ran blind and deaf with a primal, heart-strangling fear, ran through shadows and moonlight without any thought of direction or defense, only of escape.

And never heard it coming.

It sprang out of the dark, leaped onto her back and sent her pitching forward in a full out, knee-and-palm–ripping fall. The knife spurted out of her hand, and with harsh, breathless shrieks she tried to claw forward.

It tore at her pack, and the feral, hungry sounds it made turned her limbs to jelly even as her feet scrabbled for purchase. Something sharp raked her arm. Something worse pierced her shoulder.

The pain was black and bright and, combined with the fear, had her body heaving up, bowing and bucking against the weight on her back.

The smell of it, and of her own blood, choked her as it dragged her over.

She saw what couldn't be, a nightmare monster rising over her in the hard light of the moon. Its long, sleek snout was smeared with blood, and its eyes—yellow and mad—glinted with a horrible hunger.

Her screams rang out as she slapped and beat against it, as she saw its jaws open. Saw the flash of fangs.

Again, it sank them into her shoulder, and the pain was beyond screams, beyond reason. Weakening, she shoved at it, her hands pushing into fur, and feeling the raging heart beneath.

Then her fingers clutched at the silver cross. Sobbing, gibbering with terror, she rammed it into that slick pelt. This time the cry wasn't human, wasn't hers. Its blood spilled onto her hand, and its body jerked on hers. She hacked again, babbling insanely, her eyes blind with tears and sweat and blood.

Then she was alone, bleeding in the dirt, shaking with cold. And staring up at the full, white moon.