Blue Moon ns-1 Page 16

  "Not. I know. Big deal."

  "Now, now. No need to get testy. Face the facts. You aren’t Marilyn Monroe. A guy like him, pretty soon he’ll start listening to all those people who are asking him what he sees in you."

  I’d thought the same thing. But the more I got to know Cadotte, the less I could see him caring what people thought.

  Second Shift appeared in the doorway. She glanced at Zee, flinched, then focused on me. "Jessie, we got trouble in the woods."

  "No shit," Zee muttered.

  "If you can’t be constructive…" I began.

  "Shut the fuck up," Zee finished.

  It was, after all, her favorite saying.

  "What’s the matter?" I asked the youngster, who appeared to have swallowed a frog.

  "The um… uh…" She waved her hand back toward the command center.

  "Two words?" I held up two fingers, then tugged on my ear. "Sounds like?"

  She tilted her head and stared.

  "Don’t confuse her, Jessie." Zee slurped what must be, by now, ice-cold coffee.

  "You never let me have any fun." I sighed. "The um… uh… what?" I asked.

  "The other patrol. Two Adam Four."

  Henry . "What about him?"

  "Shots fired in the forest. Screaming. Something about an ambulance. Backup. Help."

  My gaze met Zee’s.

  "Let the games begin," she muttered.

  Chapter 25

  By the time my shift was over and the sun had risen on another day, I’d decided to name the game "pandemonium."

  We’d had four arrests, three accidental shootings, two dead dogs—

  "And a partridge in a pear tree," I muttered as I filled out my reports.

  I’d never had a chance to meet with Mandenauer. Hunting would have been pointless anyway, since the woods were overrun with morons.

  Amazingly, not a wolf had been shot. I had to wonder if they’d all turned tail and run to the next county. It wouldn’t break my heart any.

  I was also unable to meet Cadotte. I’d called his house, but he wasn’t there, so I left a short, apologetic message. I suspected he was at my place, and I felt kind of bad that I’d left him sitting on my doorstep. But I couldn’t leave just yet. He knew where to find me.

  As I was looking through my notes, I discovered that while I might thrive on third shift, my memory did not. I’d forgotten about Tina Wilson.

  I decided to stop by her apartment later today, if not tonight. My days of working in the dark and sleeping in the light appeared to be over—for the duration of our wolf problem.

  "Ha!"

  The door slammed. Everyone in the room—me, First Shift, Brad, several of the Clearwater cops—jumped. Clyde held a legal-sized sheet of paper in his fist.

  "Got it," he told the room at large.

  We glanced at one another, then back at him.

  "Got what?" I asked.

  "A proclamation from the DNR."

  "What’s it say?"

  "Any private citizen caught in the woods with a gun will lose their license for a year."

  "Ouch," I murmured. Clyde just smiled.

  While folks in and around Miniwa wouldn’t blink at a few days in jail for illegal firearms transportation, threatening to take away their hunting and fishing privileges—which was the DNR’s specialty—would make people sit up and take notice.

  "Post this at the Coffee Pot." He handed the paper to Brad. "Then put out the word."

  Which meant get some coffee, gas up your squad car, have a doughnut, and while you were at it, let everyone know that the DNR was behind us. The woods were going to be more deserted than a ski hill on the Fourth of July.

  "This time tomorrow everything should be back to normal." Clyde went into his office and shut the door.

  Great. Now he was delusional, too. Had he forgotten the wolf problem?

  As everyone dispersed to spread the news, I knocked on Clyde’s door.

  "Come!"

  I went in.

  "What’s up, Jessie?" Clyde’s grin didn’t mask the cir-cles under his eyes, the pallor beneath his tan, the sag of his shoulders. He hadn’t forgotten the wolf problem. In fact, he probably remembered it better than I did. Especially when I was in Cadotte’s arms, where I forgot everything.

  I straightened and got down to business. "I wasn’t able to go out with Mandenauer last night."

  "Of course not. That would have been suicide. Edward and I had dinner."

  "Edward?"

  He ignored me. "We also had quite a conversation." From the narrowing of Clyde’s eyes, I knew what was coming. "Didn’t I tell you Cadotte was trouble?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Yet you’re sleeping with him?"

  "How the hell did you know that?"

  He raised one dark eyebrow. "I didn’t."

  Damn Clyde. He was the best interrogator on the force—and he’d just played me like a green kid with her first felony.

  "Jessie." He shook his head and sat on the edge of his desk. "I thought better of you."

  I lifted my chin. "I haven’t done anything wrong. I’m an adult. So is he."

  "You find that totem yet?"

  I blinked at the sudden change of subject. As if the stone had heard us, it swayed between my breasts. I jumped, then had to clench my ringers into fists to keep from reaching for the thing and rousing Clyde’s suspicions.

  "No. Why?"

  "Ever ask Cadotte about it?"

  "Why should I?"

  "I don’t know, Jessie; maybe because he’s an expert on totems. You find one, show it to him, then poof, the next thing we know, the stone is gone."

  "You think he took the totem?"

  Since I knew he hadn’t, Clyde’s attempt to make me suspicious of Will only convinced me to keep the thing under my shirt—so to speak.

  "I’m not sure what to think."

  Which only made two of us. Everyone was acting weird lately. Except Cadotte. But he’d been strange to begin with.

  My cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. Speak of the Devil. 1 hooked the thing back onto my belt. Raising my eyes, I met Clyde’s. From the expression in his, he knew who’d been on the phone.

  He heaved a sigh. "Be careful. I don’t want you to get hurt."

  Zee had said the same thing. Was I such a social reject that everyone took one look at Cadotte and labeled me "soon to be hurt"?

  That was a rhetorical question.

  A knock on Clyde’s door had us both lifting our heads. Mandenauer walked in.

  "Just the guy I wanted to see," I began.

  He raised a slightly yellowed brow and shut the door behind him. "I am at your service."

  He bowed, just his head and shoulders in what I was beginning to think of as the German fashion. I half-expected him to click his heels, but he didn’t.

  "The doctor at the hospital didn’t know anything about the super-rabies."

  "Of course not."

  "Why not? Don’t you think that’s something the doctors ought to know?"

  Mandenauer shrugged. "Rabies is rabies to them. The vaccine works on both."

  "Not so much. Didn’t you hear that Mel died? Have you seen the body?"

  "Yes to both questions. Sometimes that happens."

  "Well, don’t get too broken up about it," I mumbled.

  "Jessie," Clyde warned.

  "Yeah, yeah."

  I rubbed my forehead. I was getting tired, dopey, crankier than usual. I had another question for Manden-auer—it was on the tip of my brain.

  "Oh!" I smacked my forehead. "Ouch." I forced myself to lower my hand so I could see Mandenauer. "I called the CDC."

  He didn’t react.

  "The Centers for Disease Control?"

  He spread his bony hands wide.

  "Something is funny there."

  "I have never known the CDC to be very funny."

  "Exactly. The first time I called, they had heard about the virus. When I called back and asked to talk to the doctor,
they’d never heard of her."

  Mandenauer and Clyde exchanged glances.

  "Sounds like someone was yanking your chain, Jessie."

  "At the CDC?"

  "How long since you slept?"

  "I forget."

  "Sleep." Mandenauer turned me toward the door. "Forget about anything but ridding your forest of the wolves. Tonight we hunt at dusk."

  "Dusk?"

  "When the sun just sets."

  "I know when the hell dusk is. But why then?"

  "It is the time when the wolves come to life. I will be at your house an hour before that."

  "Fine. Whatever."

  I was starting to wonder about that first phone call to the CDC. Had someone been screwing with me? How could that be?

  A tap on the phone? Interception of my calls?

  Put me and Oliver Stone in the same padded room, thank you.

  Chapter 26

  There was no sign of Cadotte when I let myself into my apartment. I checked my messages. None—on my home phone or my cell. Strange.

  But he should get the message I’d left him. I was so tired, I unplugged all my bells and whistles, then fell into bed. I had another doozy of a dream.

  I was at Mel’s funeral. Closed casket for obvious reasons.

  Cadotte was with me. He cleaned up nice. The dark suit made his hair appear darker, and his eyes seemed endless.

  I was in uniform, which wasn’t strange. But Cadotte holding my hand was. Even stranger… I liked it.

  We sat at the back of the church. I could tell by the stained glass it was St. Dominic’s right at the edge of town. The place was full. A sea of humanity rippled all the way from our pew to the front, where Cherry sat dolled up in killer black heels, a silky dress, and a hat with a veil.

  The priest went into his endgame. I tried to pay attention. Really. But out of the corner of my eye I saw the casket move. Before I could shift my gaze, the top slammed open and Mel popped out.

  At least I think it was Mel. He was a wolf now. Huge, muscular, sleek, and blond.

  People started screaming, running, but he paid them no mind. He set to devouring everyone in the front pew.

  "Does that seem like rabies to you?" Cadotte asked.

  I hated being wrong. Hated it even more when my being wrong cost lives. I headed for the front of the church unimpeded since, in the way of dreams, everyone else had disappeared.

  "Mel!" I shouted as he began to eat a mourner’s face.

  He looked up. The wolf’s eyes were Mel’s. The blood dripping from his muzzle ended any hesitation I might have felt.

  I emptied my gun into him. He didn’t flinch. He didn’t die.

  Instead, he gave up on the appetizer and came for me.

  I awoke to a pounding on my front door that echoed the one in my chest and my head. One glance at the clock revealed I’d slept the day away. The slant of the light told me who was at the door. Mandenauer was nothing if not prompt.

  Since I’d fallen asleep in my uniform, all I had to do to get ready for work was fill my rifle and my pistol with silver instead of lead. Mandenauer’s bandolier was a regular buffet line for ammunition.

  I didn’t believe in prophetic dreams. I didn’t believe in werewolves. However, I did believe in being prepared, and what could silver hurt? Hopefully nothing but the wolves.

  I opened my door and joined Mandenauer in the hall. He took one glance at my face and kept quiet. Smart man.

  The streets were deserted. Without the tourists, who would wander the shops at this time of day? I only hoped that the threat of the DNR had cleared the forest. I cer-tainly didn’t want to spend my tomorrow filling out more accidental shooting reports.

  Mandenauer drove his hearse… I mean Cadillac. After my dream the thought of riding in it nearly caused me to insist on the Crown Victoria. But since I hated being scared even more than I hated being wrong, I forced myself into the passenger seat. Not that I didn’t check the back for stray corpses. There weren’t any.

  He drove away from town, in a different direction from Highway 199 and the place where we’d first seen the black wolf, in the opposite direction of the Gerards’ place and the wolf pyre of the night before.

  "Where we going?"

  "North."

  My teeth ground together, but I managed not to snarl my next question. "Any reason why?"

  "Because we have not gone there yet."

  I guess that was as good a reason as any other.

  He turned off the main road and onto a dirt track. The Cadillac fishtailed. Luckily we hadn’t had much rain or we’d have needed an ATV to get wherever it was we were going.

  The road was surrounded on all sides by towering pines. I wondered how Mandenauer had found it or if he’d just picked a road, any road, and turned. I considered asking, but really, what did it matter?

  The track stopped abruptly and so did the car. We were surrounded on three sides by thickly set trees. There was barely enough room for a raccoon to squeeze between them. How we were going to, I had no idea.

  Nevertheless, I followed Mandenauer deeper into the woods. He had a sixth sense for finding the way. There wasn’t exactly a path, but we made progress. We seemed to walk for hours, but when he stopped at last, darkness still hadn’t fallen.

  We stood on the south side of a fern-covered hill. Mandenauer shimmied to the top on his belly. He beckoned me and I followed his lead.

  The ferns whispered as I slithered through them. Soft, spidery leaves brushed my cheek, tickled my neck. The scent of fresh greenery and damp earth pressed against me like a fog.

  Peeking over the hill, I frowned. About one hundred yards distant stood the opening of a cave.

  Caves were not all that common around here. Farther west, toward La Crosse maybe. But in the deep woods? I’d never seen one—until today.

  "What is this?" I whispered.

  "I found it while the others were running mad through the woods last evening. You wonder why no wolves were shot?"

  "The question did cross my mind."

  He smiled. "Your answer is here."

  Night came on long thin fingers of darkness that spread through the trees, walked over the ground, and smothered the mouth of the cave. The moon and stars sparkled in the sky as wolf-shaped shadows slunk out.

  One, two… Five, six… Eleven, twelve.

  I cursed beneath my breath and my hand crept toward my gun.

  Mandenauer stopped me. "Let them go," he breathed. "For now."

  He ignored my incredulous gape. Seemed to me we could pick off quite a few before they knew what hit them. But since there were more wolves here than I’d ever seen before, and he was the expert, I let my hand fall back to my side.

  The animals slunk into the forest. Silence descended, broken only by the breeze through the branches, and then—

  A chorus of howls shattered the night. I started, gasped. They sounded as if they were right behind us. But when I turned, nothing was there.

  The rustle of leaves beneath boots yanked my attention back to my companion. He was headed for the cave.

  I scrambled to keep up, reaching his side in time for us to enter shoulder to shoulder. He produced my city-issue flashlight—guess I’d forgotten to get it back, so bill me—and shone the artificial light inside.

  The night was hot against my cold, cold skin. "What is this place?" I murmured.

  "They always have a lair. Always."

  The cave was damp, as caves were. But that wasn’t what made me go all clammy.

  The piles of bones in every corner didn’t even bother me. We were, after all, in the lair of the wolf. No, what made me squirrelly were the scraps of cloth, the unmatched shoe, the glint of an earring beneath the startling white of a rib bone.

  Nausea rolled in my belly and I turned away. "Wolves don’t do this," I said.

  "These wolves do."

  An unnatural clatter made me spin around. He was poking through the pile of bones. His boots scuffled in the dirt as he continued
around the room.

  "What are you looking for?"

  "A clue."

  "What kind of clue? They’re animals."

  "You’d be surprised what animals like these will leave behind."

  "After this, not much will surprise me."

  Once again I couldn’t have been more wrong.

  The howl of a wolf reverberated around the stone enclosure, so loud Mandenauer and I both flinched and spun toward the entrance. He shut off the flashlight, but it was too late. We were trapped.

  I lifted my rifle. This time Mandenauer didn’t stop me. The shadows on the rock’s surface did.

  The moon hit the mouth of the cave and sent silver light cascading across the opening. The silhouette of a man appeared.

  I lowered my gun, opened my mouth to call out, and Mandenauer’s hand slapped over my face. He shook his head, and his expression was so odd—equal parts of fury, disgust, and fascination—I didn’t struggle. Soon all I could do was watch.

  At first I thought the man was bending to touch his toes. Calisthenics in the forest. Sounded like something Cadotte would do.

  But he didn’t return to a standing position. Instead, the shadow remained folded over as it changed.

  One moment there was a silhouette of a man touching his toes. The next he was on all fours, his head hung down so low I couldn’t see it.

  The shadow rippled. The sound of bones popping, nails scratching, filled the cave, punctuated by a series of grunts and moans I would have associated with really great sex if I hadn’t seen what was happening instead.

  Between one blink and the next the man became a wolf, threw back his head, and howled. Others answered and he was gone.

  Sometime during the show Mandenauer had dropped his hand from my mouth. I couldn’t have spoken if he’d poked me with a stick. I couldn’t stand, either, so I sat in the dirt and put my head between my knees. Mandenauer left me there as he continued his hunt for clues.

  I’m not sure how long my mind spun and my voice refused to work. I jumped a foot and yelped when Mandenauer patted me on the back.

  "We must go, Jessie."

  I lifted my head. "W-W-What was that?"

  His rheumy blue eyes met mine. "You know what it was."

  I shook my head. "How would I know?"