Moon Cursed (15 page)

“Maybe it was Bordeaux.” She cocked her red head. “Bolivia? Somewhere that starts with a
B.
”

Terrific.

“Again I ask ‘why?’”

“Ach.” The girl waved her hand. “He travels all over the world.”

“Because…?”

“I thought ye said ye knew him.” The girl put her hands atop the plaid that draped her hips.

“I do.”

“Well, if that’s the case, then ye’d know he goes on these trips a few times a year. Gotta buy bric-a-brac and the like for the gift shop.”

“Isn’t the gift shop full of Scottish gifts?”

“Not all of them are made in Scotland, ye ken?” Kris shook her head, and the girl leaned over, lowering her voice. “China.”

“The gifts are made in China?”

“Most of the plastic and the toys. Ye think anyone in this country would make inflatable Nessies for a competitive price?”

Probably not.

“He also likes to offer wines of the world in the restaurant,” she continued. “He’d never serve anything he hadnae tried first himself.”

“When will he be back?” Kris asked.

“Before the weekend. We’re too busy for him not to be here then.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Kris found it odd that Dougal hadn’t told her he was leaving for Belgium.

Or Bordeaux.

Maybe Bolivia.

Then again, they were friends. The kiss and their shared lack of belief in the unbelievable aside, they had barely gotten past the acquaintance stage. Why should he?

She returned to Loch Side Cottage. Several law enforcement officers stared dispiritedly at the tramped-down mud and grass near the loch.

“Good luck with that,” Kris muttered, and headed inside.

Had her attacker known there would be a bus arriving with the dawn, the footprints of the tourists obliterating any and all evidence? Seemed far-fetched, but what didn’t these days?

Once in the front door, Kris paused. Something wasn’t right.

She scanned the room. Everything appeared to be where she thought she’d left it.

Maybe.

This wasn’t her house. Had that lamp been so near the edge of that table? Had she neglected to close the cabinet over the sink? Or was it one of those that popped open by itself?

The doors to both her bedroom and the bath were flung wide. No one in there that she could see. Of course why would she see them? Anyone in her cottage when she wasn’t would not want to be seen.

Kris slid toward the outer door. She’d fling it open, call the police. They’d come running and take care of everything. If there was anything to take care of.

And if there wasn’t?

The idea of those officers looking at her with the same expression that had been on Alan Mac’s face when he believed she’d imagined the man in Urquhart Castle had her rethinking her plan. Death or embarrassment? Maybe she could compromise.

Kris opened the outer door, just in case she wasn’t crazy and she did need to shout for help; then she marched to her room, peered in the closet and under the bed, with a side trip to the bathroom, where she peeked behind the shower curtain.

She felt very foolish when she found nothing. Although not half as foolish as she’d have felt if she’d had the constables in here doing the same thing.

Kris shut the door, then sat on the couch. She had to admit, she was spooked.

But maybe that was okay. Better to be overcautious than floating at the bottom of the loch.

Kris glanced at the computer.

Then she clapped her hands over her mouth to keep from shrieking.

CHAPTER 11

“What have you discovered?” Edward Mandenauer asked.

Kris scrambled over the back of the couch. “How did you get in there?”

“Irrelevant.” He waved the question away as if it were a pesky fly, the movement of his monkey’s paw hand causing Kris’s head to shift back and forth as though she were watching a tennis match. Right now, she really wished she
were
watching a tennis match.

In Prague.

“No, really,” she said. “How are you doing that?”

He could have hacked her Skype. But the old man’s image wasn’t in a Skype window. He filled the entire screen like wallpaper. Not to mention that up here Skype didn’t work.

Mandenauer squinted at her from wherever the hell he was. Where she stood, it looked like an abandoned bunker.

“I told you before. The
Jäger-Suchers
are well funded,” Mandenauer answered. “We can get ‘in’ wherever we like.”

Kris felt a trickle of unease. An all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful agency? Usually meant trouble.

“I have connections,” the old man continued. “The tools necessary to do all sorts of things are made available to me and my people first. We try them in the field. If we live, we get to keep them.”

Kris frowned. If they
lived
?

“Now.” He brushed his hands together. “Your turn.”

She told him about the missing girls.

“Strange,” Edward murmured, his frown causing his already-creased face to crease further.

“How so?”

“You do not think it’s strange there are nearly half a dozen women missing from such a small area?”

“Freaky, yes. Strange? Sadly no. Once a killer gets a taste, they keep on tasting.”

“Exactly. Monsters by their very nature are evil. They like to kill, and they do not stop until we make them.”

Kris opened her mouth to mention yet again that there was
no monster,
then decided
why?

“
How
do we make them?”

“By discovering what type of monster it is. Once we know that, we will know how to kill the beast. I must check a few books, ask a few questions. I will get back to you. In the meantime, be careful. If he, or she…” He paused. “Well, for the sake of expediency we will use ‘he.’ If he discovers you are on to him, he will—”

Kris straightened, her fingers going to the knot on her temple concealed by her hair. “Bonk me over the head and try to drown me?”

“Yes.” Mandenauer’s lips tightened as Kris continued to rub her head. “Let me guess. He already did?”

She’d figured the local killer had been behind the attack last night. What she
hadn’t
figured was that she was anything more than a random target, and thus the culprit probably wouldn’t be back, since she was now on the alert. However, if he’d been after her to begin with that put a whole new twist on things.

“Shyte,” she muttered. “I’m gonna need a gun.”

“There’s a drawer in that table.”

Kris tilted her head, narrowing her gaze before opening the drawer. She wasn’t surprised to see just what she’d asked for—a bright and shiny new gun.

“I suppose this was beamed from there to here with some sort of
Star Trek
technology.” She couldn’t take her eyes off the thing. “Or maybe there’s a wormhole.” She snapped her fingers. “A hologram?”

“Are you through?” Edward asked.

“How’d it get here?”

“I put it there,” he said.

“Time travel,” she muttered.

He peered down his nose at her. “Now you are just being silly.”

Kris reached for the gun.

“It is loaded with silver.”

She pulled back as if burned. “Are you serious?”

“When discussing silver, always.”

“Why silver?” she asked, even though she just knew the answer would reignite her headache.

“When in doubt,” Mandenauer murmured, “silver wins out.”

“Put it on a T-shirt, old man. Why is this gun loaded with silver bullets?”

“Because any other type would be the same as none at all.”

Yep, her headache came roaring back.

Mandenauer must have seen she’d reached the end of what had been, until she’d met him, a much longer rope. “Silver works on most shape-shifters.”

“Shape…,” Kris began, and then: “What?”

“Do you have a better idea?”

“Than shape-shifter? Damn straight. Se-ri-al kill-er,” she said, enunciating every syllable.

“You say serial killer. I say shape-shifter. Tomato. Tomahto,” he replied.

“You’re crazy.”

“You won’t be saying that when you shoot your attacker with silver and flames burst from the wound.”

Kris blinked. Then she blinked again. Then she glanced at the gun in the drawer and back at Mandenauer. “Seriously?”

“When am I ever
not
serious?”

Kris shut the drawer. The gun slid across the bottom and smacked against the rear. She winced, hoping it wouldn’t go off and kill her. A silver bullet was still a bullet and, she assumed, worked pretty much the same way as lead.

“I’ve never used a gun,” she admitted. “I’m not sure I can.”

“What is so hard?” Mandenauer lifted one bony shoulder. “You point the long end at what you want to shoot and pull the trigger.”

Something she’d already thought for herself. But that had been before she’d actually
had
a gun. Now that she’d held the weapon in her hand she wasn’t sure it was all that easy.

Mandenauer must have seen the indecision on her face, because he continued. “Usually these things get very close, and when there are teeth, and claws, and death snapping at you, you will shoot.”

Maybe she would, but— “I can’t carry a gun everywhere.”

“I do.”

“How do you get away with that?” she asked. “The whole world isn’t Texas.”

“More’s the pity,” Edward murmured. “But I have—”

“Connections,” she finished.

“If you are uncomfortable with the gun, there is a silver knife, too.” Edward pointed downward at the drawer.

Kris jerked on the handle again. The gun slid forward.

So did a knife.

She scowled at Mandenauer. “That was
not
there before.”

“Listen to what you are saying.”

She did, and she had to agree. She’d hopped the express train to Crazyville. Where they loaded their guns with silver bullets and went hunting for serial-killing shape-shifters.

Was that redundant? Kris shut the drawer.

“Start with the village,” Mandenauer said. “A monster could not exist undetected this long without someone, or several someones, protecting it.”

“You think Nessie is the killer?” Kris couldn’t believe those words had actually left her mouth.

“So far we have two deaths by drowning in a loch where the most famous lake monster in the world lives. What is it that you youngsters like to say?” He put a finger to his temple, then flicked it away. “Ah, yes. You do the math.”

“I don’t believe Nessie exists. Which really screws up your equation.”

“Here is the truth: Either Nessie is killing people or someone wants us to think that she is and then kill her.”

“Why?”

“Discover that and you will discover all you need to know.”

Mandenaeur was probably right. Just because Kris didn’t think the culprit in this case was an ancient waterlogged dinosaur didn’t mean there wasn’t something—
someone
—else out there behaving like a monster and laying the blame on the shores of Loch Ness. If she discovered who was behind the new hoax, she’d have either the perpetrator of the whole hoax or someone who could possibly lead Kris to him.

“Why would Nessie suddenly start to kill people?” Kris asked.

Mandenauer’s lips twitched. “I thought you did not believe in Nessie.”

“I don’t. But won’t those who do believe, like you, wonder what the hell?”

“My dear,” he murmured, “I always wonder ‘what the hell?’”

“It just makes no sense for a lake monster that has, up until now, never hurt anyone—”

“That is not true.”

Kris tensed. “What do you mean?”

“The first sighting of the Loch Ness Monster was by Saint Columba, who came along the river Ness and spied a funeral. He was told that the man being buried had been mauled by the water beast. The good Irish priest then sent one of his underlings into the water, where he was promptly attacked by said beast.”

“Nice guy.”

“He proved his point.”

“Which was?”

“God is great. Columba called upon God to banish the beast, and the beast was banished.”

“You believe a mere man could call off a monster?”

“He was not a mere man but a saint.”

“Not then.”

“Men, and women, become saints because of what they do when they are not saints.”

“Is there a point in this?” Kris asked.

“The point is that Nessie
has
attacked before.”