Moonburn (18 page)

“You touch her and I’ll kill you,” said the construction worker. “That’s the future mother of my children you’re talking to.”

“Like hell she is,” roared the businessman.

Lilliana ducked under his right arm, which was holding off the hardhat, and took my elbow. “I don’t suppose you’re wearing some exotic new perfume?”

“I’m afraid I am,” I admitted. “L’air d’estrus.” Because, it had belatedly occurred to me, there was no other explanation for my sudden transformation from plain Jane to femme fatale. “Lilliana, we have to get out of here.”

“Well, don’t change back into your clothes—you’re liable to start a riot.”

Luckily, most of the men were preoccupied with jostling and insulting each other. The businessman and the construction worker were screaming abuse, while the Japanese tourists were getting very red in the face as they shouted clipped phrases at the cyclist and the anorak man.

The funny thing was, many of the guys were actually quite attractive. The young cyclist had the clean, strong jaw of a scholar-athlete; two of the Japanese tourists were flat-out handsome; and even the anorak man possessed a kind of thuggish appeal. As the tension escalated and the pushing turned to shoving, I found myself watching with reluctant fascination. There was something primitive, almost primal about this scene. Suddenly, the layers of civilization were being peeled back, and what remained was the essential, true nature of each individual. The businessman was now a large male, no longer in his prime, whose outward belligerence masked a reluctance to engage in direct battle. The construction worker, by contrast, was a splendidly muscled specimen,
warily circling the young Japanese male, who was bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet and crooning to himself in a softly menacing tone.

It seemed to me, trapped as I was among these bellicose males, that there was no choice except to await the outcome. One male would emerge victorious, his skin damp with exertion, redolent of the powerful male hormones flooding through his body. He would be wounded, no doubt, and yet still possessed by all the savage instincts that had allowed him to conquer the other males. He would come to me then, his body thrumming with adrenaline and lust, his mind half-maddened by the intoxicating scent of me. But there would be no use of force. I would still have the power to turn him away, to leave him unsatisfied and burning with desire.

Now the construction worker and the Japanese tourist had removed their shirts, and their bare chests were already gleaming with sweat as the young saleswoman darted ineffectually about, telling them that she had called the police. I wondered vaguely which one it would be, and how long I would make him wait before permitting him to pleasure me at last.

“Abra? Abra, snap out of it!” Lilliana shook me, and I stared at her uncomprehendingly for a moment. “We need to get out of here before the police arrive. Especially since you may wind up affecting the cops the way you do the civilians.”

I turned back to the men. “But we can’t leave,” I said, my heart racing with excitement as the cyclist launched himself at the Japanese tourist, who had just taken down the construction worker with a roundhouse kick.

Lilliana took a deep breath and said, “If you don’t get out of here now, Abs, you’re going to end up becoming the guest of honor at a gang bang.”

“Mmm,” I said absentmindedly, as the cyclist kicked his opponent in the balls. How much of Lilliana’s distress,
I had to ask, was due to her being the wallflower for once? Not so nice to be the female none of the males even notice.

“Oh, hell,” said Lilliana. “I guess there’s no other choice.” Taking my head in her hands, Lilliana forced me to face her. “Look right into my eyes for a second, Abra.”

For a moment, I thought she was going to kiss me. I think some of the men must have had the same idea, because I could feel them watching us with prurient interest.

“Abra,” said Lilliana, “focus.” And as if she had seized my nervous system as well as my temples, I obeyed, narrowing my focus to her dark gaze. “We must leave,” she said, and I knew that she was right. If I didn’t get out in the next few minutes, I’d be acting out my own personal National Geographic episode.

“Hey,” said one of the men, trying to grab Lilliana’s arm as she hustled me out the door. I lifted my lip and snarled at him, and he released her, allowing us to make it to the front door.

Just as we made it out into the street, the police cruisers arrived, lights flashing and sirens wailing.

“Shit,” said Lilliana. I’d never heard her curse before. “How the hell are we going to get you home? If I put you on a train, you’re liable to start a riot.”

“Listen, Lilli,” I began. “I think there’s something I neglected to tell you about myself.” Like the fact that I’m in pheromone overdrive.

But she was already talking on her cell phone. “Martin? Thank God. I need help. My friend’s a lycanthrope and she’s gone into acute estrus. Uh huh. She needs wheels and a driver, either a male with a score of less than ten percent heteroerotic on the bisexuality index, or female with less than ten percent homoerotic. Yes. Fantastic. Can it be in half an hour or less at my place?
Goddess bless, Martin, I owe you.” As she hung up the phone, Lilliana caught my astonished expression and shrugged. “You know how you’re always telling me I must be psychic? Well, you’re not completely wrong. I’ll try to explain when we’re out of danger.”

It seemed I wasn’t the only one who had omitted a few details.

We were racing the moon, and the moon was winning. Looking out the tinted windows of the stretch limousine, I could see the moon rising steadily in the sky. I couldn’t see the light fading, but I could feel it, a low and insistent tugging at the inside of my skin.

“We shouldn’t have stopped to get your new glasses,” Lilliana said. She was sitting, facing me, looking worried.

“But they were ready,” I pointed out. “Besides, they go with my new outfit.” I was still wearing the Sexy Librarian blouse and skirt, which, I supposed, I had stolen. I was a thief. It was kind of a delicious feeling. I was a bad girl. I moved my legs in a luxurious stretch. “Do you know I’ve never ridden in one of these limos before? Hey, I don’t suppose there’s any champagne in there.” I opened the mini fridge and found a miniature bottle of Chablis. “Well, this will do.”

“Give me that.” Lilliana swiped the wine out of my hand. “The last thing you need is a disinhibitor.”

“I just wanted to relax a little,” I complained, drumming my fingers on the armrest. My skin felt as if it were prickling with heat rash and I rolled the window down, needing to feel air on my face. The Saw Mill was congested with Friday afternoon traffic, each commuter hermetically sealed into his or her vehicle. The lone exception
was a heavyset Labrador hanging out of a rear car window, heedless of the January chill, ears flapping in the wind. As I watched, the Lab sniffed the air, his nose twitching furiously. Suddenly, the big dog froze, then started scrabbling frantically in an attempt to squeeze his entire bulk out of the open window. I watched, appalled at the dog’s inexplicable urge to jump out of the moving car, while a teenage boy tried to haul his pet back inside.

“Abra, do you need to keep the window wide open? The temperature is dropping and it must be about thirty degrees outside.”

Reluctantly, I stuck my head back in. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that the Labrador was back in his car, the windows now rolled up. “That’s strange,” I said.

“What is?”

I opened my mouth, and then it struck me: The Labrador must have smelled me. Dear God, I was a siren to both dogs and men. I dragged my hands through my hair. “I think this is affecting my brain,” I said. “I can’t seem to reason anything through.”

“Abra, has the transformation ever come on this strong before?” Lilliana handed me a bottle of water from the mini fridge. I shook my head.

“No water?”

“No, it’s never been this intense.” I drank the water down, letting it trickle past my lips, down my throat, until it wet the material of my shirt. “Whew,” I said, wiping my arm across my mouth. I caught Lilliana’s startled expression. “What is it?”

“You’re just not acting like yourself. I don’t really know that much about lycanthropy,” she said, handing me a box of tissues. “Just what Malachy taught us when we were on his team. Is this a standard progression of the disease?”

“You knew about estrus,” I said, suddenly remembering that this was strange. “Malachy never taught us that.”

“I wondered if you were alert enough to notice that.” Lilliana uncrossed her legs and looked me straight in the eye. “I didn’t know for certain, but your ex had been studying unwolves in Romania last year. I figured there wasn’t much else that could account for your sudden transformation from one-man woman to agent provocateur.”

“Bullshit. Right after you called for the car, you said something about almost being psychic. Care to explain that, or are you revising your story?”

Lilliana continued looking at me for a moment, as if weighing her next move. Then she glanced at the partially open partition separating us from the driver, a matronly woman who hadn’t given me a second glance, even when we’d had to slam the door shut on five excited men and one enthusiastic woman.

“Jemma,” Lilliana told the driver, “I’m going to close the partition completely, so that I can broadcast. You might want to put on the radio, as well.” When the partition was closed and we could hear the faint sounds of a pop tune, Lilliana opened the fridge and took out the miniature Chablis. “Hand me those glasses, would you?”

I looked around and then spotted four glasses tucked into a built-in shelf near my armrest. I handed two glasses to Lilliana. “Not worried about me getting disinhibited?”

“Still worried, but I think we both need a drink.”

“If you’re about to tell me you’re a telepath, I’m going to need all of that.” I cringed inside, thinking of all the fleeting, unrepeatable thoughts that had crossed my mind while I was in Lilliana’s presence. No matter how much you liked someone, there were always the things you edited a bit, or cut completely.

“I’m not a telepath,” said Lilliana, pouring out the wine and handing me a glass.

“Just highly intuitive?” I said it sarcastically, but Lilliana shook her head, a wry smile playing over her lips.

“No, if I were an Intuitive, I would be able to forecast the future. I’m a Sensitive.”

“Sensitive to what?”

Lilliana took a sip of her wine, hesitated, then threw back the whole glass. “How much do you know about personality testing?”

“It’s big with corporate America, and I guess with corporate Europe and Asia. You take a test and it measures your extroversion or introversion and whether or not you like to analyze or work as a team.”

“Most businesses and dating services use a version of the Enneagram. Some use other variants. But to a large degree, they use self-reporting and they don’t test until the subjects are grown.” Lilliana reached out and took my glass out of my hand. Tossing it back, she blinked back tears and then said, “Ever wonder what would happen if you had a team of experts test a child and then gear an education to that child’s particular strengths?”

“No, but I think you’re about to tell me.” I checked the fridge and found a second bottle of wine. “And this one’s for me.”

Lilliana twisted a braided silver ring on her finger, and I thought with a pang of my silver and moonstone pendant. If only I could wear it without blistering, I might know what the people around me were really like. As it was, I was keeping the pendant close to me, in its little pouch inside my handbag. “You’d get some unusually talented people,” Lilliana was saying. “Intuitives, Cognitives …” she stopped playing with her ring and met my eyes. “Sensitives.”

I took a sip of the wine. “Still not getting it, Lil. I
don’t know if it’s the hormones, but I don’t think so. You’re so wound up that you’re not communicating clearly.”

Lilliana seemed surprised for a moment, and then wiped a bead of sweat off her upper lip. I had never seen her sweat before. “There,” she said. “Now I’m expending a little less energy on broadcasting, so I can focus on what I’m saying. And not saying.”

I remembered that she’d used the word “broadcast” before, when talking to the driver. But all of a sudden it seemed a little harder to concentrate. It felt as if the temperature inside the limo had risen by about ten degrees, and I took another sip of wine. “Is it me, or is it suddenly hot in here?”

“Whoops, let me adjust.” Lilliana closed her eyes for a second, then opened them again. “How’s that?”

I stared at her. I was no longer as warm, but I was still warmer than I had been a few minutes earlier. My skin prickled with anxiety. “Explain. Now. Using simple, easily understood language.”

Lilliana reached out and took my hands in hers, and instantly, my anxiety dissipated, like a bubble bursting harmlessly in the air. “I’m what you would call an empath,” she said. “Except that I can broadcast emotions as well as receive. Right now I’m radiating calm, which is why the wine was more important for me than for you.”

“So the reason you knew I was in heat …”