Moonburn (19 page)

“Was because I could feel it. But here’s the thing, Abra, I’m not supposed to be telling you about any of this. The group I belong to—the Discipline—they don’t like exposing their methods to outsiders.”

Something about Lilliana’s language struck me as peculiar—the pronoun “they” in conjunction with the phrase “the group I belong to” in particular. I also got
the distinct impression that Lilliana was leaving out some important points. But it was getting harder and harder to pursue a logical train of thought. Outside the window, the sun was setting and the taillights of the cars ahead of us shone like bright, night-seeing eyes.

Even in the low light, even at this speed, I could sense the lives all around us: a gaunt deer, paused at the edge of a suburban lawn; a well-padded raccoon, waddling into the refuse behind a diner; a fox, carefully venturing out of its den in a half-empty office complex on the side of the highway.

“Abra?”

I continued to stare out the window, rapt at the skittering presence of rodent life in the underbrush. And then we were motoring past the immediate suburbs of Manhattan, and there was nothing but road and cars and the great glowing peach of a moon, lighting the path to wildness and abandon.

“Abs?” Lilliana reached over to feel my forehead, and I pushed her hand away, annoyed. I hated the soft, feminine feel of her fingers. That wasn’t the kind of touch I craved. “Are you all right?”

“Yes, yes, of course I am. Can’t you
feel
that,” I added, more nastily than I’d intended. But really, that was the problem with females. Always crowding around you and sticking their noses into your business, forever whimpering and trying to insinuate themselves into your good graces. Except for the mean bitches, of course. The mean bitches like Magda would just ambush you and the only way to deal with them was to attack first.

“Abra, look at me.”

I turned to look at Lilliana and it seemed she was concentrating very hard on something, because her brow was furrowed and her entire face was now bathed in sweat. Her hand was on my arm, trembling with tension. “What is the matter with you?” I shook off her
arm. “No offense, Lilli, but I could use a little personal space here. I’m boiling up.” I rolled down the window, and the blast of cold night air was a relief, but not enough. “God, how long is this ride going to take?” The limo stank of stale sweat and body odors and to make it worse, there was a harsh chemical stench overlaying it, the cleaning detergent that had been used to dupe weak human noses.

“We’re still an hour away.” Lilliana’s voice was taut with strain.

“Jesus, an hour? I’m never going to make it.” I started unbuttoning my shirt.

“What are you doing?” Lilliana’s eyes were wide with alarm.

“I’m just so uncomfortable. Besides, we’re all girls here.” Irritated by the tiny horn buttons, I tugged at the shirt and it ripped in a satisfying long tear down the front.

“Abra, if you take off your clothes …”

“Oh,” I sighed, as I unbuttoned the skirt, “that feels better.” I reached behind me, fumbling with the clasp of the brassiere. “I don’t suppose you could just reach that for me?”

“Abra, you have to try to exert more control over your beast. I’ll help, but it’s getting harder—your emotions aren’t completely human anymore.”

“Mmm,” I said. With my breasts finally freed from the scratchy encumbrance, I bared them to the night air. There was some wild whooping and enthusiastic honking from another car.

“Abra! Come on, wild woman, let’s get you back in here.”

“Are you sure you’re an empath?”

“I’m sure,” Lilliana said as she pulled me down, away from the window.

“Then how come you don’t want to show them your breasts? It’s very liberating,” I confided.

“Like our own private Mardi Gras,” muttered Lilliana, throwing my shirt at me. “Now put that on.”

“Hey,” shouted a guy from the other car, pulling alongside. “Check out the full moon!”

I turned and laughed; his friend had stuck his bare bottom out of the rear window.

The driver, still scrawny with youth, leered at me. “Baby! Want to park?”

“Actually,” I said, smiling with all my teeth, “I’d like to run.”

“I’d run with you, baby,” said a second young man. This one, presumably the owner of the pasty buttocks, was larded with the fat of inactivity.

“You couldn’t keep up.”

As the driver of the other car guffawed, our own driver slid the connecting partition open. “Sorry, Lilliana, I know you said not to interrupt while you were broadcasting, but what’s going on here? Besides the obvious problem of these idiots, I’m getting flashes of impending disaster, and they’re coming closer together now.” In the rearview mirror, I saw the other woman’s eyes register dismay at what she’d just revealed in front of an outsider.

“You did right, Jemma,” Lilliana said, and then I felt our car slowing down.

“Accident ahead,” said our driver, slowing the car down.

Lilliana leaned forward, peering out the windshield screen. “Can you
foretell
how long it’s going to take?” We were crawling ahead at about ten miles an hour now, and I could see the signal flares up ahead, cordoning off the disabled vehicle.

“Hey, baby,” called the males from the other car, “how about a traffic jam and penis sandwich?” They
had stopped their car just ahead of us and were indicating a desire to merge—pun intended. Turning back to them, I cupped my breasts and said, “Think you can take me?”

Before they could reply, I kicked off my shoes, opened the door, and made my break for freedom.

“Wait up, gorgeous,” shouted one of the men—the scrawny one, I thought. I kept running, even though I could hear the muffled curses and clumsy, crashing progress of the men behind me, and more faintly, Lilliana’s anxious voice calling my name.

“Come on and catch me,” I singsonged, my heart racing with the thrill of the chase. I had never really thought before about what lay on either side of the highway, but it seemed right that it should be woods, a wide swathe of silver birch and pine, with icy patches and an occasional clear-cut field littered with stumps. My feet were too numb to feel the rough stones on the ground as I ran, but I didn’t mind. I felt alive at last, the sharp air stinging my lungs, the wind of my own motion making my bare skin tingle.

“Where are you? Shit,” said the scrawny male’s voice, and I heard a thump and a pained exclamation. “Dude,” said the second, stockier male’s voice, “this is warped.”

“Giving up so soon?” I paused, listening as the two male forms made their noisy way to the field where I was standing, knowing exactly where they were long before they broke out into the open.

“H-hey.” The stocky male was bent over and panting heavily. The scrawny one tried to strike a nonchalant pose, leaning against a tree. His gaze roamed over my naked form.

“So,” he said, trying not to gasp for breath, “you’re a playful girl, aren’t you?” The words had a canned quality, as if he were quoting some classic porn line. The moon was so bright that I felt as if we were on a movie
set. Maybe the young man felt like that, too: as if we were acting out a scene. For the first time in my life, I knew what it must have been like to be my mother in her prime.

“Ready to run yet?” I braced myself, about to take off, when the first spasm hit. I moaned and clutched at my midsection.

“Oh, yeah, you’re so hot,” said the scrawny male. His pale, wheat-colored hair was plastered with sweat to his head, but his slightly protuberant blue eyes were gleaming with anticipation.

“Dude, I think she’s illing,” said his stocky companion.

“You’re illing, dude,” said Scrawny. He stepped closer to me, and the smell of his lust was acrid with beer and nicotine. The pain rippled through me again, seizing my throat, and I sank to my knees.

“Oh, yeah, baby,” said Scrawny. Dimly, I was aware of him unzipping his fly and taking out his erect penis. “You want to suck me, don’t you?”

I shook my head, but then the liquid feeling rushed through my muscles, and I groaned out loud.

“Fuck, man, she’s so into it.” Scrawny grasped the back of my head and tried to push it closer to the appendage gleaming palely in the moonlight.

“Jeez, Jake, I don’t know.” I opened my slitted eyes and saw that the fat male was fairly quivering with anxiety and indecision.

“Please,” I managed to get out, and then I had to pant, fighting to stay on top of the contractions racing up and down my spine.

“Look, Dean, she’s panting for it. Open wide, baby, take it all in.” And now I could see Dean’s mouth opening as his chubby fingers slipped down into his sweatpants. “Oh, man,” he breathed.

“Don’t whack off, dude, stick it in her.” Scrawny’s
erection was pressed up against my nose and mouth, making it hard to breathe, and when I gasped as the next contraction hit, something fleshy was thrust into my mouth. I gagged as the second male came up behind me, his sweaty, soft hands touching my waist, but the sensations inside my body were becoming stronger than any distraction from without.

“Let’s take off those glasses,” Scrawny said, and when he removed the spectacles I hadn’t realized I was still wearing, the last barrier to transformation was removed. There was enough human in me to perceive the irony: Remove the specs and lo and behold, the prim librarian turns into a beautiful wild thing.

Too bad the boys weren’t in on the joke.

With a great spasming ripple, the pain became a rush of heat as my cells remembered what they were supposed to do. I felt the change course through me as my limbs and bones and internal organs rearranged themselves. The male behind me made a piglike squeal of horror and said, “Dude, there’s something wrong!”

But it was too late. My jaws snapped shut and blood filled my mouth. I did not, however, bite down—I released my grip on the injured male almost instantly. Still, in some corner of my mind, I knew that I had done wrong. No biting—that was an important rule. Still, it hadn’t
felt
wrong. It had felt quite satisfying. The constant screaming was hurting my ears, however, so I took a leap into the safety of the woods. After that, my legs seemed to do the thinking for me. They wanted to run, so I ran, sprinting ahead, then settling myself into a loping pace that felt as natural as breathing. Being human was a distant dream of complicated rules and physical limitations.

I heard another kind of raised voice calling after me, a woman’s voice, my friend. But I had the sense she
wouldn’t be pleased about the biting—you really weren’t supposed to bite, which was unfair, since they had hands and we didn’t.

I ran on, guided by some internal compass, irresistibly drawn toward the magnetic pull of Northside.

For a long time I ran, giddy with my own strength and speed as I galloped full tilt through the woods without tripping or stumbling. The pads of my paws told me everything I needed to know about where to place my weight, and even though my distance vision was vague, my peripheral sight took in everything I needed to know about the woods around me.

I paused at the tree line, just above a road, cocking my ears to make sure no car was hurtling toward me. Satisfied, I gave a massive leap that nearly carried me across to the other side and then scrambled up the slight embankment there. Above me, an owl hooted in a tree, one night predator acknowledging another.

I didn’t stop to question how I knew where I was going. I was being pulled north by some urge that guided my steps and kept me quickening my pace. Given a little practice, I could have run all night without tiring. But this was new to me, and after a while, I began to break from my easy rhythm. I had no sense of how much time had passed or how much distance I had covered, but the pads of my paws were sore, and I was loping unsteadily along the side of the road when I heard the sound of a car slowing down. It was one of those cars with flashing lights—a police car, I remembered. Lifting my head, I froze when the car stopped and a man
got out. He shone a flashlight over the woods, and I tensed, about to make a break for it.

“Wait.”

I hesitated, because the voice was familiar, and had pleasant associations. Friend. Not pack, but not completely alien, either. As the man came into view, however, he was not exactly a sight to reassure the wary. Nearly seven feet tall, with a hawklike nose and eyes hidden by the brim of his Stetson hat, the sheriff of Northside stood as still as a statue, assessing the situation. “You’re from Northside.” It wasn’t a question.

I took a hesitant step forward, whining a little in the back of my throat. Emmet—that was his name, I remembered—knelt down, reaching into the inside breast pocket of his uniform jacket.

“Hungry?” His voice was a low rumble, a baritone so deep that it was hard to understand him. He held out the beef jerky and I advanced, eyeing him warily. “It’s okay, fella—or are you a girl?”

I lunged for the jerky, and Emmet didn’t try to stop me. Safely out of his long arm’s reach, I gobbled up the meat, then licked my chops.

“You Red’s girl?” I stared at him, shocked that he could recognize me in this form, and then Emmet tilted his hat back and I caught a glimpse of the arcane symbols carved into his forehead. “Thought so.” He seemed to think things over, then pulled his hat back down. “I will not punish you for what you did to that boy back there.”