Moonburn (36 page)

“I’m sorry,” said the tapper, who was wearing chef’s whites. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I thought … thought you were someone else.” Like my boss, whom I just seduced and left unconscious on the floor of his office.

“I get a little nervous, too,” said the chef. At least I thought he was a chef, because of his outfit; on the other hand, he might have been on leave from a mental asylum. He had an anxious grimace of a smile, purple shadows under his eyes, a wild frizz of orange hair, and he looked as though he had recently lost a great deal of weight. Not exactly the man you wanted touching you without permission. “I just needed to ask you if you’d heard anything about a storm.”

“No, I’m sorry, what have you heard?”

“The others keep telling me that a storm is coming,” said the man, whom I now recognized as Abel Tasman, the mischievous Boston chef who had taken over after Pascal Lecroix had committed suicide last year. I’d eaten at the Stagecoach once, and he’d asked me how I liked the new menu. I had lied and said I liked it. I guess a lot of people must have lied to Abel, because he’d kept the same menu, even though fewer and fewer people actually ate there.

“The others?”

“Pascal and Gunther and Elias,” said Abel, glancing nervously at the wolfdogs. They looked spooked, and I didn’t blame them. I knew Pascal was dead, and I had my suspicions about the other two. “They say I should get down in the cellar,” Abel went on, “but I don’t like it there. Would you like to come with me?” He looked a bit more hopeful as he added, “I like to have other living people around me when I go down there, but lately none of the staff will keep me company. I’ll give you some wonderful chocolate and cactus soup, and some tomato and goat’s milk ice cream I just whipped up.”

With food like that, the place really didn’t need a curse. “Sorry,” I said, walking away as quickly as I could. “I have to get to the Belle Savage Cafe.”

“That’s what they all say,” muttered Abel as he looked after me. It might have been my imagination, but
I thought I saw two pale figures by his side, one a hawk-faced man in an eighties baggy linen suit, the other a short, bald fellow in a Victorian frock coat.

I was casting anxious glances at the sky as I reached the cafe. Maybe Abel had no idea what normal people liked to eat, but he hadn’t been wrong about the storm: The clouds had spread into a solid layer and were darkening as though someone had left a deep bruise across the heavens.

“I think we made it just in time,” I told the dogs, and then realized that they couldn’t come inside with me. “Sorry, guys,” I said, and then my cell phone rang. I flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Hey, Doc.” It was Red. His voice sounded as though he were standing in the middle of a hurricane, or as if he were on the other end of the earth, instead of just a few miles away.

“Where are you? Are you all right?” I looked out at the town, and now the clouds were black and the wind had picked up, bending the trees back.

“I’m okay,” he replied, and then there was a burst of static, drowning out the rest of his words. “Red? Red? Talk louder, I can’t hear you.”

“Where are you?”

“In town,” I said, nearly shouting, as if that could make me hear him better. “I know about the animals going feral. And Pia stole Malachy’s medication, and he’s gone all Mr. Hyde.” I stopped talking and listened to the crackle on the other end. “Red?”

“Just listen.” The phone was going in and out, swallowing every other word. Stay. Don’t. Home.”

“Don’t come home?”

Another voice came on the line, and even though I’d only heard it once before, I didn’t have to ask who it was. “That’s enough,” Bruin said in his nasal Quebecker English.

I heard Red say something, and then there was a sharp sound of something being hit, and a grunt of pain.

“Red! Red,” I screamed into the phone. “What’s happening?

“What are you doing to him, you bastard?” I moved two feet to the right, and suddenly the line was clear. There’s a difference between magical force fields and cell phone range, but not a big one.

“I just remind him who is in charge, cherie. He’s pretty tough, though—I been hitting him a lot, and he don’t complain much.”

“Why are you doing this?” Stupid question, but it just popped out. When you’re really in crisis, that’s when the clichés come out. Nuance, originality, subtlety—those are luxury items. As if to prove my own point, I added, “Please, can’t you just leave him alone?”

Bruin laughed. “But Red, he would not leave me alone, would he?
Non
, he put wards and shit all over the damn place. Also, I notice you don’t ask about your other friend, eh? You don’t mind what I do to her.”

Lilliana. Oh, God, how could I have forgotten? “Is she all right?”

“She is much better than all right; she is delicious. Now, why don’t you come on home and you can see them both?”

In the background, I heard Red say something. Bruin laughed. In the distance, the sky flashed light, then went dark, and a few moments later, there was a thunderous boom. I held my phone a little farther from my ear, thinking that with all the supernatural activity going on, it would be ironic to be electrocuted during a lightning storm.

Suddenly, I heard Red’s voice; somehow, he’d managed to wrench the phone from Bruin. “Don’t come home. Lilliana’s fine—he won’t kill her, he’s half in love with her. And as for me … I don’t need your help.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I was suffused with a feeling of such love and admiration that I could barely speak. “I understand,” I said, choking a little. I understood that he was in trouble, and being brave, and that I needed to gather help and go and rescue him. And Lilliana, of course.

“No, Abra, you don’t understand.”

I looked at the phone for a moment in confusion. “Red?”

“I don’t want you around here. Go fucking help Malachy if you want.”

My stomach clenched. He knew. Somehow, he knew. “Red, I can explain …”

“Yeah. I know. But guess what? I’d rather have Bruin here beat me up a few more times. At least with him, I can see it coming.”

And with that, the line went dead.

“Well,” I told the dogs, who were lying on their stomachs, looking nervous, “I finally reached Red.”

As if on cue, the skies opened up and the rain lashed down. I put my hand on the doorknob, and turned.

It was locked. “Hello!” I pounded on the door, and then gasped as I saw the shape of the dark clouds. “It’s Abra. You have to let me in, I think there’s a tornado forming!”

“Sorry,” said a voice from the other side, “but we’re closing.” I thought it might be Penny.

“Please,” I begged. “I just need to get out of the storm.”

“It’s dark,” said Dana. “We always close before dark.”

“But it’s only dark because of the storm!” I looked over my shoulder and had to squint, because the leaves and dust were blowing into my eyes. “Enid, please! Let me in!” I tried to think of something to bargain with, and came up empty. “I swear I’ll be in your debt forever,
just please, please open the door.” The minute the words were out I knew I’d probably made a mistake, but then I heard the sound of locks turning.

“Here.” The door opened a crack and something was thrust into my hands: a cheap red rain slicker and a cloth bag containing something heavy that clinked. “Now get you gone, girl.”

I tried to jam my foot in the door before it closed completely, but I was a half moment too late, and then I heard the sound of locks being fastened. For a moment, I was so mad that I swung my arm back, intending to smash whatever was inside the cloth bag against the door. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it; whatever else the sisters were, they were powerful beings, and I didn’t want to squander their gifts.

I slipped the red rain slicker over my head, and then, glancing at the rapidly approaching funnel cloud, I made a split-second decision; Stagecoach Tavern or Moondoggie’s. Stagecoach was closer, but I didn’t have a good feeling about being trapped with a bunch of suicide ghosts.

With my red hood obscuring my vision and the cloth bag slung over my back, I ran toward the edge of town. My wolfish pack of former lapdogs ran alongside. I had nearly reached Moondoggie’s parking lot when I tripped over something lying on the sidewalk and fell on my face.

At first, I thought it was a tree. My second impression was that I’d stumbled over a corpse. But it was neither. I’d fallen onto the sheriff of Northside, except that he seemed as lifeless as the clay sloughing off his face and body in the driving rain.

Logically, I knew the sheriff had to be dead, but I tried hauling him toward safety anyway. Without much success. As anyone who has ever taken a pottery class can attest, there is nothing heavier than wet clay, and that was what the good sheriff looked like: a statue made of wet clay. But the minute I’d seen him, I’d touched the moonstone locked around my neck and known I had to try to rescue him. Even if he did look like he belonged in the Pottery Barn.

“Emmet!” Nothing. I tried slapping his face, yelling in his ear. Okay, so he couldn’t be roused. I called the dogs, and pulled at the sleeves of Emmet’s jacket to see if they would get the hint.

After a moment, Shep grabbed the corner of the sheriff’s sleeve and started tugging at it. Working together, we dragged him about a foot before collapsing.

This wasn’t going to work. I estimated we had about two minutes before the storm reached us. Pulling his hat back from his forehead, I saw that the last letter of his tattoo had been smudged. Or maybe it was the first letter; I’d read that Hebrew ran right to left. Since the rain couldn’t have reached the tattoo under Emmet’s hat, it seemed logical that the smudging had come at some earlier time—maybe even before the good sheriff had turned into a big heap of dirt.

I needed something sharp—the hypodermic needle. Using the largest size I had, I carved out the letter as best I could, following the faint lines and trying to remember how it had looked the last time I’d seen it.

“If that doesn’t work, I’m going to have to leave you,” I said, squinting up at the sky. The rain was falling so hard that I could barely see the shape of Moondoggie’s twenty feet in front of me.

“It worked,” said Emmet. He dragged a hand over his face, and loose clay came off, but what was underneath sure looked like human skin. “I owe you one.”

“Hey, I owed you. Now we’re even.” I helped the sheriff to his feet, and then we took off in a lumbering, staggering jog, the dogs racing at our heels, giving agitated yips and casting nervous glances behind them as the storm drew closer.

I was heading for the front of the restaurant, but Emmet tugged me toward the side of the building.

“Not the front door,” he yelled, “we need the storm cellar.”

I’d never really paid attention to the sloping white cellar doors before, and if it hadn’t been for Emmet, I never would have gotten them open. Even for him, it was a bit of a struggle.

“Go on,” he said, and the wind half blew me inside, the dogs’ claws scrabbling on the cement stairs as we went down into the dark. Emmet was in a moment later, his massive arms trembling as he pulled the doors closed behind him.

“Jesus Christ, that was close,” I said, pulling the slicker’s hood off my head. I just sat there for a moment with my back to the door as I drew in air with great, gasping pants. The floor underneath was dirt, and I could smell cool, moist stone. I didn’t know how big the room was, but I could feel a draft against my cheek. Heaven.

“You can’t stay here,” said an unfriendly voice, and then my eyes adjusted enough to the gloom for me to make out faces instead of just rough shapes.

Now that I could see, the cellar had roughly the same dimensions as the dining room upstairs. There was an old couch down there, and a few wooden chairs from upstairs, along with a broken table, some ashtrays, and a fair number of empty wine bottles.

I recognized a few of the waitstaff seated around the cellar, including Kayla, who had a cut on the side of her face and dirt stains on her white shirt. A few of the other waiters looked equally rough, and I figured that, like me, they’d had one hell of a long day.

“I said you can’t stay,” repeated the owner of the unfriendly voice, whom I now recognized as Marlene Krauss. “And neither can the dogs.” Baby, Hudson, Bon Bon, and Shep had arranged themselves around me in a black, white, and brindle pattern of panting dogs. The rest of the cellar’s inhabitants were regarding the wolfish canids with varying degrees of alarm.

“Marlene,” I said, “you’re talking about Baby there.” I pointed to the smaller of the black dogs. “Don’t you recognize her?”

Marlene narrowed her eyes, as if trying to see the outline of her little Peke in Baby’s large adolescent form. “That’s not my Baby, not anymore. As far as I’m concerned, that’s a dangerous and diseased animal. And you’re a werewolf—maybe you’ve got it, too.”

There were excited murmurs and whispers as the others took this in. In Northside, nobody ever mentioned people’s supernatural status—it was as gauche as walking up to a movie star and announcing that you knew they were famous. You pretended they were normal, and they pretended they were normal. The unwritten rule of Northside.