Blue moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,64

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?"

He pulled me to my feet - I would never have been able to get there under my own power - then tapped his forehead. "Ignore what you know." His finger moved to his chest and tapped there, too.

"Believe what you feel."

"You sound like Cadotte."

"The boyfriend?"

"He's not my boyfriend."

"Lover then."

I made a face. That sounded so... girlie. "Leave him out of this."

"I did not bring him up."

Right again. I needed to get back to the matter at hand. Whatever it was.

"Did you find anything?" I made a vague gesture to indicate the cave at large.

"Nothing I did not expect."

"What did you expect?"

He stared at me for a long moment as if gauging my sanity. Since I was wondering about it myself, I let him. Then, as if he'd made a monumental decision, he lowered his head in that bowing thing he did and sighed. "We need to talk."

"I'll say."

"Let's go back to your apartment."

"My apartment?"

"What I have to tell you is for no one's ears but your own."

"Sounds serious."

"More serious than anything you could ever imagine."

Well, hell, I didn't like the sound of that. He'd told me to trust what I felt. What I felt was