Hunter s Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,6

that didn't belong to me. I couldn't afford attachments, not even to him, so I straightened my shoulders, cleared my throat, and stuck out my hand. "Good to see you, sir."

"Jeez, why don't you click your heels and salute," Jessie muttered, pushing past him.

Edward Mandenauer was as unlikely a leader of an elite monster-hunting unit as could be imagined.

Cadaverous thin, he owned every one of his eighty-plus years. But he could still pull the trigger, and he'd killed more monsters than anyone, even me. I admired him. More than I would ever say.

"Why did you not come directly to me, Leigh?" Edward stepped back so I could enter the apartment.

"I'm here."

"You took a detour."

"How did you know?" I scowled. "How did she find me?"

"Your car was abandoned in town. Jessie ran the license plate, then tracked you into the woods."

My interest was piqued. Tracking had never been my strong suit. I wasn't patient enough. Jessie had to be very good to have found me as quickly as she had in the thickness of a forest that must be as strange to her as it was to me.

"From the look of the bonfire," Jessie tattled, "she's already started blasting away."

"That's my job," I snapped.

"This is my town."

"Girls, girls," Mandenauer admonished.

"Don't call me a girl," Jessie and I said at the same time.

We glanced at each other, scowled, and turned away. Mandenauer sighed. "You need to work together.

There is something odd happening in Crow Valley."

That got my attention. "Odder than werewolves?"

"To be sure. Did you make note of the name of this fair city?"

Crow Valley. I hadn't thought about it. Stupid me.

For reasons unknown to science, wolves allow crows to scavenge from their kills. Some naturalists believe that the birds fly ahead, locate suitable prey, then circle back and lead the wolves to it. In gratitude, or perhaps as payment for services rendered, the wolves don't chase the crows off the corpses.

Whether this is true or not is anyone's guess. But the fact remains, where there are a lot of one, there are a lot of the other. Wolves feel at home around crows. Werewolves appear to as well.

"The wolves in this area have always been abundant, but they increased in number recently."

"And you know this how?"

He just gave me one of his stares. Edward knew everything.

"When the sheriff in this town left - "

"Left or was eaten?"

"Not eaten. Not this time. The odd occurrences with the wolves disturbed him. He called the authorities with his tall tales, and I was notified. I convinced him to take a leave of absence, then gave Jessie his job."

You think there are a lot of conspiracies in the government? You don't even know about the ones Edward is involved with. Any odd report - unexplained events, wolves run amok, monstrosities wandering over hill and dale - the information is forwarded to Edward and he sends a Juger-Sucher to determine what needs to be done, then do it.

"What about Jessie's other job?" I asked.

"We had accomplished all we could in Miniwa. The wolves ran from there. We waited, but they did not return."

"What's going on here?"

He glanced at Jessie. "Tell her what we know."

Jessie hesitated, but in the end she shrugged and flopped onto the couch, gesturing me into a chair nearby. The apartment was sparsely but adequately furnished, as if she'd only brought the essentials.

No pictures on the walls, no knickknacks on the tables, though Jessie hardly seemed the knickknack type. Instead, every spare surface was covered with books, papers, notebooks. She didn't seem the studious type, either, but then what did I know?

"Werewolves are being killed in Crow Valley," she began.

"Good for you."

You may wonder how we know the difference between a dead wolf and a dead werewolf. I'll let you in on a little secret. If you shoot them with silver, they explode. Live or dead, doesn't matter. I kind of like putting a bullet into the dead ones. Call me sick. Everyone else does.

"They were being killed before we got here," Jessie continued. "From what I can tell, it started a little over three weeks ago."

I sat up straighter in my chair. A little over three weeks ago would have been the last full moon. That couldn't be good.

I glanced at Edward. "You've got no one working in Crow Valley?"

"No."

"Rogue agent?"

"Doubtful."

"Why?"

"Because the werewolves are not being killed with silver."

"Then how can they be dead?"

"There is only one other way to kill a werewolf," Edward said.

"How come I never heard of it?"

"Because it