Crescent Moon - By Lori Handeland Page 0,10

exciting. Can't you feel it?"

I could, and I was both frightened and fascinated.

"Did you see Ruelle?" he asked.

I wasn't sure.

"According to the locals," I murmured, "he's been missing for years."

"Bullshit! He's there, and he knows something."

I started to get uneasy about Frank. "Have you met this guy?" I asked.

He hesitated. "Not him. His... father."

"Does he have any information?"

"He's dead."

"That seems to be going around."

"Find me the werewolf, Diana. I need it."

Frank hung up, and when I redialed his number, I got voice mail. I wondered again about the accident that had made him a recluse. Had he fallen on his head? Why would he need a werewolf?

I shrugged and pocketed my cell phone. Until his checks became as bent as he was, I'd just keep doing what Frank had hired me to do.

With several hours until I met Charlie, I took a stroll down Bourbon. My feet led me to Royal Street, and from there to a tiny shop tucked back from the others.

Cassandra's.

I stepped inside. The contrast between heated sunshine and cool shadow, frantic noise and a certain peace, made me dizzy. I caught the scent of herbs, spice, heard the trickle of water somewhere in the distance, and music.

Not jazz or even the blues. Something folksy with drums. A tune that was as ancient as time.

"Hello?" I called.

No answer.

I had a sense someone was watching me, which seemed to happen a lot lately, and was making me increasingly paranoid.

A doorway covered with beads of many colors led into the back. I saw nothing beyond their plastic sheen, which was, I'm sure, the whole idea.

I turned toward the retail section of the store, took three steps, and stopped. Someone wasn't watching me; something was.

A huge, coiled snake occupied a cage in the corner, its eyes black and unblinking. Eyes of the dead. Long, brown, with uneven black circles all over its body, the reptile appeared to be a python. Was that even legal?

I inched away. The cage looked secure enough, but I didn't want to get him excited. There were plenty of other items to view in the snake-free section of the store.

Shelves full of bottles, bowls, which were in turn full of... stuff. With none of it marked, I was clueless.

Several mini cloth sacks stuffed with Lord knows what lay on the countertop. I brushed my fingertip across one of them, and I could have sworn it shimmied on its own.

"Gris-gris."

I lifted my gaze to the woman standing in front of the beaded doorway. How had she come through without making them go clackety-clack?

"I'm sorry?" I said.

She moved behind the counter, picking up one of the bags. "A gris-gris, meaning charm or talisman. For good luck."

Her lack of an accent revealed her to be as much a stranger here as I was.

"Not bad luck?" In my memory banks gris-gris meant "cursed."

"Not in my shop."

My shop. This was Priestess Cassandra?

I'd expected her to be African-American, or perhaps Haitian, since voodoo had taken root and grown there. She'd wear a turban, a flowing dress, bangles on her wrists, huge hoops in her ears.

Instead, Cassandra was a tiny blue-eyed white girl with a single streak of gray marring the right temple of her short, black hair. Hair that appeared to have been hacked off recently, by someone who did not know what they were doing. To my amazement, the style complemented Cassandra's high cheekbones and pointed chin, softening them just enough to nudge her toward stunning.

She was dressed in ratty jeans, a pink T-shirt, and her feet were bare, except for the rings on two of her toes. If not for the premature gray, I would have mistaken her for a coed at Tulane.

"You have a question?" she asked. "Something bugging you?"

"You psychic?"

Her smile was sweet, as if I were a child, though I had to be older than her by several years. "Everyone is at times."

I snorted, then realized how rude that was. "Sorry."

She spread her hands. "We believe what we believe."

Even if I was in town searching for a werewolf, that didn't mean I bought into voodoo and other mind games. I had my standards.

"I do have questions," I said. "Doesn't everyone?"

"Some have answers." I lifted a brow and she laughed. "But not many. How can I help you... ?"

She tilted her head, waiting for me to introduce myself.

"I'm Diana."

"Moon goddess."

I stilled at the tickle of a memory. I'd heard that before, or something like it, in my dream last night.

Cassandra studied my face. "You didn't know the meaning?"

"I