He read confusion in their gazes. He must have looked like a child to them: thin, glaringly pale against the gray of the woods and overcast sky. Lost and shivering. Ducking his gaze, a sign of submission, he crept out from behind the tree. He licked his lips, needing water, but that could wait. Still, they didn’t shoot. He decided to step through the door that had opened.
“I . . . I surrender,” he said in very rough English, and raised his arms.
Kitty and the Full Super Bloodmoon Thing
“SO WHAT ARE WE EXPECTING TO HAPPEN?” Ben asked.
“Same as any other full moon . . . but more so,” I said. “I’m kind of hoping we all spontaneously break into a synchronized lipsynch of ‘Day-O.’”
Even Shaun gave me an annoyed look from across the clearing. So I guess that only sounded like fun to me.
We were at our spot in the national forest up in the mountains, all of us in the pack, waiting. The place—a clearing by an outcrop of granite, surrounded by miles of pines, usually felt like home. Any other full moon night, the pack would gather, and as dark fell we’d shed our clothes. As the moon rose our skin would sprout fur, our bones break and stretch, our four-legged selves taking control. We’d run, we’d hunt—wolves, summoned by the full moon.
This night, however, we nervously waited and watched the sky.
“Supermoon,” Ben said, arms crossed, squinting through the trees. The moon—full, silver—was just starting to rise. “So we should all get X-ray vision or be able to fly or something.”
“Listen to you,” I said. “Like turning into a wolf every four weeks isn’t enough of a superpower.”
He frowned, clearly dissatisfied. “You’re right. Not enough superpower.”
“Well, next time get bit by a radioactive spider instead of a werewolf.”
He gave me this look like he couldn’t tell if I was joking.
People kept asking me: Supermoon. Blood moon. Did anything change? Was it all different? I didn’t know why everyone was worked up. The supermoon happened when the moon’s orbit brought it closest to Earth—a pretty regular occurrence. The lunar eclipse happened whenever the Earth came between the sun and moon—another pretty regular occurrence. Even both together happened every thirty years or so. I had to be honest—the philosophical underpinnings of the whole thing weren’t at the forefront of my mind when my fingers were sprouting claws and my mouth stretching to fit a predator’s set of teeth.
Which they were about to do right now. My skin itched. I flexed my fingers. Elsewhere in the clearing, others of the pack were stripping down, while their backs arched and a sheen of fur grew down along their skin. Ben and I watched our pack, and a shadow took a crescent bite out of one side of the moon.
“It’s time,” he murmured.
I felt it, too. The animal inside of me pressing at the bars of her cage, waiting to break free.
But there was something else. Something . . . kind of tingly. Weirdly, I felt more relaxed, when at this time during a full moon I ought to be feeling more than tense, like my body was ripping apart.
Then I saw Becky in the shape of her sandy-colored wolf charge across the clearing, stumble, and roll over on her back, paws batting at the air, tongue hanging out the corner of her mouth. Shaun’s dusky wolf sat nearby, teeth bared, face pointed upward—almost like he was laughing.
Ben watched, squinting. “Does that look kinda weird to you?” He spoke slowly—his words were almost slurred. I couldn’t really focus on what he was saying. Claws sprouted from my fingers. I was Changing. But the whole thing felt kinda . . . blurry.
I looked at Ben, and both of us starting laughing. The laughs turned into lupine whines.
“I think we’re drunk,” I managed to gasp out.
“So. Less Blood Moon and more ‘nice dry, merlot moon’?” Ben said, and it was the last thing he said, because his body slipped and the Change washed over him. His wolf emerged—teeth bared, laughing.
I was about to follow. And you know what? That was all right.
Kitty and Cormac’s Excellent Adventure
"I NEED YOUR HELP.”
I leaned back in my office chair and stared at the phone for a moment. Cormac never asked for help. “Are you feeling all right?”
He blew out a breath of what sounded like frustration, as if he was just as surprised as I was by this conversation. “Yeah, I’m fine. I just need a favor.” His tone was curt. He didn’t want a discussion.
“What can I do?”
Each word sounded forced out against his will. “I need to see Rick.”
Rick, the Master Vampire of Denver. My brow furrowed, confused. “Why do you need to see Rick?”
“Just a message. Not a big deal.”
It was probably a big deal. “You could call him yourself—”
“But he’ll actually talk to you.”
“Come on, what’s this about? You hate vampires.”
“Just five minutes.”
“He’s going to want to know what this is about. He won’t open the door to you just because I ask.” Cormac was a bounty hunter specializing in supernatural creatures. Vampires, werewolves, a lot of other crazy stuff. At least, he used to be, before he went to prison for manslaughter. Now, he was more of a paranormal investigator, along with the ghost of a Victorian magician who lived in his mind. Long story there. He’d mellowed quite a bit under Amelia’s influence, or so I liked to think. But yeah, Rick didn’t exactly trust him. It sometimes seemed kind of weird that I did.
“That’s why I need to you to ask. Convince him.”
I was dying of curiosity. At this point I’d make the meeting happen just to see what it was about. And of course I would be there. “Am I going to regret this?”
The pause told me that yes, there was a good possibility that I would in fact regret this. “It’ll be fine.”
“Sure,” I drawled. “I won’t be able to talk to him until nightfall.”
“The sooner the better.”
“Seriously, Cormac, are you in trouble?”
“It’ll be fine. Call me when it’s set up.” He hung up.
What the hell had he gotten into, and why was I just going to dive in after him? I’d better get a good story out of this.
Rick agreed to the meeting, probably because after I told him about Cormac’s request, he was just as curious as I was. “What could he possibly be up to?” he asked.
“No idea,” I answered. “So, you’re in?”
He was in, as long as the meeting happened on his turf at Obsidian, the art gallery that served as the public face of the lair of Denver’s vampire Family. Cormac wasn’t happy about that when I called him.
“I’d hoped we could do this on neutral territory. Your place, maybe.”
“Take it or leave it,” I said. “I’ll be there, if you think it’ll help.”
He scowled. “I’d rather keep you out of this.”
“Nope, you dragged me in already, I want the story.”
I met Cormac in the alley behind the gallery. He was a tall, rugged guy with an easy manner and hard face, dressed in a T-shirt, jeans, and leather jacket. After his felony conviction—he’d been out of prison for a couple of years now—he stopped carrying guns, but he still kept weapons. He usually had a couple of stakes up his sleeve. Now he carried them openly, hanging in a quiver off his belt, along with a spray bottle that was no doubt filled with holy water, and a silver cross hanging around his neck. Had Cormac ever set foot in a church in his life?