Moonshadow

Chapter Seven

Why did he touch her?

That’s what Sophie wanted to know.

Why did he touch her, and why did she let him? The whole thing was inexplicable, but he did, and she did, and when his fingers trailed down the side of her face, the muscles in her thighs shook in a fine tremor.

He was a man with a killer’s face, living through a tragedy with his people dwindling away, and he was fighting for existence any way he knew how. He was using her, and she knew it, and she was going to let him.

At least for teaching him how to cast the silver rune.

That was all. Just the rune.

Because she had grown a little over the years, and she had learned a lot about herself. She knew she was an asshole magnet, and if there ever was an asshole, this guy was it.

So. She would help him with just the rune.

That was more than enough, and she was being more than generous after the way he had behaved. She understood what had happened and why he had acted the way he had. She could let bygones be bygones, but they weren’t going to magically turn around and become besties during the course of a single evening.

“I’m done talking,” she said. It was raw and awkward, but he didn’t seem to mind in the least. She paused. “By the way, how did you get here without me hearing you?”

He stepped back. “I parked at the road and walked up the drive.”

“Oh. Well, we can talk sometime soon about when I’ll teach you how to make the colloidal silver and cast the rune, but for now, I’ve had enough. Good night.”

Exhaustion was beginning to color the edges of her thinking. As she turned to walk to the Mini, she looked around. She really wasn’t Robin’s keeper, and he was free to take off whenever he felt like it, but it was going to bother her if he didn’t show up by the time she started the car.

She needn’t have worried. As she opened the door of the Mini, a dark streak raced across the open lawn from the shadow of the neighboring forest, tail up and wagging. She raised her eyebrows as the dog reached the open door and leaped in. The change in him from when she had found him wandering down the road was remarkable.

Sliding into the driver’s seat, she murmured, “You’re feeling better, I take it.”

Large bright eyes blinked at her from the shadowed darkness. For a brief moment, as she looked at Robin, she caught a flash of something else. Something that wasn’t a dog. Blinking rapidly, she tried to see it again, but the vision was gone.

The moonshadow had offered its magic to her again.

“Is it wrong to pet you as if you really were a dog?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Even though she didn’t live the kind of lifestyle that was good for a dog, she was going to miss the dog she had thought Robin was. He sniffed at her fingers and didn’t seem to mind as she scratched him gently behind the ear.

Smiling to herself, she started the car and turned on the interior light to inspect the raised blisters that ringed his neck. They were completely healed. He was indeed feeling better.

She switched off the light and headed back down the drive. When she pulled out between the gateposts, she didn’t see a car parked on the side of the road, so Nikolas must have already left.

Even driving the unfamiliar roads slowly and carefully, the drive back to the pub took less than ten minutes. As she pulled into the parking lot and opened the door, the sound of screaming split the night.

The screaming came from inside the pub. It was a woman’s voice.

Maggie.

This time adrenaline hit hard, and the only imperative it gave her was fight.

Stupid. Crazy.

She lunged out of the car and sprinted for the pub, straining with every sense to glean information about what was happening inside.

The screaming came from the front. From the pub side. As she rounded the corner of the building, a gun went off. One shot.

A monkey leaped and ran beside her, shrieking at her.

A… a capuchin monkey… a monkey?

Her stride faltered, and she stared at it. As it yelled at her, she saw in the light of a nearby streetlamp the monkey had no tongue. “Go back to the car!” she ordered.

Instead, Robin jumped to hang on her leg. He dragged at her, clearly trying to stop her from going forward.

She tried to brush him off as she charged toward the front door. Toward what used to be the front door. The door itself was in shreds, a piece of wood still hanging from the hinges.

Ignoring the monkey hanging on her leg—at least he had stopped shrieking although his hard little monkey fingers pinched at her thigh painfully—she slowed, walked along the edge of the building quietly, and peered in.

There was blood everywhere, with furniture knocked awry, body parts and playing cards strewn everywhere, and monsters.

Huge, very werewolf-y looking monsters. One monster savaged a body. As she stared at it, Arran stood up from behind the bar and fired a hunting rifle point-blank into the face of a second monster that rushed toward him. It fell but just as quickly rolled onto its feet.

Aw, damn. It was never a good sign when bullets didn’t faze a creature.

She didn’t pause to think. Instead, she acted. Lunging toward the monster that was getting to its feet, she slapped the confusion spell onto its back. It faltered and looked over its shoulder at her.

For a breathless moment she looked down a massive, bloody muzzle with long, sharp teeth meant for rending. The monster turned toward her, and it kept turning in a circle… and turning. Its growl changed to a puzzled whine.

Arran was dead white and shaking. “What the fuck is wrong with it?”

“Doesn’t matter.” She gasped. “It’ll do that for hours.”

She felt a rush of air. The monkey had climbed up her body and shrieked an earsplitting warning in her ear. Arran jerked the rifle up to his shoulder and fired just behind her. Whirling, she saw the first monster already climbing to its feet.

She had two confusion spells, one on each side of her hand; two telekinesis spells, again, one on each side of her hand; and the corrosive defensive spells on her forearms. Before the monster could scramble to its feet, she slapped it with the second confusion spell.

Another scream split the night.

Arran said, his voice shaking, “Maggie.”

“Call for help,” Sophie told him. She grabbed the puck, pulled it off her back, and flung it to the area behind the bar where it could take cover, then she raced to the back game room with the dartboard.

Pausing on the doorstep, she took in the details of the room at a glance. Dead body parts, check. Blood all over, check. One of the monsters was in the process of tearing apart a closet door while Maggie screamed from inside it.

Really bad situation, check.

Oh man. If the gunshots didn’t keep one of these monsters down, would her telekinesis spells do much better?

She couldn’t stand by and watch it rip Maggie to shreds. Striding forward, she delivered a roundhouse punch to the monster’s broad, powerful side. The blow lifted the creature into the air and slammed it into the opposite wall. It crashed halfway through the plaster and hung suspended in the hole it had created, half in the room and half in the kitchen behind it.

Sophie turned and, ignoring the painful tearing pull in her weak side, hauled Maggie bodily out of the closet. The other woman was hysterical, sobbing and babbling. Sophie grabbed her by the shoulders.

That got the other woman’s attention. With a hiccup, Maggie stopped screaming to stare at her.

Behind the other woman, Sophie could see the monster pulling itself out of the hole in the plaster. She told Maggie, “Run.”

As Maggie raced out of the room, Sophie didn’t wait to watch the monster finish extricating itself from the ruined wall. Her spells called for close quarters and being proactive. Striding forward, she swiped at the monster’s shoulder, activating the corrosive spell and skipping back several paces.

While she watched, the spell began to eat away at the monster’s shoulder. With a final yank that pulled down half the wall in a cloud of plaster dust, the monster broke free and tried to swipe at its shoulder.

At the same time, the monkey leaped on her back and shrieked in her ear again. She snapped, “Not helpful!”

The monster fixed on her. Even as the corrosive spell consumed flesh and bone, it began to stalk her from across the room.

Her mind raced. Option: run until the corrosive spell ate it up. That sounded like a great one, but for the next several moments, it could run too, and she had already seen for herself that these monsters were much faster than she was.

As she backed up, it advanced.

She had one telekinesis spell and one corrosive spell left. Both necessitated her getting within biting distance of those wicked teeth. This was going to suck so bad.

Calmly she told the monkey, “Go on, Robin.”

The monkey pinched her ear painfully. Ow! Not helpful!

Keeping her eyes on the advancing monster, she edged toward the door. With one hand, she plucked the monkey off her shoulder and threw it through the doorway. The monster’s reddened eyes tracked the movement. For a moment she thought it was going to go after Robin. Then its attention came back to fix on her. It gathered itself, and she tensed.

It was going to leap, and when it did, it wouldn’t be expecting her to dive forward, because that would be Stupid and Crazy™. But if she could get underneath it, she could punch it as hard as she could with her last telekinesis spell.

After that, she didn’t know what she was going to do. One step at a time.

The monster leaped, and she dove forward. The maneuver didn’t turn out as well as she had hoped. She landed hard on the floor and didn’t flip over fast enough to get a punch in as it sailed overhead, so when it spun around to face her again, she was lying on her back looking up at it.

Good news: she still had the telekinesis spell. Bad news: she was going to have to use it while she faced all those killer teeth head-on.

Before she could roll away, it limped forward and landed on top of her, driving the breath out of her lungs. Gods, it was so heavy she couldn’t move. The corrosive spell had eaten away one shoulder and part of its torso, and she didn’t know how it was still moving, but it was.

Why didn’t it go down?

It bared massive teeth and snaked its head down to her. She fought to grab hold of its neck and keep that giant muzzle at bay, at least long enough for the stupid creature to realize it was dying.

Behind it, an avenging angel appeared, lean, dark, and fast, and wearing the same chilling, ferocious expression she remembered from the first time she had seen him.

Who’da thunk it? She was actually glad to see that terrifying asshole.

He had his sword drawn, and it was dripping with blood again. His eyes blazed with dark fire as he whirled to strike. She felt the blow shudder through the monster’s body as Nikolas decapitated it.

The head flew through the air, and she lost track of where it went as a fountain of blood gushed over her. She managed to get one arm over her eyes before the warm wetness drenched her, while the monster’s body collapsed heavily over hers.

Shouts sounded outside, and sirens, but in the room, silence fell.

Sophie peered out from underneath her arm. Nikolas stood over her, breathing heavily, and his hard, beautiful face wore an expression she didn’t know how to identify. Anger? Relief? Incredulity?

He pointed the dripping tip of his sword at her and said between his teeth, “Are you insane? You ran into the building.”

She wiped monster blood off her lips. “Apparently, so did you.”

He glared at her, while behind him, the weight of something heavy creaked on the stairs. Before she had a chance to call out a warning, Nikolas had already whirled. He was ready when another one of the monsters rushed down into the room and attacked.

Sophie struggled to get out from under the dead weight lying on top of her. The monster lunged, and Nikolas danced to one side, the blade of his sword flashing silver and crimson. As she wriggled free and rolled to her feet, Nikolas hit a pool of blood and skidded, going down on one knee. Flawlessly he shifted position with his sword to cover his fall, as the monster bunched its muscles to leap at him.

Both Nikolas and the monster were wholly focused on each other. Taking advantage of that preoccupation, she jumped forward and slapped the monster on the haunch with the telekinesis spell. The blow spun it around and knocked it sidelong into the damaged wall, which brought a fresh rain of plaster down.

When it whirled toward her with a snarl, Nikolas had gained his feet and was standing between them. In a powerful, full-body swing, he decapitated the monster. Wincing, she watched the head spin into the air and bounce into one corner.

Silence fell again. Outside, sirens approached, and she could hear people shouting. None of it touched the room, where she and Nikolas stood staring at each other. Plaster dust floated in the air like white powdery snow, coating the sprays and pools of deep, liquid red.

Nikolas threw his sword down, strode over and grabbed her shoulders. “Are you hurt? Did you get bitten?”

“What?” She didn’t understand his blazing expression, and her attention wandered back over the scene. The monster that had landed on her was gone, and in its place lay a dead, decapitated man.

What. The. Fuck.

He shook her urgently. “Sophie, did one of them bite you?”

“No! I’m fine!” She tried to shrug off his hold. “I know I must look like Carrie at the high school prom, but none of this is my blood. Nikolas, where did the monster go?”

He looked where she gestured, at the body of the man nearby. He told her grimly, “That is the monster.”

She nodded. It was the only thing that made sense. As he bent to pick up his sword, she turned and walked through the ruined front room, out into the cool night air.

As she stepped outside, Maggie and Arran rushed at her. She fielded questions and effusive, tearful thanks as best she could, while the police arrived. Then she fielded questions from them too, answering everything patiently, sometimes multiple times. No stranger to crime scenes, she felt a tired calm settle over her as she watched them cordon off the area.

Since Sophie was a latecomer to the scene, the police focused much of their questioning on Arran and Maggie, and when Nikolas stepped outside, they focused on him too, giving her room to breathe.

Walking several yards away to get some space, she drew in deep breaths of the cool, damp air. A neighboring woman brought her a warm, wet towel, a hot cup of tea, and a blanket.

“Don’t worry about the towel or the blanket, love,” the woman told her when Sophie tried to refuse it. “They’re old, ragged things, and it doesn’t matter in the slightest if you get blood on them.”

Thanking her, Sophie moved several yards to the side and used the towel to wipe off the worst of the blood from her face and hands. Then, as the night had turned damp and cool, she pulled the blanket around her shoulders and sat at the curb to drink the tea. It was hot, creamy and sweet. It wasn’t how she usually drank tea, but it was utterly delicious.

When she sat at the curb, the monkey reappeared. It climbed up her body and pushed its way into the blanket, chittering at her grumpily.

“Don’t you be grumpy at me,” she told it as she put an arm around it. “I’m very annoyed with you right now. What was all that pinching about?”

The monkey bitched back at her wordlessly, dark eyes snapping.

She rubbed her tired face. “Stop. Just stop.”

It fell silent and huddled against her side.

Why hadn’t anybody remarked on the monkey? Granted, the scene in the pub was dramatic in its horror, but a monkey was quite an oddity. Couldn’t they see it, or was the puck cloaking himself? She gave up questioning and focused on drinking her tea.

Black-clad legs appeared beside her, the material streaked in blood. As she looked up, Nikolas squatted beside her. Dark hair fell on the strong plane of his brow, and his expression was shuttered. He carried a mug of tea too.

She told him, “I’m surprised you stayed to talk to the police. I half expected you to disappear out the back when they arrived.”

“I almost did,” he said. “But too many people had seen me, and you’d given your statement before you and I had a chance to discuss it. Besides, I might come into town again. Better to be upfront. We didn’t do anything wrong, and we prevented more people from getting killed.”

She nodded. “So, about those werewolf-y looking monsters.”

“They’re werewolves,” he replied.

She took a deep breath. “Is that why you said it wasn’t wise to roam the countryside during full moon?”

“Yes, although London and other urban areas are worse.”

“London.” She set her mug down on the curb and turned to look at him. “You’re saying there are werewolves, in London? Like the song—‘Werewolves of London’?”

He raised one sleek eyebrow. “Of course. That’s where the song came from. Didn’t you know?”

A laugh barked out of her. When a nearby man frowned at her, she covered her mouth to muffle the noise. When she could speak again, she said, “No, I didn’t know.”

“You don’t have werewolves in the States, do you?”

Lifting one shoulder, she replied, “I don’t know, we might. I don’t know of any. If we do, they aren’t prevalent enough to reach the news. The only wolves I know of are Wyr shapeshifters, which isn’t the same thing.” She paused, frowning. “I guess I shouldn’t take anything for granted. What do you mean when you say ‘werewolf’? Are we talking about the same thing?”

“I mean lycanthropy, a virus. It was why I was so worried about your being bitten. A victim who has been bitten has only a short window of time to get treatment before the virus becomes irreversible.” He shifted closer to her and said in a low voice, “Those weren’t just normal werewolves that attacked the pub.”

That was another unwelcome set of concepts. There was such a thing as normal werewolves? And abnormal ones?

Sophie watched his mouth as he shaped his words. Really, he had the sexiest mouth she had ever seen.

Fascinated and feeling as if she had stepped into a strange dream, she murmured, “How could you tell?”

“Werewolves by law are required to register with the National Health Service and cage themselves during the full moon. There are public cages available for those who don’t have the ability to build one for themselves. Those that don’t cage themselves run wild. They’re undisciplined and chaotic, like rabid dogs, and they hunt down animals to feed on—rabbits, deer, unwary humans. They don’t break into houses to attack people.” He set his mug beside hers. “The ones that broke into the pub here did so for a reason. They were acting under orders, which means they were the Queen’s Hounds.”

Under the blanket, the monkey was shivering. She put her head in her hands and said telepathically, Isabeau has a legion of werewolves?

Yes, but her werewolves don’t need the full moon in order to change. They can change at will, and they band together and strategize. Gawain believes they can telepathize even in their bestial form. He paused. That means either her Hounds were searching for Robin, or they were searching for me. Since we killed all of them, we can hope that nobody else has become aware of your presence yet. Switching to verbal speech, he said softly, “You still have time to back out and go home.”

“LA isn’t my home,” she muttered. “It’s just a place where I stayed for a while.”

Lifting the edge of the blanket, she looked at the creature nestled inside. Large dark eyes watched her from the deep shadow. The filmy cloudiness had vanished, and he watched her with sharp intelligence. She noticed his skewed eye had straightened. If that could heal, it must have been damage he sustained in captivity.

With a gentle finger, she urged him to open his mouth, and he did so obligingly. A new bud of flesh had appeared at the stump at the base of his mouth. He was regrowing his tongue. He was still too thin, and he needed a series of meals to correct that, but he was healing. Maybe as he recovered he would begin to speak again.

Watching her, Nikolas said, “You’re not going to leave, are you?”

“Nope,” she said. “Although I’m going to leave here.”

Setting the monkey on the ground, she pushed stiffly to her feet. Now that the battle was over, she was beginning to feel every bruise and ache. Sharp pain radiated out from her weak side, and somehow her shoulder had gotten wrenched. She wrapped her arm around her torso protectively.

The tea had given her a small boost of energy, but heavy exhaustion dragged at her, and she knew she had a limited amount of time before she had to go horizontal.

Nikolas had straightened to his full height when she had, and he was watching her sharply. He took a step closer until she could sense his body heat along one side of her body. “You said you weren’t bitten, but you were hurt, weren’t you?”

“Soft tissue stuff,” she said in brief reply. “I strained old injuries. I’ll be okay, but I need your help. Would you carry my luggage down to the car? I can’t stay here.”

“Of course you can’t. Let’s go get your things.”

The police had the front of the building cordoned off, so they walked together around to the back entrance. Maggie broke away from her husband and a cluster of neighbors to hurry over to them. “I can’t thank you enough for what you did,” she said to them. She looked at Sophie. “You risked your life to save mine.”

Guilt gnawed at Sophie, much like the corrosive spell. If she and Robin hadn’t been at the pub to begin with, the attack would never have happened. She met Nikolas’s eyes and saw a dark understanding. Then she turned to Maggie. “I’m glad there was something I could do. I can’t stay here tonight, so I’ll get my things.”

“Of course you can’t, love, but where will you go at this time of night?”

“I’ll go ahead and go to the cottage.”

Maggie’s expression creased. “It’ll be cold, and the bed will be unmade, and you won’t have any supplies with you. And I don’t like how isolated that old moldy place is.”

“It’s all right,” Sophie told her. “It doesn’t matter. I like isolation. It’ll be a roof over my head, and I can get groceries in the morning.”

“I’ll stay with her,” Nikolas told the other woman. “She won’t be alone.”

He would? Sophie raised her eyebrows as she looked at him pointedly. Thanks for asking, asshole.

He looked magnificently impervious to her speaking glance. Actually, truly magnificent. His innately elegant, erect carriage and the imperious tilt of his head drew glances from everyone around them. The fact that Sophie was affected by it irritated her to no end. With an effort, she had to restrain herself from making a face at him.

“Well… all right,” Maggie said reluctantly. “But at least let me gather some things together for you, love.” As Sophie started to protest, the other woman insisted. “Just a small box to get you started.”

Let her help you. Nikolas’s deep telepathic voice sounded unexpectedly in her head. It’s a small thing, and it will make her feel better about your leaving.

Sophie glowered at him, and when that look rolled off his broad shoulders too, she said to Maggie, “That would be wonderful. Thank you.”

“I won’t be just a minute.” Maggie hurried into her shattered kitchen, muttering under her breath at the mess.

Silent as a wraith and just as deadly, Nikolas followed Sophie up the stairs.

There was no need for her to unlock the door to her room. Like the front entrance to the pub, there was no door. She paused in the doorway to take in the mess inside.

The furniture had been knocked askew, and the bed had been shredded.

She took in a deep breath and glanced over her shoulder. Nikolas’s expression was grim. He nodded in the direction of the rest of the hall. As she looked down the hall, she realized all the other doors were still intact and closed.

Her stomach clenched. Either the Hounds had been hunting for the puck, or her, or both.

Nikolas said, “Let’s hope this cell of Hounds didn’t have a chance to relay information up the chain of command.”

He didn’t sound very hopeful, and she didn’t blame him. It sounded too much like unrealistic optimism to her as well.

She limped into the destroyed room. Since she’d been planning to stay only for one night, she hadn’t unpacked very much, and the pieces of her sturdy Samsonite luggage had been knocked around, but at least they were intact. Picking through the mess, she collected the rest of her things—a cell phone charger, clean set of clothes for the morning, and her travel toiletry bag.

Straightening with an effort, she pressed a hand against her aching side and said breathlessly, “Okay, I’m ready.”

Nikolas had collected her suitcases. He waited by the door, watching her with an inscrutable expression. As she reached him, he picked up the luggage and led the way down the stairs.

Maggie greeted them down below. She held a cardboard box. Sophie caught a glimpse of tea bags, a bottle of milk, and a loaf of bread tucked inside, along with other items. Maggie said, “It’s not much, but it will get you started in the morning.”

“It’s terrific, thank you.” Sophie set her toiletry bag on top of the box and accepted it. “It was kind of you to think of this with so much else going on.”

“It’s the least I can do in return for what you did for us.” Maggie’s eyes glittered with wetness. “You not only saved my life, but Arran says you saved his too.” She turned to Nikolas. “Thank you, both of you.”

He didn’t appear to look uncomfortable at all, while Sophie was barely able to keep from blurting out the truth. She swallowed the impulse down. It wouldn’t do anybody any good, and the knowledge could possibly put them in more danger.

Instead, she said, “I’m sorry for the people you lost tonight.”

“It’s a hard blow,” Maggie said. “It’ll be hard for the whole town. They were good men just enjoying a bit of an after-hours card game, you see.”

“I do see,” Sophie said gently.

Maggie turned back to the shambles of her pub. As Sophie and Nikolas walked to the Mini, Sophie muttered between her teeth, “I want her dead for this.”

Nikolas said, “As do I, and mine.”