THIRTY-TWO

I was lost. It was ridiculous, but I had to admit it; for the past half hour, I had been trying to get back to the Belle Savage Cafe, but either I was becoming disoriented, or the town was rearranging itself. There was a small field that had stretched between Orchard and Main, and I had made the mistake of cutting across it to avoid Jackie and her men. Granted, I’d never had much of a sense of direction, and I’d been known to get lost in November when the leaves fell off the trees. But this was ridiculous. None of the usual landmarks were visible. The earth was reclaiming the town. I wiped sweat from my forehead, wondering what to do next.

From here on in, I was using a car, even if I only had to move two steps from one store to another. There were worse things than becoming obese from not walking. Like dying in the wilderness just behind Orchard and Main.

Baby, the young black wolf that had been Marlene’s Pekingese, sat down and cocked her head at me as I tried to get my bearings. She and Hudson, the Lab, were sticking close by me. The other wolfish dogs were ranging on ahead, but I knew that they were within earshot. They weren’t quite a pack yet, and I wasn’t their leader, but they had a dim sense of me as alpha from their pre-transformation memories of the vet’s office. I wasn’t sure how long it would last, but I was glad of the company.

I tried not to think about Malachy, and what I had done to him. I tried even harder not to think about what he would do to me if he woke up before I got away.

I wiped my face on my arm, wishing I’d thought to bring a bottle of water with me. “I don’t suppose you can smell where we are, can you, Baby?”

Baby whined as I turned in a slow circle, trying to see past the rapid growth of trees and vines obscuring the street signs and hiding the houses and stores from view. At this rate, I’d be standing in the middle of a forest by nightfall.

There was a low, hoarse cough from somewhere in the distance, and then a sound like an old woman screaming. Great. Cougar. Knowing that there was no way to hide from a big cat, I figured I’d have to bluff this out. Throwing back my head, I howled for all I was worth, and after a moment, Baby and Hudson and the other dogs joined in. Bon Bon and the former shepherd appeared in the high grass, but some of the other dogs never showed. Maybe the former dachshund and pug hadn’t survived the full transition. Maybe they’d just gone off on their own. Or maybe they’d become cat food.

We howled a little while longer, and then Baby cocked one ear higher than the other, and I scratched her head. I couldn’t read the signs myself, but watching the others, I thought the cougar had moved off. In the wild, Red had taught me, most animals don’t go angling for championship matches.

He explained that people were always worrying that coyotes would attack them or their pets, but most of the time, they didn’t need to worry. Since small injuries can become serious without medical help, wild critters know that it pays to pick your battles carefully. They prey on the weak, but if the weak turns out to have a bunch of pals, they give it a pass. Most of the time, at any rate. The same goes for leadership challenges. Leaders are politicians, even if they go around on four legs. And no one with even a drop of political savvy wants to go head-to-head unless they’ve exhausted all the other options: making aggressive noises, narrowing eyes, frowning, baring teeth, using dominant body language.

With a little luck, Red had said with a smile, you get to figure out who’s tougher without actually tearing each other to shreds so that neither of you wins.

Oh, Red, I could sure use some advice right around now. I took out my cell phone again and tried his number, but as I suspected, he was still out of range. I touched the little scar on my arm, but it no longer tingled. I tried not to think about what that might mean. Had my fooling around with Malachy broken our bond, or was he injured, or worse?

He’s not dead, said my intuition.

All right, then. I checked that all my weapons were still in place and then whistled for the dogs. “Okay, guys,” I said, “let’s get going.” If I’d expected an eager response, I was sorely disappointed.

My ragtag pack of former lapdogs were already sniffing around, exploring the scents around them. As leader, it was up to me to pick a direction, but the others weren’t going to sit there, waiting for me to make up my mind. If I hesitated too long, they would follow their own instincts.

I held the moonstone, trying to get an intuitive hunch, but it didn’t seem to work as a compass. As I dithered, the grass continued to grow around my feet, the bushes filled out, and the weeds and puffballs sprang up until they obscured my view. Bees buzzed around the purple heads of clover, and the scent of honeysuckle was so intense that I felt as though I could get drunk off it.

Once, when I was in college, my mother told me not to hesitate too long over major life decisions. My roommates had nicknamed me “Our lady of perpetual fretting” because of my penchant for analyzing every option, and when it came time to declare my major, I became paralyzed with indecision.

When I called my mother for advice, all she said was, “Don’t let the grass grow under your feet.” Well, the grass was growing, all right, and if I didn’t walk, I was going to drown in it. And then I remembered that I could use the sun to orient myself. It was late in the afternoon now, and so the sun had to be dipping toward the east. The town’s center was east of our office; all I had to do was walk toward the sun.

“Baby! Bon Bon! Hudson! Come!” I couldn’t remember the shepherd’s name, so I just added, “Shep!” I broke out into a slow jog and the dogs fell in alongside, tails waving, tongues lolling.

I ran until the breath was sawing in and out of my chest, and the dogs started to give me funny sidelong glances, as in, Hey, remember, we’re not regular army. I had begun to worry that I’d screwed up somehow, but as I slowed to a walk and checked that all my hypodermics were still in place, I saw the familiar shape of the Stagecoach tavern. I’d overshot the cafe, but I didn’t care; at least I wasn’t lost.

As I walked past the tavern’s gray clapboard facade, I saw a white face peering out at me from a high window for a moment. Shivering, I quickened my pace, and then screamed and nearly jumped out of my skin when someone tapped me on the shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” said the tapper, who was wearing chef’s whites. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

“I thought … thought you were someone else.” Like my boss, whom I just seduced and left unconscious on the floor of his office.

“I get a little nervous, too,” said the chef. At least I thought he was a chef, because of his outfit; on the other hand, he might have been on leave from a mental asylum. He had an anxious grimace of a smile, purple shadows under his eyes, a wild frizz of orange hair, and he looked as though he had recently lost a great deal of weight. Not exactly the man you wanted touching you without permission. “I just needed to ask you if you’d heard anything about a storm.”

“No, I’m sorry, what have you heard?”

“The others keep telling me that a storm is coming,” said the man, whom I now recognized as Abel Tasman, the mischievous Boston chef who had taken over after Pascal Lecroix had committed suicide last year. I’d eaten at the Stagecoach once, and he’d asked me how I liked the new menu. I had lied and said I liked it. I guess a lot of people must have lied to Abel, because he’d kept the same menu, even though fewer and fewer people actually ate there.

“The others?”

“Pascal and Gunther and Elias,” said Abel, glancing nervously at the wolfdogs. They looked spooked, and I didn’t blame them. I knew Pascal was dead, and I had my suspicions about the other two. “They say I should get down in the cellar,” Abel went on, “but I don’t like it there. Would you like to come with me?” He looked a bit more hopeful as he added, “I like to have other living people around me when I go down there, but lately none of the staff will keep me company. I’ll give you some wonderful chocolate and cactus soup, and some tomato and goat’s milk ice cream I just whipped up.”

With food like that, the place really didn’t need a curse. “Sorry,” I said, walking away as quickly as I could. “I have to get to the Belle Savage Cafe.”

“That’s what they all say,” muttered Abel as he looked after me. It might have been my imagination, but I thought I saw two pale figures by his side, one a hawk-faced man in an eighties baggy linen suit, the other a short, bald fellow in a Victorian frock coat.

I was casting anxious glances at the sky as I reached the cafe. Maybe Abel had no idea what normal people liked to eat, but he hadn’t been wrong about the storm: The clouds had spread into a solid layer and were darkening as though someone had left a deep bruise across the heavens.

“I think we made it just in time,” I told the dogs, and then realized that they couldn’t come inside with me. “Sorry, guys,” I said, and then my cell phone rang. I flipped it open. “Hello?”

“Hey, Doc.” It was Red. His voice sounded as though he were standing in the middle of a hurricane, or as if he were on the other end of the earth, instead of just a few miles away.

“Where are you? Are you all right?” I looked out at the town, and now the clouds were black and the wind had picked up, bending the trees back.

“I’m okay,” he replied, and then there was a burst of static, drowning out the rest of his words. “Red? Red? Talk louder, I can’t hear you.”

“Where are you?”

“In town,” I said, nearly shouting, as if that could make me hear him better. “I know about the animals going feral. And Pia stole Malachy’s medication, and he’s gone all Mr. Hyde.” I stopped talking and listened to the crackle on the other end. “Red?”

“Just listen.” The phone was going in and out, swallowing every other word. Stay. Don’t. Home.”

“Don’t come home?”

Another voice came on the line, and even though I’d only heard it once before, I didn’t have to ask who it was. “That’s enough,” Bruin said in his nasal Quebecker English.

I heard Red say something, and then there was a sharp sound of something being hit, and a grunt of pain.

“Red! Red,” I screamed into the phone. “What’s happening?

“What are you doing to him, you bastard?” I moved two feet to the right, and suddenly the line was clear. There’s a difference between magical force fields and cell phone range, but not a big one.

“I just remind him who is in charge, cherie. He’s pretty tough, though—I been hitting him a lot, and he don’t complain much.”

“Why are you doing this?” Stupid question, but it just popped out. When you’re really in crisis, that’s when the clichés come out. Nuance, originality, subtlety—those are luxury items. As if to prove my own point, I added, “Please, can’t you just leave him alone?”

Bruin laughed. “But Red, he would not leave me alone, would he? Non, he put wards and shit all over the damn place. Also, I notice you don’t ask about your other friend, eh? You don’t mind what I do to her.”

Lilliana. Oh, God, how could I have forgotten? “Is she all right?”

“She is much better than all right; she is delicious. Now, why don’t you come on home and you can see them both?”

In the background, I heard Red say something. Bruin laughed. In the distance, the sky flashed light, then went dark, and a few moments later, there was a thunderous boom. I held my phone a little farther from my ear, thinking that with all the supernatural activity going on, it would be ironic to be electrocuted during a lightning storm.

Suddenly, I heard Red’s voice; somehow, he’d managed to wrench the phone from Bruin. “Don’t come home. Lilliana’s fine—he won’t kill her, he’s half in love with her. And as for me … I don’t need your help.”

Tears stung my eyes, and I was suffused with a feeling of such love and admiration that I could barely speak. “I understand,” I said, choking a little. I understood that he was in trouble, and being brave, and that I needed to gather help and go and rescue him. And Lilliana, of course.

“No, Abra, you don’t understand.”

I looked at the phone for a moment in confusion. “Red?”

“I don’t want you around here. Go fucking help Malachy if you want.”

My stomach clenched. He knew. Somehow, he knew. “Red, I can explain …”

“Yeah. I know. But guess what? I’d rather have Bruin here beat me up a few more times. At least with him, I can see it coming.”

And with that, the line went dead.

“Well,” I told the dogs, who were lying on their stomachs, looking nervous, “I finally reached Red.”

As if on cue, the skies opened up and the rain lashed down. I put my hand on the doorknob, and turned.

It was locked. “Hello!” I pounded on the door, and then gasped as I saw the shape of the dark clouds. “It’s Abra. You have to let me in, I think there’s a tornado forming!”

“Sorry,” said a voice from the other side, “but we’re closing.” I thought it might be Penny.

“Please,” I begged. “I just need to get out of the storm.”

“It’s dark,” said Dana. “We always close before dark.”

“But it’s only dark because of the storm!” I looked over my shoulder and had to squint, because the leaves and dust were blowing into my eyes. “Enid, please! Let me in!” I tried to think of something to bargain with, and came up empty. “I swear I’ll be in your debt forever, just please, please open the door.” The minute the words were out I knew I’d probably made a mistake, but then I heard the sound of locks turning.

“Here.” The door opened a crack and something was thrust into my hands: a cheap red rain slicker and a cloth bag containing something heavy that clinked. “Now get you gone, girl.”

I tried to jam my foot in the door before it closed completely, but I was a half moment too late, and then I heard the sound of locks being fastened. For a moment, I was so mad that I swung my arm back, intending to smash whatever was inside the cloth bag against the door. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it; whatever else the sisters were, they were powerful beings, and I didn’t want to squander their gifts.

I slipped the red rain slicker over my head, and then, glancing at the rapidly approaching funnel cloud, I made a split-second decision; Stagecoach Tavern or Moondoggie’s. Stagecoach was closer, but I didn’t have a good feeling about being trapped with a bunch of suicide ghosts.

With my red hood obscuring my vision and the cloth bag slung over my back, I ran toward the edge of town. My wolfish pack of former lapdogs ran alongside. I had nearly reached Moondoggie’s parking lot when I tripped over something lying on the sidewalk and fell on my face.

At first, I thought it was a tree. My second impression was that I’d stumbled over a corpse. But it was neither. I’d fallen onto the sheriff of Northside, except that he seemed as lifeless as the clay sloughing off his face and body in the driving rain.