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Authors: Carol Wolf

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BOOK: Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga
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She rubbed her hands. It was late. The cab was cold. In the east, the gibbous moon was rising, eight days past full. My wounds ached.

“Where are my clothes?” I asked. “And where is my car?”

She said Holly had thrown my clothes in a dumpster, because there was blood on them. The bitch. My car was still parked in the dirt lot where I’d left it at the beginning of this adventure. Elaine drove me to the lot above the private beach where I’d been lured to the party, that was not a party after all, but just a trap. I added a couple more people to the list I had to talk to. Honey, from the Thunder Mountain Boys. And Yvette, who I’d thought was my friend.

My keys and my wallet were gone, but one of the things my kind always does is stash spare car and house keys. We can usually hold on to the stuff in our pockets when we change, but every now and then something doesn’t come back with us when we change to human form. I found the magnetized box in the wheel well, and the keys were there, and the car started just fine. I made Elaine get out of the truck and give me all the money she had, for taking my wallet. And that wasn’t a bad haul, since her camel patient had paid her in cash. I also made her give me her tennis shoes. They didn’t fit, but I scrunched her socks up in the toes, and that worked all right.

Before I left her, I pulled out her vet case, and scrounged out some things I would need. Then I took the keys from her once more, lined up the truck, put it in gear, got out and released the handbrake. I had planned to aim it over the cliff and into the sea. But since I’d been talking to her for nearly an hour, and we’d gotten all chummy and looked into each other's souls—even though she still didn’t understand what she’d seen in mine—I just sent the truck down the steep dirt path and sank it nose first in the sand on the beach. I’d angled it just right, so it made the first hairpin turn before it fell off the path. It was going to take a tow truck hours to haul it out. They might have to use two winches. I hoped it would cost her five days of anguish, but I don’t think it gave her that much. The gun, though, I did throw into the sea, though she squawked that it was county property. And it served her right.

I left her running awkwardly down the dirt road after her truck, barefoot, shouting at it, and yelling curses back at me, angry and cold, frustrated and afraid. But unharmed. I still had three holes in me, and I was pretty sure one of them was bleeding again. She hadn’t even offered to bandage my wounds. She was an evil vet. The bitch.

CHAPTER FIVE

T
he only up side to driving away from Malibu toward home was that at that hour, there was no traffic to speak of. My black Honda Civic is a manual drive. Shifting, with my right hand, flexing all the muscles of my aching wrist, and pressing my wounded left foot down on the clutch, hurt. Every time. I used my right foot for the gas and brake, so once I got onto the highway I was able to stretch out my left ankle and let it rest.

Far across Los Angeles, my apartment in Whittier drew me on, offering bed, food, water, especially bed. I headed down the 10 freeway at exactly three miles over the speed limit.

It wasn’t long before I realized that if people were still after me, Holly, the metallurgist, Cecil, or any other of his ambitious idiotic acolytes, that was where they would look. If they shot me through the window, I could wake up in a better-guarded cage, and never see them coming.

My foot lifted on the gas. I put it down again. They were all across the valley behind me in Malibu. I just wanted to be home. But one of the people who had set me up worked in Pasadena, just up the 605 and a ways along the 210 from Whittier. My friend Yvette had decoyed me to the party. She lived in Whittier.

I skipped the turn-off to the 60, and stayed on the 10. I needed sleep. I needed safety. I needed to tend to my wounds so they would heal quickly, and not get infected. I skipped the turn-off to the 605. I was not going to Whittier tonight. Soon after, I followed a bright attractive sign and pulled off the freeway into the parking lot for a motel. The parking lot was crowded even though it was the middle of the week. The long, two-story building looked well cared-for. I would use my well-gotten gains from the evil vet to buy a room for the rest of the night, and the next night too, maybe, and wash and sleep, and sleep…

I hadn’t even gotten out of the car before I realized that without my precious fake ID, no one was going to rent me a room. At least, not at a place where I could be sure of getting through the night without an unpleasant interruption. Wearing sweats that didn’t fit, bruised and wounded as I was—I hadn’t had a chance to check but it was likely that just then I looked like a pretty suspicious person.

I started the car again. I winced as I put it in gear. Every time. I trolled down the main drag until I saw a 7-11. I wasn’t going to stand out there. I wandered in and bought stale sandwiches, packages of jerky, chips, more jerky, a Danish, a couple of bottles of water, and some more jerky. You just can’t have too much jerky. The zombie store clerk didn’t raise his eyes to me.

I drove back toward the motel, into the parking lot of the even bigger one next door, and chose a remote parking spot, not right at the back, but an inconvenient walk from or to anywhere. I ate and drank. While Richard was with me, he’d done the cooking. He had strong views on processed food, on the necessity of fresh meat and condiments. I liked the sound of his voice, and the way he looked when he talked.

I kept reminding myself that he hadn’t been real. He’d been Dr. John Dee's fantasy, overlaid with every other of his masters’ fantasies, for he altered himself, as a good servant does, to suit. The last had been me. Well. Not everyone gets a fantasy for their first love. If they had any idea what it was like, the people who were after me for my demon would want him so much more. I know I did.

So I ate my stale food and thought of what Richard would say about it. Then I changed, hopped into the back seat, and licked my wounds. And slept at last.

At first light I worried open the crusted scabs on my wounds and licked them until they didn’t smell bad anymore. It's difficult to make detailed plans while wearing a wolf's brain. I changed and lay curled in the back seat, trying to think of what to do. I could leave Los Angeles. That might be safest. But I’d have to go the Whittier to recover some of my cached money, and that was out. I needed somewhere not too far away to lay low until I healed, and could defend myself again.

It occurred to me that I knew of such a place, where the welcome was inscribed on a stone beside the path that led up to the house. Welcome. Friendship. Safety. I needed them all, right now. I wrapped my wounded wrist and ankle in the gauze and bandages I’d taken from the evil vet. I bought gas, and headed east on the 10 freeway for Mt Baldy.

When I was well and strong, there were people I would track down and deal with. You do not shoot one of the wolf kind, you do not cage, bespell and wound the Daughter of the Moon Wolf. There were people out there who needed this lesson taught to them. I would need all my strength to do it.

Mount Baldy is warded by a bunch of paranoid Buddhists up at the priory. I was forewarned this time, and only took one wrong exit and two wrong turns before I managed to point my car up the mountain and follow the roaring creek all the way to Baldy Village.

I parked in one of the few remaining spaces at the trail head for Cedar Creek Canyon. A crowd of Japanese hikers, wearing the same-style snazzy clothes, and carrying identical high-tech metal water bottles, were just setting off up the trail. A big Hispanic family was sorting out itself, and their dogs, and they wandered up the trail next. I sat in my car, telling myself I was waiting until I could make the hike in solitude. In fact, I was hoping my ankle would stop throbbing.

When they were gone I got out of my car. There wasn’t any reason for me to wait for the trail to clear. I wasn’t going to be loping up it in wolf form. Not that most people would notice. A surprising number of people will tell you that what they saw was a dog; a big dog, but still a dog. A huskie, usually. Or a wolf hybrid, which is true in a sense. Or even a German shepherd, for the gods’ sake. There are a fair number of hikers, where I grew up. But being lame on two legs, I would not be making the climb as a wolf.

I picked up a discarded walking stick and started up the rocky trail, flapping in my too-big shoes. The roar of the creek, filling its banks at this time of year, flooding the trail in places, blocked out the sounds of the other hikers. If not for all the various and informative fresh scent trails, I could almost believe myself alone.

I’d forgotten that the trail was so rocky. And steep. Cedars lined the canyon, together with pines. Flowers grew in the crevices between the rocks. Every now and then a cabin could be seen perched on some rare flat ground up the slope from the creek. The walls of the canyon rose high on either side, the tree line giving way to steep slopes of scree, until the trees commenced again at the top of the ridges.

The scent of cedar, water and clean air was a balm. I’d chosen the city when I left home. But after all those months, I’d forgotten what air is supposed to taste like. It was a pleasant hike, which was good, because I was very slow.

A pack of serious hikers strode up from below and passed me, offering cheerful greetings. I nodded to them, stopping off the trail so none of them noticed and commented on my limp. If you are wounded, after all, it's best if folks don’t realize it.

The cabin I sought wasn’t far. Beside the trail there would be a large rock with a flat side facing the trail. On it were inscribed the signs I knew, Friendship, Safety, Welcome, entwined in Celtic knotwork, with wards repeating the same messages. These were beacons to the two-natured kind that help would be received there, if asked. Across the creek and high up the bank a cabin stood in a grove of cedars. The memory came to me with the scent of beef broth, and two women who had been kind to me. And to Richard. I could rest there. I could hide there, and heal up.

The day was clear and bright, chilly between the canyon walls. I climbed slowly, looking forward to getting off my ankle, and sleeping off the wounds in my hip and wrist. There’d still been snow on the ground when Richard and I tore up this path only a month ago. When I found myself in trouble, Marge had invited me into their cabin, and helped me out. Marge and her friend Andy had made me welcome.

I passed by the stone without sensing the ward. When I saw the big cedar ahead, where I’d discovered the scent marker of one of the folks hunting me, I backed up, as I had the last time I’d been here. I found the rock. The signs, painted and etched on the surface of the stone, were smeared with mud and gook from the stream, scratched through with a pointed stone. The wards had been marred and dispersed. I looked up at the cabin, barely visible on the far ridge above the stream. Gray Fox stood there watching me.

Oh, shit. And I couldn’t even run.

“Come up,” he said. Even from so far away, he didn’t raise his voice for me to hear him.

I hesitated. Herald, scout, henchman, adviser, the gray fox kind have been allies of my family from time out of mind. When I left home, I knew they would seek after me. I’d left trails that led into the mountains, to make them think I was living as a wolf in the wild. There are thousands of square miles of mountains in California. It gave them quite a lot to search, while I made a place for myself in the city, where my trail was obscured every day by a million people and a million cars. But now, after only six months, Gray Fox had found me.

“Come up, Lady,” he said again. He gestured, and I felt the compulsion he put behind it.

I made my way over the board Marge and Andy used as a bridge across the creek, and up the steep path to their cabin. I tried not to limp. Gray Fox was watching me. I hoped he didn’t notice my shoes. When I reached the top, he was gone. The back door to the cabin stood open. Smoke rose from the chimney. I turned my head slowly from side to side, my mouth slightly open. Traces of Marge and Andy's scents were everywhere. They’d been using this cabin for years. But none of the traces were recent.

As I looked around, Gray Fox emerged from the cabin carrying a tray. I smiled at him, as though I’d only been taking in the cabin and its surrounds. Anxiety is a weapon in your enemy's hand. I needed every advantage I could hold on to, against Gray Fox.

He set the tray down on the weathered wicker table that stood in a stone-lined space on the ridge above the creek. Marge and Andy had decorated the make-shift patio with colored rocks and shards of broken plates set into concrete. Gray Fox set the bigger of the two chairs for me, and stood holding it for me. I moved toward him and he bowed.

I stopped. “How's Mom? Is she all right?”

“Your mother is well, I assure you. Please, sit down.”

I went to the chair and sat down and I did not limp or wince. Gray Fox wore a dark green waistcoat, an old tight-fitting tweed jacket, heavy brown pants, and a faded white handkerchief tied at his throat. His gray hair always curled slightly at the ends, no matter how short he kept it cut. It struck me for the first time how odd he looked, dressed in such old fashions. At home, that had always been how Gray Fox looked. Now that I’d been away for awhile, he looked quirky to me, rather than familiar.

His eyes looked like they were too close together. They held his usual expression, that he was thinking of a stupid joke about me, but was too polite to repeat it. You got the impression that even in his human form his ears were pointed, but if you looked closely they weren’t. His brows were gray. I’d never noticed that before. I wondered how old he was.

He actually waited by his chair until I motioned him to sit down. He poured hot tea in both our cups, gave me a plate, and then offered me my choice from the platter of meat, cheese, bread and pickles that he’d brought out.

“Where are Marge and Andy?” I asked him.

“Who?”

I looked around. “The women who own this cottage.”

He shrugged, lifting his brows as though this matter were too unimportant for him to consider. “I’ve no idea. The cabin was open when I came. I’ve been borrowing its amenities while I waited for you.” He waited for my reaction. I decided not to give him any. He smiled slightly, as though in approval. “You found my scent marker. I followed your trail back down, and out to Redlands. If you want to know, I haven’t found your den there yet. But I will.” He looked smug.

BOOK: Binding: Book Two of the Moon Wolf Saga
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