Howling Moon (9 page)

Ned started swearing loudly. Raphael let him rant for a minute or two before cutting in. “Violet wasn’t hurt
physically,
but she saw some things last night that upset her. We want to take her to the pack hospital for counseling.”

“Counseling?”

Raphael flinched at the disbelief in the other man’s tone. Problem was, he could hardly argue. Most of the Sazi would just kill her to keep the secret, and not even feel particularly bad about it. “The Chief Justice himself has ordered that she’s to get the best possible care.”

“Charles? He knows?”

He locked eyes with Cat over the bulk of Peter’s body. “As you might guess, Catherine doesn’t trust us.”

Ned gave a harsh, bitter laugh. “Smart woman.”

“Ned – “ Raphael wasn’t amused and let it play through his voice. This was no time for old arguments.

The other man backed down and sighed. “Fine, put her on. But know this, Ramirez, if anything happens to Violet, anything at all, I’ve got a rifle and I can make silver ammo.”

Raphael wasn’t sure how he’d have answered that, had he been given the chance. He wasn’t. Two things happened simultaneously. Catherine grabbed the phone and John decided to prove his dominance.

The blow was meant to hit her in the jaw. A fast right jab, designed to knock Catherine on her ass without really harming her. But she was too quick. The swing missed entirely. She countered with a rapid kick to the side of his knee that dropped him to the ground. She bounced backward on the balls of her feet so that she was just out of reach. Raphael felt a surge of magic as the boy prepared to shift.

“I
said
stand
down.”
Raphael slammed his power in place around the boy, catching him in midkick, and preventing him from changing. It hurt, and John gasped in pain. Raphael didn’t care. The entire situation was balanced on a knife’s edge. He was not about to let things go to hell because one stupid teenager didn’t know how to obey an order.

“What’s going on?” Raphael heard Ned’s voice coming from the phone clutched in Catherine’s hand. “Catherine, are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” she answered. But she stayed out of Raphael’s reach, and he could see that she was tensed for action. “But are you
sure
I can trust these people?”

“You can trust Ramirez to keep his word. If he says he’ll keep Violet safe, he will. I’m going to hang up so I can get down there and meet you at the hospital. I’ve been there a few times. It’s not far up the mountain from you.”

“All right. I’ll see you there.”

“Be careful,” Ned ordered.

“Oh, I will. Don’t worry about that at all.” Catherine shut off the phone and tossed it back to Raphael, still staying just out of his reach. He caught it with his left hand and slid it into his pocket before he began issuing orders.

“Now.” Raphael pointed his right index finger at Peter first and then Michael. “You, and you are going to
discreetly
load those women into the van.” He turned to Catherine. “You go get dressed. I
assume
you’ll want to stay at the hospital with your aunt until Ned arrives. Holly, you can bring her.” Raphael kicked John lightly with the toe of his boot as he hovered in space.
“You
are going to stay here and let the glazier in to fix the windows. Maybe your knee will have healed by the time they’re done. If not, swing by the clinic and have Dr. Santiago take a look at it.”

Everybody was standing still, watching each other warily.
“Move,
people.”

Cat turned in
her seat so she could face Holly. They’d been driving for several minutes now and the silence in the car had gone well beyond awkward. The little blue Geo should have been intimate and cozy. It wasn’t. After two or three miles, Cat couldn’t stand the silence.

“What was I supposed to do? Let him hit me?”

Holly’s fingers drummed nervously against the steering wheel as she waited for the traffic light to change. The light rain that was beginning to fall wasn’t quite hard enough to turn on the wipers, but to Cat, the skies looked like they were ready to open up.

“No. But… well…
no…
” She turned with a somewhat desperate look. Cat could hear her heart racing. She could actually
see
the scents rising off of Holly’s body. It was too odd – Cat turned away, choosing to watch the passing scenery instead.

“You’re not making a lot of sense.” Cat muttered irritably.

Holly took a deep breath. “Only because you don’t know the pack like I do.” She slowed to a stop at a red light. “John was trying to prove dominance… that he was bigger, stronger – “

“I know what dominance means.”

“Right, but within the pack it’s a big deal. As one of the males – “

“Please don’t tell me that this is sexist bullshit,” Catherine snarled. It wasn’t raining yet, but the wind had picked up, and heavy gray clouds were blowing in over the mountains.

“Yes and no,” Holly replied earnestly. “You’re new. Everybody’s going to try to find out where you fit in. And you’re a cat, which is a wolf’s natural adversary. And yes, it’s sexist, but most of the males
are
bigger and stronger. They just
are.
For you to take down an alpha male so easily… it’s a little scary, and it’s going to cause problems.” The light turned green, so Holly started the little car moving again.

“He’ll hold a grudge?”

“Oh, hell yeah.” Holly turned onto a narrow side road that ran east-west. They were reaching the far outskirts of a section of town Cat had never seen. Nothing was familiar. “John’s an ass that way.” She paused, thinking about it. “Actually, John’s just an ass.”

Cat gave a sour laugh. “No kidding! So, what
should
I have done?”

Holly started tapping her fingers again. Apparently it was a nervous gesture. “I don’t know. There really
isn’t
a good answer. If you don’t act dominant, they walk all over you. If you do, they keep trying to fight to prove they’re better than you.” She shook her head sadly. “You might ask Peter. He’s the only person who seems to have a really good handle on how it works.”

“Peter?”

“The big blond who was carrying your aunt.”

“I doubt I made a good enough impression for him to talk to me.” Cat sighed. She didn’t think she’d been wrong – either in confronting them about moving Violet or in taking down John. But she wasn’t stupid enough to think it wouldn’t cause problems. Apparently there was a hierarchy, and she’d blown right through it.

“Hopefully Raphael will be able to explain it all when he trains me.”

“What?” Holly pulled the car to the curb abruptly. “Who said he was going to train you?”

Cat thought about it for a minute. She couldn’t really remember. She didn’t think Raphael had actually told her, but she’d heard it somehow. “I think I must have overheard him talking on the phone. Why?”

The finger tapping had increased in speed. “Well, mostly because you’re a cat. Cats and wolves
so
don’t get along.” She gave a rueful grin, “Well,
mostly
they don’t get along. My uncle seems to have a serious weakness for felines. But he’s the only wolf I know who can even stand them. The longer you stay here, the more trouble there will be, and it takes months to train a new turn.”

She sounded so panicked that Cat shifted in her seat to get a better look at her while they talked. She’d learned a long time ago that body language said almost as much as a person’s words if you paid attention. “You mean everyone who…
turns
– it’s always because of attacks like mine?”

“Oh, God! No! Most of the people who shift inherit the condition. But not every family member turns full Sazi. And they don’t really tell you most of the rules and stuff until you turn. I’m human, so I don’t know some of what they’ll be teaching, but I watched four of my sisters go through training, and Jasmine just
loved
rubbing my nose in it. So I know it takes a long time to train a new turn. They want to make
absolutely
sure that you aren’t going to screw up in public or do anything that might give us away.”

Cat shook her head. There was an intense sadness in Holly’s eyes. It was as though the other woman wanted to be able to turn… desperately wanted this whole life that had been thrust upon Cat unwilling. That was just so
weird.
Why would
anyone
want to turn into an animal and kill things? It made no
sense.

Now don’t be that way, You know as well as I do that there are wonderful benefits as well. The magic, the longevity… the
sex.

“Catherine, are you all right?” Holly’s face was scrunched up with worry.

“Holly, please – call me Cat. And I’m fine,” she lied. She wasn’t fine. Not at all. And what? Why did she ask Holly to call her Cat? She’d never been called that in her life – she’d never been one for
any
nicknames, not even Cathy.

“You seem pretty lost in thought.” Holly said as she hit the turn signal and steered the car back onto the road.

“I guess I’m kind of tired.” Cat sighed. “It’s been a tough couple of days.”

“No kidding?” Holly laughed wryly at the understatement, but she was serious when she added. “It will get better. Really it will.”

Cat’s laugh was instinctive, but she didn’t feel very humorous. “It can’t get much worse, can it?”

Raphael pulled a
set of four battered old paperbacks from the built-in bookshelves and tossed them one at a time onto the mess of papers that covered his desk. He needed to spend some time cleaning this place out. He had both a home office and an office at the towing company, so he didn’t really use this space much. There was dust everywhere, and the back-logged paperwork was inches deep. Someone had stacked almost a dozen white banker’s boxes of closed files along the wall, using the room for temporary storage – although maybe not so temporary judging from the amount of dust on top of them.

Raphael knew he needed to get in there more and keep on top of everything, but the trick was always finding the time to do everything he needed to.

There was no time today, either. He’d run up here after getting Violet and Betty settled in their hospital rooms, intending to grab training books and call a few old friends to gather whatever other training materials he could beg or borrow from the archives at Wolven.

He glanced down at the books. The covers were hopelessly old-fashioned by current standards, but the text wouldn’t have changed any over the years. They’d still tell the cat all of the basics about Sazi culture.
If
she’d read them. Neither he nor Raven had been particularly good about that in their day. Raphael tried to excuse himself by saying he was only four when he’d turned, and the books were too advanced. It wasn’t true. He’d been reading quite well by the time he was four – in both English and Spanish. In fact, he’d been the bane of his grade school teachers’ existence. Nothing worse than a bored smart-ass. No, he hadn’t skipped the books because they were too hard. He’d been bored to tears by the damned things, as had his son.

But they’d both had the advantage of being raised around the Sazi. It was easy to pick up a lot of the culture by osmosis, as with
any
culture. Catherine was coming into it totally cold – she needed the information provided by the novels.

The laptop he’d set up on the small conference table in the corner by the window beeped to let him know he had an incoming message. If he was lucky, it would be either Raven with the crib notes on magical training, or Charles with background on the woman. If he was really lucky, it would be both.

Raphael crossed the room in three quick strides and brought up the e-mail program.

There were three messages. Two were ones he’d expected. The third message was from Fiona Monier. He read it first, because it was by far the most unexpected.

Raphael, I know it’s been a long time. But I understand that you’ve been temporarily reactivated because Jack has brought over someone, and that you will be training her. I pulled the attached from Jack’s old personnel file. They may or may not be useful. Let me know if you need anything else. I may be on medical leave, but I’m not helpless. Don’t worry. I have faith in you. You were always good on the mats.