Moonburn (28 page)

Red understood instantly. “You’ve just spent three solid days and nights as a wolf,” Red said. “It’s only natural that your body would need a little time to adjust. Besides, it was free range and organic, so that pig died happy.”

I smiled as Red put away the dishes and opened a window to dispel the heavy smell of fried sausage. Then he lay down beside me, fully dressed, stroking my back as I sank into an exhausted sleep.

When I woke up again, the sky was light and he was gone. Ravenous again, I forced myself to stand up, fighting the peculiar dizziness that had me reaching for the couch to hold myself upright. What the hell had I done to get myself into this state?

Putting on my glasses, I hobbled over to my handbag. I knew Red might not be carrying his cell phone, but I felt such an overwhelming burst of love and need for
him, that I had to at least try. My left arm was burning a path that led straight to my heart, and the feeling was growing steadily stronger, like an allergic reaction. For a second, I wondered what would have happened had I also permitted Red to brand me. Receiving the symbols, he had called it. Would completing the ritual have helped this sensation, or would it have made me burn for my lover all the more?

When I picked up the phone, I found a text message from Red: Emrgncy jb. Bk fr dnnr, MATE. I giggled to myself like a teenager, wondering whether the last was meant as a noun or as a verb. Then, when I saved the message, I saw that it was eight-thirty in the morning, and realized that I had less than half an hour to get to work. Malachy expected me to take off a few days at the full moon, but this time I’d stayed wolf for a full twenty-four hours longer than normal. No time to eat anything else, which was a shame; I was reconsidering my scruples about that sausage, as it had been delicious. I was pulling on my panties when I thought of something. Reaching back into my handbag, my fingers closed on the chamois pouch that Red had given me to hold the moonstone. Not entirely sure why, I shook the pouch out, and the moonstone pendant spilled into my hand.

The stone was cool in my palm, but I knew that the silver would burn me if I kept holding it. Acting on impulse, I slipped the necklace over my neck, thinking: I’m married. There may not have been fittings and flowers and Baroque music in the background, but I felt like a bride—blissed-out and beloved.

I touched the moonstone, not sure what I expected—maybe a pink, glowing confirmation that all was well, or at least that’s what I was hoping for. Instead, the pendant began to swim with a bruised, bluish-purple color. I didn’t know what it portended, but I did know that it wasn’t a reflection of
my
mood. I recalled the state of
Lilliana’s note, and how unlikely it was that my fastidious and elegant friend would shove a messy note into a clean blouse.

The beginnings of a faint and as yet formless concern began to take shape in my head.

“Welcome back to work,” Malachy said as I came in the back door and reached for my lab coat, which was hanging in the office closet. “Have a nice holiday?”

“It was the full moon, Malachy.” I pulled my white coat on, wincing as my sore shoulders protested. “It’s not like I had a choice.”

“Well, I hope you had fun,” he said, his sardonic tone not matching the exhaustion in his face and eyes. His cheeks were sunken, and underneath the concealing layers of his lab coat, wool vest, and baggy gray flannel trousers, his body seemed almost skeletal. “As you can see, we’re having a bit of a rush.”

He opened the shutters so that I could see into the waiting room, which was crammed with people and their animals. All the seats were taken, and some people were forced to stand.

“What happened to Dr. Mortimer? He go on vacation?” As far as I was aware, Northside’s other vet hadn’t taken time off since the mid-fifties.

“I just called him,” said Malachy, closing the shutters. “He’s as busy as we are, if not more so.”

“What’s going on?” In the other room, I could hear Pia telling a client that the doctors would be right out.

Malachy opened the drug cabinet with his key and
took out a few different vials. “I’m not sure if it’s an epidemic or just small-town panic as one person sets off another. But whatever it is, it’s been getting worse the past few days.”

“Symptoms?”

“Dogs not eating, drinking copiously, growling inappropriately at family members. Much panic over the possibility of rabies, as you can imagine.”

“But it’s not rabies?”

Malachy raised his eyebrows. “Of course it’s not rabies. That would be too simple. Lab tests are negative for rabies and parvo, but we’re still getting reports of rabid raccoons and foxes behaving aggressively toward people.” Dragging his hand through his hair, Mal added, “The good sheriff and I weren’t sure whom we missed more—you or that ginger rat catcher boyfriend of yours.”

Well, that explained why Red had hared off so early.
Crapola
. After my interlude of running around the woods, I was hardly prepared for a regular day of work, let alone an emergency. I must have lost at least fifteen pounds on my wolfish honeymoon, and my tightest slacks, a pair of brown corduroys from college, were so loose they kept threatening to fall down. Adding insult to injury, the rapid change in hormones had made my not quite B-cup breasts so full and tender that even putting on a bra hurt. The moon might be on the wane, but it was still full enough to make me feel less than a hundred percent with the program, if the program involved wearing shoes and forming complete sentences.

But the hardest part of going to work had been leaving without seeing Red again.

Suck it up, I told myself. You’re a professional.

Malachy slipped something into the pocket of his lab coat and locked the medicine cabinet. “Right,” he said,
a little more strongly. “You ready to face the madding crowd?”

“I’ve got your back,” I said. The moment we emerged from the back office, we were engulfed by people and questions.

“How long is this going to take? What is going on back there!”

“I’ve been waiting for forty-five minutes!”

“I can’t seem to explain to the receptionist how sick my Baby is!”

This last, brassy voice was familiar. Shouldering her way through the other clients, Marlene made her way to the front of the crowd, long black hair teased up in a style made popular by Elvira, Mistress of the Night. Marlene’s dragon lady nails were clasped around “Baby,” a snuffling, eight-week-old black Pekingese puppy wearing a pink gingham dress. The pup was Queenie’s replacement, I supposed. Something small this time, so she could control its movements.

“As you can see, we’re having an unusual number of clients today,” said Malachy, with aristocratic hauteur, walking her back out to the waiting area. “Dr. Barrow and I will take you each in turn.”

“So wait your turn, Marlene,” said Jerome sharply, jutting out his heavily bearded chin. The former Manhattan businessman was wearing his usual costume of red flannel shirt, baggy overalls and workman’s boots, but he seemed to have lost his folksy
Little House on the Prairie
attitude. In a classic Wall Street move, he maneuvered himself in front of three other clients, moving his animal carrier as if it were a chess piece. Whatever he had inside the carrier was making a hideous, low moaning sound, and then spitting at some unseen adversary.

“But Baby is so sick,” Marlene said, sounding genuinely concerned for the puppy. “She keeps having these
convulsions. And when she gets up, she seems so different—she hardly seems to know me.”

“That’s strange,” said a young girl with purple bangs and heavy black eyeliner. “My puppy’s doing the same thing.” She indicated the listless black Lab sitting on the floor by her feet. “And her ears are bothering her. She keeps scratching them, and they keep standing up. Look.” As we watched, the Lab puppy scratched furiously at her ears, which stood up momentarily, giving her a strange, almost wolfish look.

“Baby’s doing that, too,” said Marlene. “And I think her legs are giving her trouble. She keeps yelping whenever I put her down.” Marlene demonstrated: The Pekingese yelped and fell on her side. Her pink gingham dress ripped along the side; Baby was outgrowing her mother’s taste in clothes.

“She does have long legs for a Peke,” said the young woman. “Maybe that’s why they’re hurting her.”

“I’m sure she never used to have long legs,” said Marlene, peering down at her pup. “I was told she was show quality. But now that you say it, her legs do seem to be getting longer. And so does her tail. Can tails regrow?”

Kayla, whom I hadn’t noticed before, pushed herself forward. Great, all my favorite people in one place. The Moondoggie’s waitress, who had gained five more pounds and was bursting out of her white-collared shirt and black miniskirt, was carrying a Maltese in her arms. At least I thought it was a Maltese. Its ears and tail looked as though there might have been some Pomeranian in there.

“It sounds to me as though there’s some kind of weird dog virus going around,” she said softly, as though embarrassed to speak up in front of me. “Is there some kind of disease that can change the shape of a dog’s ears and tail? Because my Maltese, Bon Bon, has started to look, well, kind of wolfish.”

Malachy met my eyes. “There is,” he admitted slowly. “But I think it very unlikely that so many different dogs should all be affected at once.”

“Are they going to be dangerous?” Marlene stared at her Pekingese. “I heard that a weekender was found dead up by her property on Old Scolder Mountain. The paper said it was a bear, but maybe her own dogs killed her!”

I flashed on the scent-memory of human blood, and thought: So that’s who it was.

“What about cats? Can this thing spread to them? Because Miss Priss is acting mighty strange, and something funky is happening to her tail and hind legs.”

Mal and I turned to Jerome, who was opening the latch of his animal carrier. “No, felines are not susceptible,” Mal began, and then whatever he was about to say was cut off as the carrier’s inhabitant sprang out, arching its back and hissing as pandemonium broke out.

Miss Priss was a bobcat in a room full of dogs. Surprising myself as much as everyone else, I grabbed the largest, most dominant dog by the scruff and knocked it off its feet. The shepherd, which had been leading the gang war against the enemy feline, stared up at me for a moment, then flattened its ears and tried to lick my face. Submission. I let him up, and then turned my gaze to each dog in turn, forcing them to lie down. A few self-groomed in an attempt to calm their jangled nerves. The puppies, which had all been barking enthusiastically, wet the floor.

When I approached the bobcat formerly known as Miss Priss, however, she arched her back, hissed, and clawed at my face. This was the first time that dogs and cats had reacted to me in this way when I was in human form, and it made me wonder. But I tried to keep my professional face on when I turned to Jerome. “Jerome, put Miss Priss back in her carrier.”

“Come on, girl, there you go,” he said, his voice shaking,
but his hands pushing at her large rear. It was no good: In the time it had taken to avert a crisis, Miss Priss had grown too large for her carrier.

“We’ll put her in one of the offices,” said Malachy. Pia rushed over from behind the front desk to help us, and using a broom, we three managed to shoo the bobcat in and slam the door shut. As I listened to the unholy growling noises coming from the other side, I realized that I hadn’t seen Padisha, the office cat. I turned to Malachy. “Where’s Paddy?”

Mal sighed. “I let her out in the yard this morning. And don’t look at me like that, I had no idea this was about to happen.”

Pia turned to me. “Paddy’s out there.” It was the first time she’d actually spoken to me since our little scene at Jackie’s. I wondered whether she’d decided I wasn’t really a threat, after all.

I took Pia’s hand and gave it a reassuring pat. “I heard. But he’s a smart cat. I’m sure he can look out for himself.”
Especially if he’s turned into a lynx
. Pia left her hand in mine, and I gave her fingers a gentle squeeze before letting go.

“Do you really think he’ll be all right?”