Silver Moon (A Women of Wolf's Point Novel) (27 page)

Becca sank into her gaze, forgetting that they had an audience for just long enough to be slightly embarrassing. It was hard to find the words. “Um…I think I can. I’ll try.” She glared down at her errant hand as a thought struck her. “Hey, they still have my car!”

Gladys smothered a snort of a laugh and Becca glared at her. But at least she didn’t growl or feel like she was going to go full were, at least not more than she already had. Maybe she could beat this in a few hours after all. The tears receded in a wave of new-found resolve.

Looking around, she realized that the group’s attention had shifted. Erin was giving out assignments and she’d missed the first few. “…Molly, you go to the Nesters’ site with Gladys, Mei, and Becca. Take whoever else you need. Lizzie said she’d come when we called her so make sure you get in touch with her before you get out of range.”

Carlos raised his hand and Erin gave him a surprised nod in response. “Me and Jason want to go in too. You might need some cover and we could definitely provide that. Besides, we don’t want to sit around worrying.” He gave Molly a crooked grin.

Erin nodded slowly. “That makes sense. You can help Becca locate the camp. Pete, can you stay here and be our base again tonight? We’ll all meet back here as soon as we can.” At his answering grunt, she got up, brushing her pants off and grabbing her bag from behind the couch.

“Where are you going?” Becca blurted the question, wondering a second too late if Erin had already said it while she’d been daydreaming.

“I need to go talk to the Circle about how to use the valley’s magic.” Erin gave her a swift smile, then looked stern as she turned away.

Wait! Didn’t Shelly say that was dangerous?
Becca wasn’t willing to ask the question out loud. After all, everything they were doing was dangerous. Besides, Erin hadn’t actually said she was going to try it, just ask about it. All the same, she couldn’t say that she liked the feeling she got watching Erin walk out the door.

But there was other work to do. Speaking of which, she’d had a job a few days ago. It was probably time to ask whether or not she still had one. “Pete, who’s minding the store?”

“Kira. I don’t think you’re quite ready yet,” Pete nodded at her hand, nearly, but not quite furless now.

Becca blew out her breath in frustration. She’d have to ask for a lift home, then asked to get picked up again if she didn’t stay here. What was she supposed to do for the next couple of hours while she tried to get herself back to normal?

Molly supplied the answer by dropping some maps and aerial photos in front of her. “Let’s try and get a bead on where they’re at. Here’s where we picked you up…” Becca wondered briefly why she didn’t ask Carlos but Molly seemed so focused, she didn’t get around to asking that question.

Molly kept her so busy with planning that Becca didn’t notice when most of the group left, then trickled back in a few hours later with additions. They came back with equipment: flashlights, backpacks, food packages and a several guns. “Do we really need those?” Becca asked without thinking. Everyone looked at her like she was growing fur. She checked: nothing new so far. “Never mind. I suppose we might.” Which didn’t make her like them any more than she usually did.

“Got the radios?” Molly took a bag from Adelía, and at her nod, started handing out what looked like walkie-talkies. That made sense, Becca realized, seeing as they’d be heading out past the town’s cell-phone coverage area.

Her group headed out in three vehicles, looking for all the world, Becca thought, like one of those military convoys on TV. Except that they weren’t driving jeeps or anything like that. Still, it didn’t feel quite right, the way they were doing this. They should be running through the woods, hunting their prey by smell and sound and sight, guarding the valley the way the original inhabitants had intended. Guns and jeeps and GPS weren’t weapons for wolves.

Of course, neither were explosives and she’d tried to use those herself against the Nesters not too long ago. It made her wonder why Oya would want to kill her one night and save her the next. A lot of what the Nester leader was doing didn’t make much sense, at least not as far as she could see. But then, maybe if they could get her “uncured,” she’d go back to whatever normal was for her and figure it out. That was the point where they cleared town and Molly looked to her to find the way. Becca tried to focus on that on the drive out.

“Here!” She said, almost without thinking. Then after the second false alarm, “No, wait. Damn, it all looks so much alike!” She could feel a flash coming on and a trickle of sweat ran down her hairline.

Molly blew her breath out into her bangs, clearly swallowing her frustration. “Okay, Becca. I’m going to pull over. How about you get out and check things out? The smells might get you to the right place sooner than looking out of a car window.”

Becca nodded. It couldn’t make her feel any worse than she already did about this. And the longer they took, the more likely it was that the Nesters would disappear to who knew where. If they were taking off, they might decide to hurt Shelly. She remembered the coldness in Anderson’s eyes and shivered.

Molly pulled over and Becca got out and walked away from the car. Once the smell of asphalt and gas was less overwhelming, she took a deep breath, then another. She looked up the dirt road in front of them, trying to remember all the twists and turns they’d taken on the way in. Then she caught something, a scent not quite wolf, not quite human and her whole body tensed like she was going on point.

Molly was out of the car in a whirl of limbs. “You got something, don’t you?” The anticipation in her voice lent weight to every word. Becca took another breath and nodded cautiously. Molly clapped her on the shoulder, “Good job!” She turned and signaled to the third car as it pulled up, gesturing it up to the next turn off. If they spread out the vehicles, Molly hoped they might be a little less noticeable to anyone watching.

Becca thought that any vehicles parked by the side of the road around here might tip them off. The Nesters had to be more alert than that, didn’t they? But she didn’t have a better idea and this could still be the wrong road. There was no way to find out except to head up there and take a look. She inhaled again, feeling the wolf stir inside her. Side effects or no side effects, someone should take the woods while the others took the road. They were less likely to be surprised that way.

She caught Molly’s eye as the thought crossed her mind. The other woman gave her a surprised look, her expression shifting slightly toward what looked like fear. But if she was scared, she got it under control fast. As the group assembled around them, she gave Becca a quick nod. Then she drew everyone’s attention to herself while Becca slipped away.

Mrs. Hui gave her a curious glance as she faded into the trees, then looked deliberately away.
Had to say something for Pack discipline,
Becca thought. Even if she hadn’t managed to embrace it herself yet. She stepped further into the woods, letting her senses feel their way around her.

After a few minutes, she could no longer see the Pack down by the road. Then she couldn’t smell them as easily. Once that happened, she stopped and began taking off her clothes. It was dusk now, and the moon in her blood told her that it wasn’t full yet. But she could feel the wolf riding under her skin, looking for a way out, just as it had since she left the Nesters’ camp.

Somehow, she could do this, even though it seemed impossible.
I can. I will.
Once she was naked, she stood in the trees, arms outstretched and eyes closed. She let the wind caress her skin, not caring if anyone saw her. The land washed over her in a torrent of sounds and smells, the very earth beneath her bare feet teeming with life in a way she’d not felt before. For that moment, she was one with the Valley and the magic, and it meant to make her its own.

The change, when it came on, was swift and nearly painless. She felt as if her wolf self emerged and wrapped itself around her body like a cape almost as if this was how it had always been. Becca Thornton hit the forest floor on all four paws and raced up the hill, following the general direction of the road.

Far below her, she could hear Molly and the others walking the road, their footsteps cautious on the gravel. Above her, she could smell fragments of wolf and fear and burning metal. Occasionally, there was the smell of human. But most of all, there was blood. Her Becca-self shuddered, fearing what she might find when she got to her destination, but it just drove her wolf body faster.

She slowed down when she got to where she’d left her car. She could see the tire tracks leading off toward the trees, but it was nowhere in sight. What had they done with it? If she’d been able to curse through her wolf muzzle, she would have done it then. Instead, she smelled something that sent her belly down into the brush.

Once there she made herself stay still while she tried to figure out what it was. It seemed like a whole hour later that she heard human voices on the trail. They were coming from somewhere up ahead of her, but what they were saying didn’t seem to make much sense. She wondered if they’d seen her yet.

An eternity passed before she ventured to inch forward, then to stand up and slip as silently as she could up the hill. She could smell her own scent on the branches, then the smell of more humans, not all of them familiar. That alone was enough to send her deeper into the woods, away from the trail. She remembered to watch for the cameras in the trees this time, dodging the few she saw.

The clearing emerged in front of her and an overwhelming stench of burnt metal assailed her sensitive wolf nose. When she poked her head around a thick tree trunk, the sight of the trailer, or rather its burnt-out shell made her start back. It looked like it had been hit with an explosive of some sort, something strong enough to rip the metal apart. She could still see the bullet holes in the remaining metal. Maybe one of Carlos’ bullets had hit the gas main or something.

There was a human lying in front of it. She could smell his death from her hiding spot. There seemed to be another one in the field further over. She thought she recognized Scott’s white-blonde hair, but she couldn’t see well enough to be sure. Her wolf senses were filled with blood and death, sending a panicked impulse through her until it was all she could do to not tear blindly through the woods.

But someone was alive and talking when she’d reached the clearing; she had to find out who it was. If she had to pick, she hoped it was Oya and not Anderson. She began circling the clearing as carefully as she could. Molly and the others would be up here soon enough. She needed to warn them about whatever they were walking into.

She slipped carefully through the trees and the brush, trying to look for cameras and survivors at the same time. It took a few minutes to locate the source of the voices, and she might have missed it if she hadn’t been checking the trees. Anderson was up in one of them, his camouflage gear making him nearly invisible to human eyes in the greenery. He had a walkie-talkie held to his mouth and was speaking very softly into it.

Becca ducked behind some bushes and concentrated on listening. He seemed to be talking in some kind of code, as far as she could tell. “…take the package and drop it off. Repeat: we can’t take it with us. Once the package is dropped off, meet me at the bridge. Over.”

“Package?” What was he talking about? Her Becca-self screamed itself back to life. He must mean Shelly. And if they were “dropping the package off,” that could only mean one thing. She slipped away from Anderson’s tree and made her way toward the road as quietly as she could.

She hit the road at a dead run once she was certain Anderson couldn’t see her. Whoever he was talking to had to be nearby: Adelía had said that the range on the Pack’s radios was about two miles in these mountains. She couldn’t imagine that the Nesters’ had much stronger ones, so it stood to reason that if she could find vehicle tracks, she might be able to follow them.

Her heart was pounding as she skidded out on to the dirt. She stuck her nose into the ruts in the road and took a deep whuff of dirt and grass, wondering if this was how bloodhounds did it. Then there was a faint smell of tires, followed by the burnt butt of a cigarette, then a bit of oil. She started following the track downhill, nearly bowling Gladys over as her neighbor slipped noiselessly around a bend in the trail. They stared at each other for a moment.

Then Becca darted around the other woman, ignoring her startled gasp. Hopefully, Gladys would realize what she was doing and let Molly know that Becca was following a trail. There wasn’t any time to lose.

It took a moment, then she heard the quick crackle of the walkie-talkie behind her.
The Pack is strong. They will follow,
she thought with what might have been relief had she been thinking with just her human brain. The scent trail went down and around rocks and hummocks, following the road around until it suddenly disappeared. Becca sniffed frantically. What was the point of being a werewolf if she didn’t have a supernatural sense of smell?

Molly and Mrs. Hui appeared on the road behind her, their movements even quieter than Gladys’. It reminded Becca that she had no way to warn any of them about Anderson, not without changing back anyway. If she changed back, she might not be able to shift again, and the scent would be lost.

In a moment, the decision was made: Shelly was the first priority. Hopefully, Gladys and the others were being very careful. She circled the spot where the scents of man and metal seemed to disappear, each ring wider than the last.

Then she picked the trail up again on the other side of some rocks. With a quick glance back at the other Pack members, she began following it and they followed her. There was a large rock outcropping on the edge of the clearing and the trail led straight to it.