Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

“That would be lovely.”

“No problem.”

Quatie shifted in her chair and her mouth tightened with pain.

“You’re sure you’re going to be all right?”

“I’ll be fine, Gracie, and my great-great-granddaughter is coming soon.”

“Really? When?”

She glanced out the window. “Hard to say.”

I had the feeling there was no great-great-granddaughter, or at least not one who was coming to visit. Quatie just didn’t want to burden me.

I’d come back in a few days with Ian. Who knows? Maybe that would be all it would take to keep Grandmother in the Darkening Land and off my back porch.

Chapter 13

I returned to my house without incident. No wolf in the woods. No bats in the belfry. No messages on my voice mail. A good night.

Nevertheless, I slept badly—my dreams full of Ian Walker’s body entwined with mine, wolves howling somewhere in the darkness, and the whisper of words in Cherokee that I could almost, but not quite, understand.

The shriek of a diving bird woke me to a misty dawn. I sat straight up in bed clutching my chest, my breathing too hard and fast, so that at first I didn’t realize the shriek was nothing more sinister than my phone.

I snatched it up. “McDaniel.”

“Having trouble with the wildlife again, Sheriff?”

I recognized the voice at once because it made the hairs on the back of my neck lift like the ruff of a dog. “Dr. Hanover, what an unpleasant surprise.”

Malachi had been right. If I waited too long to contact the Jäager-Suchers, they’d just contact me. Or worse, show up.

“Are you in town?” I asked.

“If I were in town, I’d knock on your door, or perhaps break it in.”

She could, too. Dr. Elise Hanover was both a virologist and a werewolf.

According to everyone who knew her, she was “different,” a werewolf that wasn’t evil, as long as she took her medicine—a serum she’d devised to keep the blood-lust at bay. Though she was able to cure some of those afflicted with lycanthropy, she’d never been able to cure herself. I would have felt sorry for her if she didn’t irritate me at every opportunity.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I’m following up on a report we had from the local DNR. Birds run amok? Imagine my surprise to see your name on the complaint.”

“How do you always know every damn thing?”

“Just a service of your federal government, ma’am.”

Sometimes the services of my federal government were downright creepy.

“If I’d wanted J-S help, I’d have asked for it.”

“You don’t have to ask; we freely give.”

I snorted. “Force yourself in and do whatever you like, you mean.”

“Goes without saying.”