Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

This area had once been used for storage and maintenance items, but the old cardboard boxes and rusted filing cabinets had disappeared; the dirty brooms, buckets, and mops had all been replaced with shiny new ones.

The lighting was new, too. Fluorescent rectangles glowed above the twisting, turning corridors. I followed the hum toward an old storm cellar with access to the street, since town hall served as the tornado shelter for all of downtown Lake Bluff. There I found Claire in what appeared to be a second office. Desk, tables, telephone, fax.

“What’s the deal?’’ I asked.

She stopped humming and spun around. “Hey. Joyce and I use this place to get work done when it’s too nuts upstairs.”

“First time the tornado siren goes off, your secret’s going to be out.”

“Then we’ll have to move. Too bad, because all the electrical connections are here.”

“Yeah, bummer,” I said, anxious to get this done and return to Ian. “What was so important I had to come into Dracula’s Dungeon?”

As soon as I said the words, I

gave a mental cringe. What used to be a joke was now, in the light of Ian’s information about his wife, too real to make fun of.

“I cleaned down here,” Claire said. “Didn’t you notice?”

“Yes. Lovely. Nice job. Get to the point.”

“You certainly got up on the wrong side of the bed.”

“Being woken up by my deputy with news of another murder tends to does that.”

“Sorry.” Claire rubbed her forehead. “You’re right. Let me put these away.” She leaned over the table and gathered together the pictures lying there. “I was trying to identify some of these for the show.”

Claire had decided to put together an exhibition of old photographs Joyce had unearthed in the bowels of town hall. The display would open during the Full Moon Festival next month.

“There’s one here of your great-grandmother.” She pulled a sheet out of the stack. “She’s really young. Probably younger than we are now.” Claire shoved the photo across the table.

I’d never seen E-li-si like this. I’d been born long after her hair had grayed and her shoulders had stooped. In this grainy black-and-white image she stood tall, slim, and straight, her dark eyes full of mischief, her full, high cheekbones so much like mine, her lips curved as she smiled into the camera.

“That’s her, right?” Claire asked.

“Yes.” I touched my finger to Grandmother’s face.

Outside, the wolf began to howl, and I snatched my finger back. “Did you hear that?”

“What? You okay?”

Why did everyone keep asking me that?

“Peachy.” I returned my gaze to Grandmother.

“I don’t know who she’s with.” Claire tapped the photo. “Do you?”

My phone began to ring, and I held up one hand as I pulled it from my belt, then glanced at the caller ID. Ian.

“Hold on,” I said to Claire.

The static was so bad I was surprised I’d even received the call down here. “Grace? Can you hear me?”

“Barely. What is it?”

“The sticks. I thought they were meant to keep a witch away.”

Snap. Crackle. The sound seemed to explode in my brain.