Hidden Moon (Nightcreature 7)

Elise glanced at me. "You mind?"

I held out my hand; we brushed fingers and Elise stepped back. "Zip. "

"Can we get out now?"

Mandenauer lowered his head in an imperial nod.

Before Elise could unlatch the enclosure, Grace came through the open doorway.

She stopped dead at the sight of Mal and me in the menagerie wagon. One glance at Mandenauer and his weapons, and she drew hers. "Put your hands up, slowly. "

Mandenauer snorted and ignored her.

Elise slid in front of him, arms spread wide in surrender. "We come in peace. "

Grace scowled. "Then peacefully put up your freaking hands. "

She caught sight of the pentagram, and her fingers tightened on the gun. "Who are you, and why did you put them in a cage?"

"Grace, it wasn't them," I said. "They came to help. "

Despite Mandenauer's ferocious scowls and muttered complaints of "need-to-know basis" and, my personal favorite, "if you tell them, eventually you have to kill them," I told Grace everything.

When I was done, she scowled at Elise. "Why did you come to Lake Bluff? Did we just get lucky on your 'help the hicks' tour?"

"You called the CDC about rabies, asked about mutations in the virus. "

Grace blinked. "So?"

"Calls like that get routed to us. "

"You're a little Big Brother, aren't you?"

"You have no idea," Elise murmured.

"I don't think I like that. " Grace seemed to have taken an intense dislike to Elise, and I wasn't sure why.

"I don't think we care. "

Elise didn't appear to have a lot of warm, fuzzy feelings for Grace, either. Stranger and stranger.

"My people," Mal said. "Are they - ?"

"Fine. " Grace turned away from Elise with obvious relief. "They're at the lake, and every single one of them is human. "

"They weren't human?" Edward said in a voice that made my skin prickle.

Oops. Guess I'd left out that little detail.

"It appears they were in on this whole kidnapping deal. " Grace pointed at the menagerie wagon. "They wanted to be cured. "

Mal's face went still, but I could see how much that hurt him. He was their leader; they'd been together for centuries, yet they'd gone against his orders.

I could understand why. They weren't in love with me. To them, I was the means to an end, the ancestress of the one who'd turned them into beasts. However, that didn't mean I'd forgive them for locking me in a cage with a soon-to-be werewolf.

"Tell us everything," Edward said. "Immediately. "

As I filled them in, Elise's eyes became round with excitement. "I've never heard of a curse like this. "