Thunder Moon (Nightcreature 8)

No mention of eagle shifters, although there was the belief that a great warrior could change his shape at will, and I found it quite interesting that the symbol of a great warrior was the eagle. Still, none of these stories gave any clue as to why Abraham had no heart.

I searched my mind for some other possibility. In desperation I typed ghoul.

A monster from Arabia or Persia, I read. Appears in graveyards. A desert-dwelling, shape-shifting demon that can take the guise of a hyena.

That wasn’t helpful, either.

Lures unwary travelers into the desert and devours them.

Robs graves. Eats the dead.

Well, there wasn’t a desert anywhere near here. Still, a ghoul might have eaten Abraham’s heart, although how that could have been accomplished without tearing open the chest, and in the small window of time between his dying and his being found, I wasn’t sure.

No matter which way I sliced this, it came back to the heart being missing without a single scar. To me this meant the heart had been missing all along, and that in turn meant the dead person wasn’t a person at all.

I rubbed a hand over my face just as a board creaked upstairs. I didn’t want to explain any of this to Ian, so I shut down and went back to my room.

He wasn’t there.

I checked the bathroom, the next bedroom, and the next. Another creak, from the third floor, had me scowling and climbing the last flight of stairs to the office that had once been my father’s and was now my own.

I’d re-done that room, too, at first using it to attempt some of the spells and cures my great-grandmother had shown me. But the time between when she’d died and my father had was a period of several years, during which Dad had forbidden any hoodoo, and I’d been too busy learning to be a cop to care. The problem was, when I went back to it, I couldn’t remember enough to do anything right.

I reached the open door; Ian stood at the window. The bulb had burned out in here long ago, and I hadn’t replaced it, preferring instead to use candles as E-li-si always had. With the moon falling down and the sun not yet up, the room was cast in navy blue shadows.

Books and beakers, a few test tubes, and the toad. The amphibian had been dead a long time. Grandmother had kept it in an aquarium, so I did, too. She’d told me she was waiting for it to turn to dust, then the powder could be used for a very powerful spell. Unfortunately, I didn’t know what spell that was.

I’d brought everything she’d left me here. Crystals lay scattered about; dream catchers hung from the ceiling. E-li-si had enjoyed all things magical, trappings from every culture. The room had a fantastical air, especially in candlelight. I loved spending time here.

Alone.

My gaze went to Ian. The slump of his shoulders took away any annoyance at his intrusion. Yes, this was my private place, but since he’d pretty much been in all my other private places, what difference did it make?

He hadn’t bothered to put on any clothes, and for an instant I wondered if he was sleepwalking; then he spoke. “I didn’t realize this was where you kept your great-grandmother’s things. I intruded.”

I almost denied it, then asked instead, “Why did you?”

“Where I lived in Oklahoma, everything was flat.”

I blinked at the randomness of his statement, then gave a mental shrug. “I thought all of Oklahoma was flat.”

“A lot of people do. We have mountains, but nothing like these; canyons, rivers, plains. Oklahoma is the most geographically diverse state in the union. We’re proud of that. Though I was born there, I never felt like I belonged. I never felt like I belonged anywhere until...” He pointed toward the Blue Ridge. “I saw those. I wanted to be closer to them.”

As a kid I’d often snuck up here for the same reason, even though my father had warned me to keep out. I would stare out this highest window, and I would know that there was somewhere that I belonged.

“Sah-ka-na-ga,” he murmured.

I crossed the room and looked past him at the horizon. “The Great Blue Hills of God.”

“I heard about them all my life, but I didn’t believe anything could be so beautiful.” He touched his fingertips to the window. “I was wrong.”

His eagle tattoo caught my gaze. Reaching out myself, I touched it. The muscle j

erked beneath his skin, and I froze, hand hovering in the air.

Slowly he turned, his eyes dark when I knew they were light, his face shadowed.

“I’ve never seen a tattoo like that,” I said.