“Don’t talk back to me, young lady. And don’t tell me what I will and won’t do.”
“Okay, sorry, geez.”
“And don’t ‘geez’ me.”
“Okay, I won’t geez you,” she said, and broke into a grin, and for some damn reason, I broke into a grin, too. She knew she had me, and she knew how to push, too. “Who would ever want to geez you anyway.”
I laughed, and said, “Okay, stop. Now I’m looking really bad.”
“It’s no big deal, Mom. Everyone does it, and I like to do it. It’s fun to drink. I know why Auntie and you like to drink now, and all the adults in all of the commercials. It makes sense—”
“Just stop,” I said, holding my head and resuming my pacing. I looked at the time: 2:52. “How do you feel?”
“Buzzed.”
To hear my little girl tell me she felt “buzzed” was enough to drive me to drink. “We’re going to talk about this later. Get your stuff, let’s go.”
And we went, this time detouring toward my sister’s house in Placentia, which was next door to Fullerton. My sister was gonna be thrilled to see us. I texted her brief details and she texted back her confirmation to bring Tammy. Gotta love Mary Lou. She was my right-hand woman.
Meanwhile, my daughter slept it off, while Paulo, our Lyft driver, drove steadily, sometimes casting sideways glances my way, and in the rearview mirror at my daughter snoozing in the back seat.
We dropped off Tammy with a stern Mary Lou and then continued toward the original destination.
I checked the time: an hour wasted.
Chapter Thirty-seven
“This is it,” said Paulo.
“This is where you drop off Gunther?”
“Yup.”
“Every time?”
“Yup.”
“And is this where the others drop him off, too?”
“I wouldn’t know that.”
I briefly scanned Paulo’s thoughts and took a look at his aura. He was telling the truth. We were parked on a side road that had ended as soon as it began. Massive cement blocks, connected with thick cables, barred the way further. The drive had been speedy enough. We had, in fact, made decent time. I checked my cell.
5:20.
I had just over an hour to find his cabin, find him, stop him, and save Elise Stanley.
All in a day’s work, I thought, then turned to my driver. I commanded him to forget me, forget our conversation and forget about this tip. He would, I knew, still get paid for his efforts, even if he didn’t remember his efforts. My account would be charged for the trip, so he would at least get something out of this, even if it was a big hole in his memory.
When he was gone, I found myself alone at the end of the blockaded street.
We had very much gone off the beaten path. Indeed, we had taken at least a half-dozen roads to get to this one. In fact, the two roads before this road had both been dirt, including this one.
Few, if anyone, would have known about this spot.
I checked the sun, and knew instinctively it was about an hour before it set. The day was still warm, but I was wearing jeans and a gray tank top. I let some air in the tank top, and kind of wished I could let some air in the jeans, too, but decided that would be unseemly, even for me.
Additionally, I was not at full strength, but neither was I shrinking away from the sun. I felt, in fact, pretty damn good. In about an hour, I would feel pretty damn great.
I doubted Gunther—or Kingsley—would feel pretty damn great in an hour. I suspected they sort of lost their minds for a while, or shrank so far into the background that they might as well have been frightened children hiding in a closet from their abusive parents.
The air was infused with pine and juniper, scents I love. A small wind moved some of the branches overhead, where birds tweeted continuously, apparently unaware of the 140-character limit.
I wasn’t what you would call an outdoorsman or a master tracker, but I could see footprints in the dirt with the best of them. And I saw them now. Boot prints. Men’s boots. How old, I didn’t know, but my guess was within the past few days.
I didn’t see another print, and certainly not a female’s. Which suggested that this was only Gunther’s Lyft drop-off point. From here, he hiked. To where, I didn’t know. But to another vehicle, I suspected. And, of course, to a kill cabin.
With the sun now slipping behind the massive evergreens, I stepped over the cable barring the dirt road...and followed the prints.
At some point, I started jogging lightly, easily.
Not too much further, the footprints ended in a field of grass and I lost his trail. I looked for any telltale signs of beaten-down grass or a trail that might have picked up elsewhere. I didn’t find it.
The wind was blowing stronger now, flattening the grass. I spied the full moon above, creeping up from the distant horizon. It was getting darker, and I was losing hope, until I realized I had, of course, an ace up my sleeve.
Speaking of sleeves, I disrobed, bundled up my clothing, and summoned the single flame.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I was flying.
I also wasn’t too worried about being caught. After all, I was in a very remote part of the mountains, and the day was losing light rapidly, too rapidly for my taste.
Was there really a woman being held against her will, waiting to be feasted on? Even now, was she perhaps watching a man stalk and pace before her, slowly shape-changing throughout the day, and now, undoubtedly, much faster?
Hard to believe...but it was all adding up.
I didn’t need to know that I was down to the last twenty minutes. Hell, from up here and above the trees, I could see the sun slipping away to the west.
My clothing hung in a bundle below me on my talons, all stuffed into my purse, along with the gun and silver bullets.
I ranged far and wide, buffeted by wind, sometimes sailing, sometimes flapping hard. All while I searched with eyes that were a lot better than my own. From up here, I saw trash on the ground. I even saw mice scurrying. I saw rabbits and lizards, all while flying hundreds of feet above.
Still, I was losing hope.
Maybe Sheriff Stanley’s wife had been found. Maybe Elise really was missing in a traditional sort of way. Why did I jump to the conclusion that she had, in fact, gone missing for nefarious reasons?
The clues were all there. A missing hiker. The full moon. A werewolf on the run. It was all leading me to here. To where, exactly, I didn’t know, and soon, it wouldn’t matter. In about fifteen minutes, the werewolves of California would be fully transitioned and, from what I knew, out of their minds with blood lust. In fifteen minutes, all of this would be a moot point, unless I saw some sign of Gunther’s kill cabin.